Vallejo City Council approves sheriff’s support contract despite deputy union concerns

VALLEJO – The Vallejo City Council unanimously approved a contract for the Solano County Sheriff’s Office to provide law enforcement support in Vallejo on Tuesday, the latest step in a plan for the sheriff’s office to bolster the depleted Vallejo Police Department.

But a potentially major obstacle also emerged Tuesday when the Solano County Deputy Sheriff’s Association sent a letter to the county Board of Supervisors saying they opposed the contract based on concerns that the plan would spread their workforce too thin and affect the quality of service countywide. 

Vallejo requested support from the sheriff’s office in 2023 after a steady decline in officers led the city to declare a public safety staffing emergency. The progress toward the service agreement has required putting complex pieces in place, such as negotiating a labor agreement with Vallejo officers and passing state legislation to allow the sheriff’s office to supplement their staff with retired officers. 

Under the contract the city of Vallejo would pay $11.2 million for the sheriff’s office to provide 17 full-time employees to cover half of Vallejo’s policing beats from 12 p.m. to 12 a.m. seven days a week for one year. 

The sheriff’s office is under a tight timeline to staff up and procure equipment to provide for a full year of service before the state legislation expires in January 2027. In May, the Solano County Board of Supervisors agreed to move forward with negotiations on the contract and set a deadline to finalize negotiations prior to the board’s June 24 meeting, at which point they will consider whether to approve it. 

But in his letter Tuesday, Deputy Sheriff’s Association President Ryan Wallace said that sheriff’s deputies are already overextended due to a similar contract with Rio Vista which provides the same number of deputies for a population of 10,000, as opposed to the 60,000 Vallejo residents who live in the policing beats that would be served under the contract.

Wallace said that back-filling up to 20 full-time positions with retired deputies is unrealistic and any time-off, injury or illness would mean that union members will have to work mandatory overtime to cover gaps. He said that approval of the contract would compromise the service that the sheriff’s office provides to unincorporated Solano County and erode public trust.

“The citizens of Vallejo deserve robust, reliable law enforcement services and the [Deputy Sheriff’s Association] is committed to supporting them,” Wallace wrote. “However, the proposed agreement is unsustainable and risks harming multiple stakeholders. If the contracted services are deemed necessary, they should be on a significantly smaller scale to avoid overextending resources.”

Councilmember Tonja Lediju, who has been an advocate for sheriff’s office support, read a portion of the letter at the meeting Tuesday and responded directly to Wallace. 

“If you do not support this, then you are not concerned that the citizens of Vallejo deserve robust, reliable law enforcement in this city,” she said. Lediju said that without the assistance, Vallejo’s public safety issues will continue and further delay will lead to impacts throughout the county.

Councilmember Alex Matias said that the city of Vallejo has worked diligently to address concerns at each step of the process and now he expects the Board of Supervisors to approve the contract in support of Vallejoans.

But the county may not be willing to move forward without support from the two agencies’ unions. At the Board of Supervisors meeting in May, Chair Mitch Mashburn, a former sheriff’s lieutenant, stressed the importance of successful negotiations with city and county bargaining units for the contract’s approval and execution.

The city staff report on the contract stated that Vallejo Police Officers Association “would not stand in the way of the city entering into an agreement with the county.” The VPOA strongly opposed the contract under the leadership of former union President Michael Nichelini, who retired in April. But Police Chief Jason Ta has indicated that the new president, Sgt. Lenard Alamon, is willing to take a different stance on the issue.

The VPOA did not respond to questions from the Vallejo Sun regarding union concerns with the contract.

The letter from the Deputy Sheriff’s Association also raised concerns about whether the proposal would adequately serve Vallejo residents. 

Under the contract, sheriff’s office staff would respond to calls and provide traffic enforcement but follow-up investigations would be conducted by the Vallejo Police Department. Wallace said that “differences in case management and communication between agencies risk cases being lost in transition, leaving crime victims underserved.”  

Wallace also said that the proposal would undermine their long-standing and positive relationship with the VPOA. He said that the $11.2 million that the city of Vallejo will spend for one year of service would be better used “to address the police department’s staffing shortages, improve contract terms, enhance recruitment and retention, directly benefiting Vallejo’s officers and community.”

The contract does not limit the cost of the sheriff’s services to $11.2 million. It essentially functions like a time and materials agreement in which costs, such as overtime or equipment, can be added throughout the life of the contract.

The city is also required to cover all liability costs for any sheriff’s office personnel providing services for the city of Vallejo except in cases of willful misconduct. These costs are not covered in the $11.2 million budget estimate and include workers compensation claims, salaries paid to injured workers on leave and costs of any legal defense, settlements or judgments associated with liability claims.

The contract does include a $1 million reserve fund that the sheriff’s office can use for liability claims and the city of Vallejo is required to replenish if used.

According to Vallejo Risk Manager and Safety Officer Armond Sarkis, the city’s insurance provider said that they will cover Solano County sheriff’s personnel in the same manner that they cover Vallejo police officers. However, the insurer noted that the city’s liabilities under the contract extend beyond the city’s existing policy, so there would be gaps in the coverage. 

Sarkis said that he expects the city’s premiums to remain the same but that may depend on the final details of the agreement. Sarkis noted that the city and county are covered by the same insurance provider, PRISM, although the county’s deductible of $500,000 is much lower compared to the $2 million limit that claims against the city of Vallejo must exceed before the insurance policy takes effect. 

In 2018, the city of Vallejo was forced to leave a lower-cost municipal insurance pool that insures other Bay Area cities because Vallejo had a disproportionate rate of claims, some of which involved large pay-outs. 

Councilmember Peter Bregenzer said that based on a rudimentary calculation the city would pay $70,000 to $100,000 more for a full time employee under the sheriff’s contract than they are currently paying for Vallejo Police Department employees.

“In your opinion,” Bregenzer asked Ta, “is that cost worth all the risks that the city is taking on by having this contract put in place?”

“It matters where you live,” Ta said, “If you're in a neighborhood that is dealing with a significant amount of violent crime, I think the answer is overwhelmingly yes. Safety, to our citizens, is valuable. I would almost say it's priceless.” Ta added that there is some duplication of work for reporting purposes as well as other administrative challenges involved in the contract that do increase the cost of service.

Ta said that a Police Department analysis indicated that response times to calls for service would significantly improve with the support of the sheriff’s office.

According to the department's latest data, priority one calls which involve a crime in progress or an immediate threat of bodily injury currently take an average of 7.1 minutes from the time the call is received until the first officer arrives on the scene. Priority two calls, in which a perpetrator has left the scene but could still be in the area, take 2.89 hours and priority three calls, which involve crimes that have already occurred, take an average of 5.12 hours. 

The department projects that if the contract with the sheriff’s office were to be implemented, response times in beats 1 through 4 (east of I-80 and south of Georgia Street) which would be covered by the sheriff’s office, would average 2.84 minutes for priority one calls, 1.16 hours for priority two and 2.05 hours for priority three.

In the remaining half of the city covered by Vallejo police officers, response times would average 4.26 minutes for priority one, 1.73 hours for priority two and 3.07 hours for priority three. 

Mayor Andrea Sorce asked why there would be a disparity in response times between the eastern and western half of the city and if there is a way to equalize the service.

Ta said that 60% of the city’s calls for service come from beats 5-8 while 40% of calls come from beats 1-4 and the lower volume of calls would allow quicker response times in the areas that would be patrolled by the sheriff’s office. He said that there may be a way to even out response times but he also noted that at the end of the sheriff’s 12-hour shift citywide service will revert to Vallejo police and if there is no backlog of calls it will improve response times across the city.

County officials have stated that they cannot provide support services to Vallejo without an explicit statement from the California Department of Justice that the sheriff’s office will not be subject to the agency’s settlement agreement with the city. Discussions between the county and the Justice Department are still in progress. 

The county rejected a number of other provisions that the city sought to incorporate into the agreement, including prohibiting deputies with recent use of force violations from serving in Vallejo, an amendment requiring the county to share in workers compensation costs and a requirement that the sheriff's office obtain advance approval from the city for overtime.