Ask The Answer Person: "Rumor is the city wants to do away with the police department and contract with the sheriffs office to save money"

The Answer Person says: "The Decorah Police Department is supervised by the Decorah City Council's Public Safety Committee.  The chair of that committee, 4th Ward City Council member Steve Luse, says "information gathering" has taken place to get background about how a merger might work.

If the City of Decorah sticks with its current system of having its own police department and its own police chief, it would take about three months for the process of hiring a new police chief.  Current Decorah Police Chief Bill Nixon is scheduled to retire July 24th.  That means the interview process should begin in mid-April in order to have overlap between Chief Nixon and the new police chief.  But Luse says it's not a hard and fast deadline--the department has an Assistant Chief and is running smoothly now, so even missing the mid-April date wouldn't be a problem.

The larger point is that any change in the system of operating the Decorah Police Department would first have to be discussed by the Public Safety Committee.  Meetings of that committee are open to the public and are required to be notified to the public. 

decorahnews.com will give advanced notice of any such meeting, which could be held in March or April.  The public would have a chance to weigh in with its opinions--if not during the Public Safety Committee meeting, then certainly during a meeting of the entire Decorah City Council."