Klamath County officials outline proposed East County policing district, tax and governance details

Klamath County commissioners and Sheriff Mitchell presented details of a proposed East County policing district at a town hall in Bonanza, outlining a plan that would levy a per-tax-lot fee — about $90 per tax lot under the current proposal — to fund a sergeant, four deputies and a code-enforcement officer dedicated to the district.

The proposal, which county staff said is already written for the May ballot, was developed after a town meeting nearly a year earlier where East County residents said they did not “feel safe in our own homes,” county Commissioner Derek De Groot said. “We went back, got together with the assessor, got together with the sheriff, and tried to come up with something that would provide that safety,” De Groot said.

County officials told residents the district would have its own budget committee — three elected commissioners plus three citizen members drawn from the district — and that funds collected could be used only for public-safety services inside the district and only as described on the ballot. “It would be against the law to spend these dollars for anything other than services in the district,” a county official said.

Most immediately contested in the meeting were money and oversight. Officials described the proposed budget as roughly $1.6 million to staff and equip the unit — a number that the sheriff said would pay for a sergeant, four deputies and a…