Santa Cruz County Sheriff calls for more deputies

Law enforcement agencies have seen cuts across their departments up and down the Central Coast. Monday at Santa Cruz County Supervisors meeting, Sheriff Phil Wowack told supervisors he wants to get his department back on the road to recovery. Five years ago the Santa Cruz County sheriff’s department froze 18 of their positions.

Now Sheriff Phil Wowack said the department is starting to see effects of the cuts in the community. He said there are longer response times to calls and an uptick in crime numbers in Santa Cruz County. Since 2009, 17 deputy positions, and 1 sergeant position have been vacant. In June, Sheriff Wowack, will make the bare minimum request to fill some of those positions. He’s going to request 3 criminalist positions. He will take those deputies out of the crime lab, and put them back on patrol. Then he will request another 4 deputy positions to be filled. That will only fill seven out of the 17 deputy positions they have vacant right now.

Wowack says ideally he would like 14 out of the 17 positions filled, but he’s going to propose 7 to start.