A perfect storm of bureaucratic dysfunction is threatening a plan two years in the making to bolster the badly understaffed Vallejo Police Department with deputies from the Solano County Sheriff’s Office.
A heavily reluctant sheriff’s deputies union, a lack of ready patrol cars, and an untimely ultimatum from the state’s retirement system thrust the plan into uncertainty just days ahead of a scheduled vote by the Solano County Board of Supervisors on the patrol agreement at its June 24 regular meeting.
Supervisors voted 4-1 to delay the decision to July 22 despite the tearful urging of a handful of Vallejo residents and several Vallejo nonprofit and elected city leaders that spoke during the public comment period at the meeting.
The Vallejo Police Department has struggled with severe staffing shortages for years, as the city has also recorded high rates of gun violence. Calls to 911 for emergencies other than the most extreme crimes have frequently gone unanswered.
Marissa Serafino, a Vallejo mother who spoke at the public comment period, told the Board of Supervisors through tears that she had been the victim of domestic violence, but when she called for help, the police didn’t show up. She said she had to walk to a police station and wait two hours to get help. She also said her son had been shot on two occasions in the city and that six of his friends had been shot in the two years since the process of bringing in sheriff’s deputies began.
“That’s not a headline, that’s my life, and that’s Vallejo’s reality,” she said. “While our streets bleed, our police department is overwhelmed. They’re doing all they can, but they cannot keep up with the calls that are coming in. The violence keeps rising and families like mine are left praying every single day, that we’re not going to be next” she said, starting to cry. “That’s why I’m standing here today pleading with you to allow Solano County Sheriff’s deputies to come and assist. It’s about saving lives. It’s about survival,” Serafino said.
Deal could cut police response times in half
In 2022, the city asked the county for help, in the form of a patrol agreement that would send 25 sheriff’s deputies to certain calls in certain areas within the Vallejo city limits, mostly on the outer edges of the city that border the unincorporated area, which is the usual jurisdiction of the Sheriff’s Office.
Vallejo Mayor Andrea Sorce told the Board of Supervisors during public comments that the enforcement agreement will cut police response times in half and urged the Board not to delay any further. She said residents had indicated during a door-to-door survey that they had growing doubts police would show up to their calls.
“People are worried that if they call 911, they’re not going to get a response. This solves that,” Sorce said.
The Vallejo City Council upheld its end of the plan, allocating $11.4 million to pay for the deputies, with the county expected to kick in $1 million for the one-year contract period, which would start in January 2026. The time between the signing of the contract and the start of sheriff’s patrols is necessary to hire more sheriff’s deputies and prepare patrol cars.
But even that time gap was put into question after the Sheriff’s Office received a letter last week warning it that eight of its deputies that had been rehired out of retirement to plug the Office’s own staffing needs had worked too long in their post-retirement roles and had to either be terminated or pay back their entire pension collected to date.
The state’s retirement system, CalPERS, said in the letter that the eight deputies had worked for the three-year limit that they could both collect their pension and a paycheck. A state law was passed specifically to address the planned law enforcement agreement between Solano County and Vallejo that would let such retirees work longer, but it only cleared the way for those retired deputies to work more than the yearly limit and did not address the overall three-year limit now threatening to increase the sheriff’s hiring needs for the Vallejo patrols from 17 to 25 deputies, something Sheriff Tom Ferrara said would only make it harder to be ready by Jan. 1.
Patrol cars at the ready, sort of
Meanwhile, Supervisor Mitch Mashburn said that the county had four cars that were ready to be converted to patrol cars but was dependent on third party contractors to complete the conversions and could not guarantee a timeline. Ferrara said he was also ready to purchase additional vehicles and would need an emergency proclamation to expedite the process, but those would also need time to be retrofitted.
The Deputy Sheriff’s Association is 90% against the arrangement, citing overstretched staff if such transfers were made away from other assignments.
The union’s vice president, Todd O’Connor, told the Board of Supervisors that the union opposed the contract as it was currently written, but would consider proposed changes ahead of the Board of Supervisors next meeting on July 22.