The Starke County Commissioners heard from Sheriff Bill Dulin about some proposed amendments to a previously approved alarm ordinance when they met for their first meeting of the year.
Dulin noted, “A couple of months ago, you guys allowed us to do an alarm ordinance and it was going to go into effect in January. Well, I was going through it and noticed some things that I thought that we could change.”
The ordinance would require all residents with alarm systems to register with the County and was initially presented to address issues with authorities being called to respond to numerous false alarms. While that is still the overall intention of the document, Sheriff Dulin felt it could benefit from some slight adjustments.
Some language about administration and funding was added in at the recommendation of County Attorney Marty Lucas but the main change that Sheriff Dulin was proposing had to do with the registration fee.
He explained, “It was a one-time fee and I’d like to have than an annual fee of $25 for residential and $50 for commercial, similar to our golf cart inspections.”
The Sheriff continued, “We have close to 400 false alarms a year and police are still responding to that, if they pay one time, the second year, we’re still doing the same thing.”
Dulin noted that the reason commercial properties would have a higher rate is because the structures are generally much larger and require officers to be on the scene for more time.
He added that policies with annual fees are in place in South Bend, La Porte and La Porte County.
The consensus among the Commissioners was that they didn’t think an annual fee would be a good idea. The belief seemed to be that most alarm system companies probably require residents to pay an annual rate already.
Additionally, individuals who don’t have false alarms would inadvertently be negatively affected even though they’re not exhausting the Sheriff’s Department’s resources. Rather than implementing an annual fee, the Commissioners recommended adjusting the consequences of multiple false alarms.
As it stands, the ordinance states that a person who causes an alarm notification from an unregistered site could be fined up to $100.
It also dictates that the first false alarm call will be a written notice, the second time will result in warning letter and after that the owner of the residence or business can face a fine of up to $25. If a single place exceeds five false alarms, the ordinance states they can be fined up to $500.
The Commissioners suggested making it so that individuals would face a fine after receiving one notice or warning rather than two and recommended potentially adjusting the amounts. There was also some discussion about establishing a policy about what would happen if a person refuses to pay their fines.
Ultimately, the Commissioners voted to table the matter. Dulin noted the specified changes would be made and that he would bring the document back before the Commissioners for consideration at their next meeting on Tuesday, January 21st.
