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Cascade County Sheriff, Jesse Slaughter, held a town meeting at Wedsworth Hall last Tuesday to propose a plan to have a Community Resource Deputy living in Cascade. Cascade is an incorporated community. By state statute, it has to have law enforcement. If it was to have its own law enforcement, it would be a huge expense. So Cascade contracts with the Sheriff's Office, who bills the town approximately $65k a year to provide law enforcement to the city.

What the Sheriff's Office is proposing is that community or town council vote to find a rental property or a home to purchase. As an example, he talked of the city purchasing a house inside the town of Cascade costing maybe $20k a year in mortgages. What his office would do is reduce their contract price to the city by $20k a year, leaving the city with a bill of only $45k to be paid to the Sheriff's Office. He explained that he understands that the town would still be incurring the amount of $65K a year, but at the end contract, the town would get to keep the house. He said the city of Belt is in its 3rd year of an eight-year contract of doing something like this already. The County Commissioners are supporting this plan; all he needs is for the city to vote to come on board.