SNOHOMISH — The city’s police dogs could be coming out of retirement.
Snohomish lost its two police dogs to budget cuts that went into effect Jan 1. It was that or lose officers.
A small group in town has been wo
rking quietly with police for nearly six months to bring back the dogs.
The idea was to create a nonprofit foundation to support police programs, said Ron Knutsen, a business leader in Snohomish. He’s expected to serve as president on the foundation’s board.
Knutsen went up to Snohomish Police Chief John Turner at a Christmas food drive last year, he said.
He told the chief he was concerned about drugs in Snohomish, and he had ideas for raising to do something.
“I said, ‘We need to find a way to save the canines,'” Knutsen said.
To his surprise, the chief was all ears.
On April 7, the Secretary of State allowed the Snohomish Police Foundation to register as a nonprofit corporation in Washington.
That was the first big hurdle, said Richard Corbin, an attorney who plans to serve on the board.
The group is hoping to obtain federal nonprofit status in about six months, he said. The city has agreed to hold any donations to the foundation until then.
The project has been slow-going, Knutsen said. The group wanted to find the right people and get everything in legal order before going public. They had to work with police and the city along the way.
Group leaders also spent time researching police foundations around the country. They’re basing their bylaws on those of the Edmonds Police Foundation.
For now, they’ll work on the nitty-gritty of being a foundation, Corbin said. That includes finalizing a mission statement, choosing board members and setting a meetings schedule.
The second order of business is raising enough money to bring the police dogs back, Corbin said.
If the dogs are inactive for a certain amount of time, it can be expensive to recertify them, said Rolf Rautenberg, who also plans to serve on the board.
He spoke sadly Tuesday night about seeing drug deals in his front yard in Snohomish. Along with his colleagues, he hopes that keeping a drug dog on the force will make a difference in schools and in the community, he said.
The group aims to raise enough money to pay for the dogs until the City Council addresses the 2012 budget, Rautenberg said. The board members plan to lobby the council for public safety spending.
They’ve already been pledged donations of food and veterinary care for the dogs, Knutsen said.
One of their first fundraisers is expected to go live next week.
The group plans to sell T-shirts commemorating the number of heroin-related arrests in Snohomish, said Kimberlee Spaetig-Peterson, a sixth-grade teacher who plans to serve on the board.
She got involved after hearing her students talk about how they’d seen drugs or had been offered drugs, she said. She and the others wanted to find a way to help the police department — as a community.
The group leaders joke that with the way the police are moving on the heroin problem in Snohomish, they might need to invest in some Velcro. That way, the T-shirts would be easily adjustable to match the climbing number of arrests.
Rikki King: 425-339-3449; rking@heraldnet.com
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For more information, contact the Snohomish Police Foundation at snohomishpolice foundation@gmail.com.
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