The calls can come in one after another.

A fender bender in a grocery store parking lot with angry drivers. Crashing and screaming in an apartment next door. A Child Welfare worker asking for an officer to accompany her to a school to take a child into protective custody.  

Coos Bay police officers are tasked with being in more than one place at a time most days.  

“When they are not running from call to call, they are running from follow-up to follow-up,” Capt. Gary McCullough has said.

For the officers and for city residents, who at times sit waiting for them to arrive, it would be nice to have more police on duty.

The department needs dispatchers, too. During the busiest time of day, two are on shift. Only one person answers calls the other 12 slower hours. It makes sense that the city’s budget committee wants to use unspent funds from past years to hire a new dispatcher.

But the city also wants to hire a full-time fire marshal, too, and will consider it mid-year, depending on finances. That doesn’t make sense.

As the city shapes its budget for the coming fiscal year, leaders need to maintain a clear focus on priorities. In practical terms, that probably means: Dispatcher? Maybe. Fire marshal? Not this year.

The state already employs a fire marshal in the Coos Bay area. Unless that position is being cut, there’s little reason to create redundancy in government services, especially if the state is funding the mandate.

Up until 2002, the city followed its charter requiring 1.8 officers for every 1,000 residents. When voters rejected a tax levy that would have paid exclusively for officers and firefighters, the pink slips went out. Voters weren’t willing to pay almost $1 per $1,000 of assessed property value to fund the police and fire departments.

Times may have changed, though maybe not when it comes to increased taxes. City officials won’t know whether Coos Bay’s residents care unless you show up at council meetings and speak up.

For sure, fewer uniformed officers are patrolling the streets these days. That problem is heightened by the fact that fewer Coos County sheriff’s deputies are on the road combating crime along the city’s borders. It’s exacerbated by the fact that jail space has gone from 249 beds to 97, meaning more criminals are on the streets.

While the budget committee has suggested postponing the hire of a fire marshal for now, the city ought to table it for good. It wouldn’t just be nice to hire a new officer to ease the running from call to call; it’s a necessity.

Enhancing police services is the clear priority for this budget cycle. The council may want to weigh the benefits of an officer against the value of another dispatcher, but those two positions should come before the fire marshal.