Security plan on hold

I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.

July 4, 1997

By Devlyn Brooks

Staff Writer

North Country Health Service's plan to contract for security services at its hospital and rehabilitation center with the Bemidji Police Department is temporarily on hold.

According to Vice President of Nursing Joe Dahlby, the city of Bemidji's insurance carrier has questioned whether it is legal for the municipality to provide services, such as law enforcement, outside city limits -- temporarily derailing the plan to have a city officer patrol the two facilities for up to 30 hours a week.

North Country Nursing and Rehabilitation Center is in the city, near the downtown, but a portion of North Country Regional Hospital in north Bemidji remains in Northern Township.

Due to the increased potential nationally for violence to occur at medical facilities, NCHS was planning to pay 75 percent of an officer's salary to patrol from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. during the hospital's busiest nights -- Thursday, Friday and Saturday. In the agreement, the Police Department would pay the other 25 percent of the officer's salary, and will have the other 10 hours of their time.

Working for NCHS, the officer would do vehicle and grounds patrol at the two facilities, would assure offices are locked after business hours and would even help control the emergency room and visitor lobbies if needed.

"This is kind of disappointing for us," Dahlby said Thursday, "but it still is going to happen. It's just going to take a little longer than anticipated."

NCHS currently contracts with a private firm for its security services and will continue to do so until the contract with the city is completed, Dahlby said.

Meanwhile, he said, NCHS will continue to work with the city regarding available options, the most logical an expedited annexation to the city.

The hospital, located in Northern Township, officially lies outside of the city, and because of a 1979 agreement between the township and the city, annexation of the hospital was not to be requested unit the year 2000.

However, Dahlby said that with annexation more than likely inevitable, NCHS may try to accelerate the process by a couple of years.

If the medical facility decides to take the annexation route, Bemidji Police Chief Bob Tell said the process could be completed within four to six months. The original contract was going to be in place by late July or early August.

The company's decision to hire a police officer was only one of several increased security precautions planned. In addition, NCHS will be upgrading its closed-circuit surveillance camera system, providing non-violence intervention training and other security in-service meetings for employees and is considering changing some of its building employee entrances to identification card locks.