Cuyahoga County councilmembers push sheriff on spending, question downtown Cleveland patrol unit

Multiple Cuyahoga County leaders are putting pressure on Sheriff Harold Pretel to cut costs.

In a Committee of the Whole meeting Tuesday over the reappointment of Pretel as Sheriff, county councilmembers raised concerns about spending and questioned whether taxpayers should be on the hook for Pretel's Downtown Safety Patrol Unit in Cleveland.

Before councilmembers lobbed questions at the sheriff, County Prosecutor Michael O'Malley took the podium to discuss his issues with the functioning of the unit.

"As we continue to provide more and more services to the City of Cleveland like the downtown patrol, I would suggest that we have some leverage," O'Malley said. "They get a downtown patrol, which quite frankly they should be paying (for). We have de-incentivized any need for them to hire police on their own, because we are now picking up that expense at the county’s expense."

The prosecutor argued the county needs to come to an agreement with the city of Cleveland to be compensated for the downtown work.

"Our cash continues to go down, while their cash surplus continues to go up," he told legislators. "And not that I don’t think we should be fulfilling that obligation while we need police, because I think that we right now are at a critical time where the City of Cleveland is down police officers, but while we are furnishing this benefit to them, I think we should be being compensated fairly."

Annabelle Childers reports: https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/loc... --

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