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Oak Creek — Four months after the Oak Creek Police Department's former chief and sergeant resigned, the town is getting down to business on determining Oak Creek's law enforcement future.

Starting this week, a nine-member citizen task force will begin taking a hard look at whether Oak Creek should forge a contract for long-term services with the Routt County Sheriff's Office or reform its own police department - and what that department should look like.

Since the Oak Creek Police Department's last officer departed in October, about a month after the other three resigned, the town has relied on the Sheriff's Office for law enforcement services. In the meantime, the town's law enforcement future essentially has been in limbo.

"The sheriff is more than willing to say that he will always respond," Trustee Gerry Greenwood said. "But there's a reality, and that's that the town, without our own police department, should have an agreement in place and try to budget something toward that."

"The county is putting pressure on us to make a decision of whether we're going to hire them or whether we're going to hire a police department," Trustee Dave Ege said.

The town has not had complaints from citizens about response times when the Sheriff's Office responds to calls in Oak Creek. But with the Sheriff's Office responding to emergency calls only, some of the smaller things are striking a nerve, Greenwood said.

There is an "undercurrent" of grumbling about some Oak Creek ordinances, including complaints about people driving snowmobiles on the streets and about dog owners who are not following the town's leash law, Greenwood said.

"It's something that we will always have complaints about. People who don't have dogs don't appreciate dogs, and people who don't take care of their dogs are the real problem," Greenwood said.

The lack of anyone to conduct abatement or parking enforcement during snowplow season is another example of "unforeseen consequences" of not having local police, Trustee David Fisher said.

There are alleys where cars are not being moved, causing snowplowing in those alleys to be insufficient, and emergency vehicles would not be able to get through if something were to happen, said Trustee Chuck Wisecup, who also is chief of the Oak Creek Fire Protection District.

Under the town's municipal code, any town employee, including public works, are allowed to red-tag parked vehicles interfering with snowplow operations and have them towed at the owner's expense after 24 hours, Public Works Director Bob Redding said.

But during heavy snowfall, plowing operations keep the town's three public works employees busy enough, Redding said.

Since part-time officer Eileen Rossi departed in mid-October, leaving Oak Creek with no remaining officers and making the police department essentially defunct, the town's municipal court caseload has decreased from 40 to 50 cases to only a few each month, Ege said.

Several Town Board members have spoken about getting at least a part-time officer in place while the process plays out, even if they only do code enforcement functions.

The major task ahead, if the town ends up re-establishing the Oak Creek Police Department, is getting the hiring process right and ending up with a result everyone is satisfied with, Greenwood said.

During his nearly one-year stint as police chief, Russ Caterinicchio constantly was dogged by complaints from some citizens that he did not understand the town and that they did not want "his kind of policing." Although professed opinions about his department and about whether to have a police department in Oak Creek ranged wildly last year, the desire to have a local police force - perhaps just not his - was the closest thing to a consensus the townspeople reached.

At its Dec. 11 meeting, the Oak Creek Town Board appointed all nine people who submitted letters of interest to serve on the police focus group: Soroco High School Principal Dennis Alt, Jonathan Wheby, Bill Auer, Jennifer Coop, Walt and Ann Trout, David Bonfiglio, Lenny Herzog and Rossi, who works for the department only seasonally. If the town ultimately opts to hire new officers and restart the Oak Creek Police Department, everything has to be done correctly from the start, Greenwood said.

"When you hire them is the best time to really nail down your understanding," Greenwood said. "Boards come and go, and it's always a problem."