Friday, June 26, 1998 | 11:25 a.m.
Metro Police Department turns 25 next week -- a milestone in Southern Nevada history of a consolidation plan that worked.
They came into being as a family numbering just over 1,000 officers and administrative staff on July 1, 1973, officially at 12:01 a.m. The time was ripe for such a merger -- governments on both coasts, including Florida and California, were either contemplating or undergoing similar reforms.
The decision to merge the former Clark County Sheriff's Department with the Las Vegas Police Department brought the efficiency officials were looking for.
There is loyalty within today's ranks and respect across the country for what has become the nation's 20th largest police department.
Yet the future did not appear so bright in the early days.
"The idea was to take the best of both departments and make one out of it," recalled Sgt. Dennis Larsen, a 27-year veteran who was working patrol for Las Vegas Police at the time of the merger.
"Humans by their nature don't always get along perfectly well. Eventually rumors start, feelings and egos get mixed up in it."
The tension, obviously enough, was based on loyalties.
"When they consolidated, the two groups didn't get along. There were fist fights in the parking lots," Larsen said. "Everyone wanted a piece of the pie but no one wanted to give up their territory."
On paper, consolidation made sense: eliminate the duplication.
Senate Bill 340, signed into law April 25, 1973, at 6:45 a.m. by then-Governor Mike O'Callaghan, paved the way for the creation of a metropolitan police department.
Consolidation didn't happen overnight.
City Commissioners adopted a resolution in January 1973 calling for city and county radio frequencies to be aligned at a cost of $24,129.
Communications equipment for the intended merger was ordered in May.
Some things came down to the wire, such as the struggle to administer new oaths of office to the 547 Las Vegas policeman and 444 sheriff's deputies who would comprise the new Metro ranks.
The jail and detention facilities were to remain at the courthouse. The city's jail was shut down.
Metro was established with an approximately $8 million budget, independent of budgets formerly approved by the city and county commissions.
Organizers had hoped to complete the merger by having one sheriff's deputy and one city police officer ride together to enable officers to cope with any problems arising from different ordinances in the city and county.
The city's traffic division ended up gaining 8,000 square miles of county and the deputies gained almost 200,000 more in residents.
"There was a lot of adjustment," Larsen said. "When you went to briefings, the room was divided. The city guys would sit in the back and the deputies would sit up front. You had three different colored patrol cars -- old city cars that were blue and white, old sheriff's cars that were black and white, and Metro cars that were brown and white."
A June 22, 1973, news account reported that the cost to paint 65 cars and 11 special units was estimated at $10,000; badges and tie tacks for the new force at $14,315. New uniforms and weapons cost $284,000.
"You had officers in the room with different uniforms" -- former city police in their old blue uniforms, deputies in uniforms much like those worn today by Metro, and people in between distinguished by Metro and sheriff's badges, Larsen said.
And there were different department-issued guns, Colts and Smith & Wessons -- a problem if one's partner ran out of ammunition.
What went on within Metro was not unlike what goes on in any other business when new management takes over or many new employees come on.
"There was a fierce loyalty to the people you came on with," said Kate Hitt, who spent eight years at Metro as the late Sheriff John Moran's assistant.
"The clerical help from the county thought their officers were cuter. The officers from the city thought their stenographers, their dispatchers, their records clerks were better.
"All of this was going on, but it never kept us from getting the job done. "Everyone always worked it out for the common good of the people."
It took about a year for tensions to ease, she said. Hitt attributed much of the eventual success to the late John Moran, then undersheriff, who "had had enough."
"He'd been patient all along, but he brought it to a halt when they started talking about deconsolidation" -- an effort the disgruntled troops unsuccessfully pushed for. "It was about the fourth or fifth month into consolidation. The arguments coming to the table were so petty -- colors of the uniforms, material, the number of points that should be on the badges. Moran told everyone to knock it off, get along, forget about who your loyalties were to, and make Metro happen."
Within a year, officials said the new super police force was solidified.
Along the way, it was also viewed as a test pilot of sorts as officials considered merging fire departments and public works. But 25 years later, Metro remains the only merged agency.
"We did a study on the consolidation of departments," said former Las Vegas Mayor Ron Lurie, who came on as a councilman in 1973 and now serves as director of marketing for Arizona Charlie's hotel-casino.
"I was involved when we were considering consolidating all recreation departments. We were one meeting away from seeing it happen, and then it was put on a shelf."
Mayor Jan Jones, a longtime advocate for county-city mergers, is confident consolidation is on the horizon.
"People don't like change and they can find hundreds of reasons why common sense wouldn't work," Jones said. "Metro Police Department shows that consolidation can and does work."
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