Holladay » Folks here want to keep the Salt Lake County sheriff in town.

On Thursday, more than 60 Holladay residents packed a City Council hearing, praising the Sheriff's Office and panning a proposal to contract with neighboring Cottonwood Heights for police services, instead.

"I cannot understand why you're entertaining the change," said Holladay resident Omar Leeman. "We know these guys, and the county's doing a hell of a good job."

Holladay Mayor Dennis Webb said the city solicited other proposals, including from South Salt Lake and Murray, because the Sheriff's Office is shifting to a Unified Police Department -- a model that gives contract cities Holladay, Bluffdale, Herriman and Riverton greater control over the sheriff's budget and operations.

The UPD "is not the Sheriff's Office," Webb said in an interview. Questions remain, he said, about how the new agency will function.

Only Cottonwood Heights, which broke away from the sheriff and launched its own police force last September, responded to Holladay's query. Cottonwood Heights has offered to patrol Holladay at the same cost as the sheriff does: $3.2 million a year.

Liane Stillman, Cottonwood Heights' city manager and a former Holladay mayor, said a city-run police department provides better bang for the buck. If Holladay joins up with its neighbor, she said, it would own the assets it pays for, such as guns and computers.

"At the end of next year, Holladay will have spent $25 million for law enforcement," for the past decade, Stillman said at the hearing. "What do you own? ... You probably have a speed trailer."

But Holladay residents, who attended the hearing, were skeptical of the proposal. Some demanded more details on a Cottonwood Heights contract and an "apple-to-apple" comparison with county services.

Others downplayed the value of "branding" Holladay, which Cottonwood Heights Chief Robby Russo promised in a presentation last month. Under his proposal, Holladay would get its own uniforms and black-and-white cars emblazoned with the city logo.

"Instead of worrying about branding and our image and how we can look better, we need to be focusing on the important things in our community like economic development," Spencer Scott said. "If you walk down the street [from City Hall], one of the reasons why we're so safe is -- man -- we have no businesses to rob."

Speakers at the hearing also shared their personal experiences with sheriff deputies.

"These officers know us. They know our children," Sherry Hanson said. "They've worked so hard to help us in our community with our problems."

Cottonwood Heights has offered to match the number of full-time employees serving Holladay: 25.

Such a deal would allow Cottonwood Heights to share the expense of seven police staffers, including its chief, with Holladay.

Patrolling Holladay is "a big responsibility," Cottonwood Heights Budget Officer and Treasurer Gary Harmer said in an interview, "but we should be able to accomplish some economies of scale. That's why we're interested in it."

rwinters@sltrib.com