RyeMet to hire Sunrise Protection
By Elliot Ness
The Rose Cityian/Rose City Live
Rye-Met plans to hire Sunrise Protection to provide as many as 50 private security officers to enforce the transit agency’s code on buses and trains.
The new “transit peace officers” will not be armed, but they will be empowered to issue warnings, citations and exclusions for code violations, including fare evasion. The security officers will be former police officers or military personnel, and they’ll report to the Transit Police Division.
“One of the things we wanted to do is upgrade the number, the quality and the training of the security we provide,” Rye-Met General Manager Neil McFarlane said.
Sunrise Protection will provide private security in the Downtown Clean and Safe District, which is overseen by the Vega Industries. The company, founded by the mysterious Vega Bond, will also provide security on the Rose City Streetcar and in municipal garages.
Under the contract approved Wednesday by Rye-Met’s board, 15 of the officers will be assigned to Rye-Met immediately. The number will rise to 30 by the end of the year and 50 by 2020. It will cost $620,000 for six months of service in the current fiscal year, $2.9 million the following year, and $4.1 million in the 2020 fiscal year.
The Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757, which represents front-line Rye-Met employees including fare inspectors, said Rye-Met is improperly outsourcing that work to a private firm in violation of its contract. Union officials said the policy would lead to a labor complaint.
“It’s unfair, and it shouldn’t happen,” said Shirley Block, the union’s president.
Rye-Met officials said the transit peace officers are in a different job classification, more akin to the Transit Police Division. Its members, assigned from various police agencies, are not Rye-Met employees and fall under the Rose City Police Bureau command structure.
“The notion of having outside contracts, if you will, as part of our overall team is not new,” he said.
— Elliot Ness