Thurston County Sheriff’s Office will continue providing law enforcement services to the City of Tenino exclusively for priority calls between the hours of midnight and 6 a.m. daily from 2025 through 2027.
The Thurston County Board of County Commissioners approved the $25,000 per year contract extension during its Oct. 29 meeting. The contract has been in place for the past year, Thurston County Sheriff Derek Sanders said during the meeting.
“My understanding is that there were some problems with retention, so Tenino opted to slash one of their full-time employees and give all of their offices pay increases to help with that retention and keeping good staff on board,” he said. “As a result of that, they were not able to continue 24-hour operations in the city of Tenino. Obviously, not dissimilar to any other kind of first responder service, you can’t just not have a police response or a free-for-all for six hours.”
The midnight to 6 a.m. timeframe represents when Tenino’s last officer signs off to when the police chief signs on, Sanders said. Thurston County Sheriff’s Office also has contracts with Bucoda and Rainier to provide all of their policing services while providing mutual aid to other jurisdictions in the county.
