The Forest Lake City Council on Monday night voted to disband its police force and contract with Washington County for law enforcement services.

The 3-2 vote followed weeks of heated community protests and petitions opposing the proposal, which officials say will save the city about $387,000 annually.

Hundreds of people again packed the Forest Lake Community Center for the meeting, which was a continuation of a meeting last week that lasted five hours. Residents began yelling and booing as soon as the vote was taken; the meeting adjourned within seconds of the vote.

“This was a very hostile mob,” Mayor Ben Winnick said after the meeting. “We expected a large crowd, but we didn’t expect the hostile reactions like that. Last week everybody was quite civilized, for the most part.”

Council's votes 3-2 in favor of WCSO contract, Forest Lake PD will disband. Crowd outrages. @WCCO pic.twitter.com/p2Vyqq4W19 — Jeff Wagner (@Jeff_Wagner4) May 9, 2017

Winnick, who led the push for contracting law enforcement services, said the vote was difficult, but necessary.

“This is an opportunity for the city and the county to work together for the mutual benefit of our residents by saving them a significant amount of money and providing increased patrol and depth of services that we, as a city, could not provide for them,” Winnick said.

Winnick said he expects other cities to follow Forest Lake’s lead.

“This is going to be an increasing trend,” he said. “It’s already a growing trend nationwide. The efficiencies of a large department for 100,000-plus people provides a level of efficiency and a depth of services that everybody should get.

“In the end, it’s what best for residents,” he said. “That’s why I voted the way I did. We’re providing them the best public safety we can and doing it at a fair price.”

Under the five-year agreement approved by the council, Forest Lake will pay Washington County $2.9 million a year for law enforcement services, rather than rely on its own 25-member police department.

Washington County is expected take control of the police department on Sept. 1. The agreement must still be approved by the Washington County Board of Commissioners; the date of that vote has not been set.

Council member Mara Bain, who voted against the plan, said she hopes the Washington County board “will do the right thing for the majority of Forest Lake residents.”

“What was a local issue is now a regional issue,” she said. “We expect them to listen to our clear voices and reject this ridiculous contract. They need to look at it not just from a law enforcement perspective, but as a countywide public policy perspective. Now is the time they need to respect the wishes of Forest Lake residents and recognize that this is not a contract that the residents intend on keeping.”

Bain said the three council members who voted for the proposal — Winnick, Ed Eigner and Michael Freer — are all up for re-election in November 2018. And soon after Monday’s vote, a Change.org petition had been launched calling for Winnick’s impeachment.

“The relationship that the majority of council have with the police department is not the same relationship that the community residents have,” she said.

But Winnick said he could see no reason why the county board wouldn’t support the plan.

“It’s a local issue. It’s a local-control issue,” he said. “The sheriff’s office is more than capable of handling our city. They contract for 15 or 16 other cities throughout the county already. I don’t know why the county board would not support what we want and what the sheriff’s office is capable of.”

The motion included language that encouraged Washington County sheriff’s office to establish a preference for hiring the existing Forest Lake police officers.

“We are all concerned about our officers, and we’re not just throwing them to the curb and forgetting about them,” Winnick said.

Monday’s vote came after last-minute labor discussions over the weekend. Ultimately, the city and the two police unions could not reach an agreement, Winnick said.

“We made what I thought was a great offer to them but, unfortunately, it was rejected,” he said.

Sean Gormley, executive director of Law Enforcement Labor Services, said the city’s offer came just 48 hours before the council was slated to vote on the issue. It would have eliminated key policies based on seniority within the department, medical leave and health insurance benefits officers stood to receive at retirement, he said.

“The union was told that a rejection would effectively give the council no choice but to disband the department and contract with Washington County,” Gormley said. “At the very least this is the definition of bad-faith negotiating. At worst – this is blackmail.”

The city also rejected the unions’ offer to file for joint mediation through the Bureau of Mediation Services, he said.

“After the amazing support, we’ve received from the community over the past several months, it’s so disheartening for our cops to be treated with such disrespect by the city,” Gormley said.