Oak Harbor police officers are now part of an elite, regional task force for taking down drug dealers.

On Tuesday, the Oak Harbor council unanimously approved an agreement between the police department and Skagit County Interlocal Drug Enforcement Unit, affectionately known as SCIDEU (Ski-doo).

SCIDEU formed in the 1980s as a consortium of officers from different law enforcement agencies in Skagit County to combat organized and drug-related crimes from the federal scale to small town neighborhoods. This makes Oak Harbor the only municipality outside of Skagit County to join, barring federal partners.

Oak Harbor Police Chief Tony Slowik said that organized criminals such as drug traffickers and gangs do not respect municipal and county jurisdictional boundaries. Law enforcement agencies, on their own, have scarce resources to handle such complex investigations. The Oak Harbor Police Department has not had a drug enforcement officer for a decade.

Island County Sherrif Rick Felici said in an interview that the term “organized crime” isn’t to imply a “mafia flavor” directly on Whidbey, but there are narcotics cartels operating on a national level which trickle product here locally.

Oak Harbor continues to see an increase in drug activity, Slowik said. Many suspects are repeat offenders who are seen by multiple agencies on different sides of Deception Pass. Because of the department’s limited resources, he relies on other partnerships to complete investigations for public safety.

Multi-agency task forces have proven effective in the plight to reduce drug-related crimes, he said. Oak Harbor is also a member of the Skagit and Island Multi-Agency Response Team, which investigates officers using deadly force, as well as the North Cascades Regional SWAT team.

SCIDEU will help the department adapt to the changing community by actively participating in upper-level organized crime investigations, Slowik said.

Once joined, the city is obligated to execute any documents to obtain federal grant funding for the program, authorize Oak Harbor police to participate in SCIDEU investigations and maintain agency minimum staffing requirements while assigning a full-time investigator to SCIDEU.

The city may also be on the hook for some funding.

While the unit is primarily funded through federal and state grants as supported by the various municipalities, if these fall through, the agencies must fund a quarter of SCIDEU’s operational budget, not to exceed $100,000. Oak Harbor is responsible for $14,000 of this, which would come from the police department budget.

Councilmembers Shane Hoffmire and Christopher Wiegenstein encouraged the county to sign an agreement with SCIDEU to fill any “gaps.”

“I know we have totally different budgets, but maybe the county can follow suit at some point,” Hoffmire said.

Felici said that while he is focused on the increased drug crime in the county and is working with Rep. Rick Larsen to sustain SCIDEU funding, his office just joined the SWAT team and brought on new staff. SCIDEU staffing is something the department is working toward.

“I’m 100% a supporter, and I would love to,” he said in an interview, “but I just can’t.”

Felici acknowledged the stakes of the issue and the value of SCIDEU.

“We have a significant drug problem in Washington state and in the United States and in Island County,” he said. “We’re having to learn different ways to do it, because the tools that we have changed a lot, and the resources we have changed a lot in the last several years.”