Multiple Co. Proprietary Security?

[Lawson]

I was thinkin about something the other day...

Out here a lot of apartment complexes and housing communities work together in a "Crime Watch" kinda thing. Its not really a business or even an organization, just the leasing agents and managers getting together for discussions. I was thinking, if they collectively wanted to hire a security force have say 3-4 officers on per night who would rove between their properties, how could they do this without contracting through a private security co?

Would it even be possible?

[N. A. Corbier]

Depends on your state. If the complexes are managed by a separate companies, then it is most likely a contract security force in practice.

One guy on the forums left because he was basically doing that, and its illegal in Minnesota. Renting himself out as an "employee" of a bunch of complexes and individual houses, and saying, "Its ok that I'm a felon without an owner's license or personal security license, as I'm working for individual employers, and not a contract guard."

Now, I would think the smart way to do that would be for the management companies to create a holding LLC and have that holding LLC secure agent of the owner status, ... Wait, I'm describing a private security company.

I'd say no. Any one have any other ideas?

[ValleyOne]

I was thinkin about something the other day...

Out here a lot of apartment complexes and housing communities work together in a "Crime Watch" kinda thing. Its not really a business or even an organization, just the leasing agents and managers getting together for discussions. I was thinking, if they collectively wanted to hire a security force have say 3-4 officers on per night who would rove between their properties, how could they do this without contracting through a private security co?

Would it even be possible?

I can only speak of Oregon, so IF that situation was down here two things would have to happen...

1) If they were to form a co-op it would have to have a legal status as an entity of it's ownself. Then the co-op would have to have an Executive Manager Licsened by the state (DPSST?PS) then they could hire as many s/o's as they so wished... They would to be considered employees, so then you have just created your own in house gig.

2) Get everyone together, create a contract that all the parties involved are considered a sole client and then go find a company that wants to sign on...

Anyone tell me what I am missing...

[HotelSecurity]

My 2 hotels near the airport are side-by-side. They are individual companies with different partners, However one man is the majority owner of both companies. We work for the owner so there have been cases where one Officer has gone over to help the other. Also I've had 2 cases where an Officer has quit in the middle of the night. The other has covered both hotels.

[SecTrainer]

I'm not sure what the advantages would be to fielding their own officers, but I can think of many disadvantages (liability, training, equipment, uniforms, all of the hiring and personnel legalities, etc.)...to say nothing of the fact that lay people have no expertise in the field of security operations. It is also unlikely that they could run their own security operation very cost-effectively as they would bear all of the fixed overhead. A security company spreads its fixed (administrative, etc.) overhead out among all of its clients, naturally.

I'd suggest they form a co-op which would be "the client", establish an RFP with the help of a security consultant who knows residential community security well, and then float the RFP to obtain a security company that would contract with the co-op. The co-op would then elect a member or members who would serve in an advisory/liaison capacity between the individual properties and the security company to provide ongoing contract management from the "client" side.

There are many models of co-ops that are formed for the purposes of purchasing goods and/or services. For instance, in many cities you'll find that all of the area hospitals do their purchasing through a co-op in order to gain price advantages. The co-op is the "contracting party" with medical equipment and service vendors, and the individual hospitals then make their purchases through the co-op. So, an attorney should have no difficulty identifying the form of legal entity that fits the bill.

If security of these properties is approached properly instead of sort of "loosey-goosey", perhaps even including things like installing emergency phone kiosks in parking lots, better lighting, signage, removal of disabled vehicles, etc., the property managers will likely find that they have created a competitive advantage for themselves...a reason that someone would choose to live in their properties instead of others. That being the case, they would be justified in adjusting their rents by some small distributed "surcharge" - say, $15 or $20 a month (assuming these are not dinky 5- and 10-unit properties) which would recover a great deal of their cost. I believe that if the program is run properly, many people would not mind at all paying a little more to live in a property that offers a greater level of security.