In the book I am writing, I’ve invented a fictional area, called the Crystal Valley, in central California when the action of the story takes place – basically a valley, surrounded by small mountains, encompassing five small muncipalities, ranging in size from about 550 residents to 10,000 residents, for a total of about 17,000 people in the whole valley (Santa Lucia, the 10,000-population city, is, obviously, the largest of the five by far).
Now, where I live (Connecticut), if a town is too small to have its own cops, the state police cover the day-to-day police duties for that town (speed traps, crime calls, investigations, all that) from the closest barracks (there are about 10 barracks in the state, each with their own territories) and sometimes will place one or two resident troopers in the town itself to hold office hours and allow people to come in person and file theft complaints and stuff.
How is a situation like this handled in California? Would there just be a Santa Lucia Police Department that would cover the other four towns too? Would there be some sort of county-style “Crystal Valley Police Department” that would be headquarted in one of the towns and cover them all? Would none of them have their own cops at all, and instead be covered by the police from Angstrom, the comparatively large city of 40,000 people on the other side of the mountains? Would the CHP cover them and put resident troopers in, like it is in Connecticut?
I tried googling about for this and didn’t find much I could go on. Any help would be appreciated!