Thursday, January 12, 2006
PROACTIVE POLICING: The police have an initiative that takes aim at reducing property crime. This is great news for Lakewood.
Quick background: Lakewood police have traditionally focused on preventing and battling violent crime. That's because we used to have a lot of it. We still have some, obviously, and like any community we always will - but the rate has dropped dramatically.That leaves property crime.
First of all, crime is bad, period. But my regular readers - both of you - know that this newsletter is often concerned with the quality of information and public discussions in Lakewood. This newsletter is also often concerned with the confidence, or lack of it, in our government. In that sense, property crime is as corrosive, in some ways, to public discussions in our city as violent crime (though of course violent crime is obviously more physically damaging crime). The reason I say that is that a lot of victims of property crime are regular citizens like you and me - citizens who talk to each other, and talk about how they have seen the city handle property crime. There's a lot of confusion about what sorts of crimes police will respond to and how police will handle property crimes. I call it corrosive and just generally bad when people are confused about what their city will do and what it represents.
Property crime is a tough nut to crack. I remember this from my days as a reporter, sitting in on countless trials and hearings. Criminals who commit property crimes are often a little smarter than the violent criminals who are stupid enough to attack someone. The criminals who burglarize and rob know that there are not enough jails to hold them all. They know that the laws are relatively lax. You can get away with committing property crimes, if you are a little careful about it, for quite a long career. It's sad, but true - and certainly not the fault of Lakewood, or even just the State of Washington.
What Chief Larry Saunders announced Monday is that the police will begin a pilot program to aggressively tackle property crime: residential property crime in Tillicum and Woodbrook, and business property crime along Lakeview Boulevard. The program will include the neighborhood patrol officers, the police officers assigned to various schools, and members of block watches. (To fight property crime, you need neighbors who talk to each other and watch out for each other). As lessons are learned, the police will expand the program to other parts of the city.
There are long lists of the components of this plan, including undercover operations, surveillance and security systems, a higher level of prosecution when possible through our Municipal Court, and even bait cars to attract thieves. But you probably care more about what the program accomplishes; we'll all be keeping track of that together. The city's goal - and let's call it good management that the city has a measurable goal - is a 15 percent reduction. The police will be working toward an even greater reduction. The main thing here is that the police department is seeing itself as more than just fighting violent crime, and that shows a well-rounded approach.
NEW LEADERSHIP: You probably picked this up from a paper or word of mouth, but just in case, the new Mayor is Claudia Thomas and the new Deputy Mayor is John Arbeeny. Congratulations to both of them! They will be presiding over the council retreat on Jan. 18 and 19 when we help choose priorities for the city government(Presiding over meetings is the main function of the mayor in our particular city system of government). Let me know your thoughts on those priorities anytime.
It might have been a little difficult from news accounts to determine who voted for who when it came to choosing a mayor for 2005 and 2006. In fact, one account still has the wrong vote on its Web site. So just to be clear ...
Here's the deal on electing the mayor: Two people were nominated for the position, Doug Richardson and Claudia Thomas. First person nominated for mayor was the 04-05 mayor, Doug Richardson. Only three of the seven council members voted for Doug: me, Helen McGovern, and of course Doug. So that meant the next person up for vote was Claudia Thomas, who of course was deputy mayor for many years when Bill Harrison was mayor. Claudia received five votes: me, John Arbeeny, Ron Cronk, Pad Finnigan, and of course Claudia.
Then the only person nominated for deputy mayor was John, who won by the same vote of 5-2.
If I was still writing for the local paper, my column on this subject would probably read something like this: http://www.walterneary.net/columns/newleaders.html
By the way, if you're not too familiar with what the role of mayor is in our community, I have an older column that still reflects some truth about the job; that column is at http://walterneary.net/columns/12-18-03.html
Since that older column was written, Doug Richardson was elected mayor for 2004 and 2005. Doug presided over, among other things, establishment of a police department and selection of a city manager. He also presided over council meetings. It can be tricky to run any meeting in this town so that every voice is heard. We have a lot of people here who think you have to personally insult someone to make any point; that's a tough environment in which to run meetings. Well done, Doug.
Meantime, stay tuned for more info about that retreat. Among the first challenges of the new council is going to be choosing people to sit on city advisory boards. Pretty much everyone who did not win in a City Council race last year has applied to sit on these boards. Being on a city board puts them in a good position for the 2007 elections. (Now, that's just the politics of the matter. It goes without saying that these people also want to serve the community. Let me know anytime you want to know more about these advisory boards).
Given some of the deep divisions in this town, it's going to be interesting watching the new council decide which former and potential candidates as well as other applicants will get seats on these boards.
BETTER SERVICE: Not all city developments are going to make big headlines in a newspaper. But it's the little things that add up to the big things. I've got some good news out of our Public Works department. The Public Works Department has come up with a brochure that clearly explains - in clear, simple English - how to request a study of speeding in a neighborhood and how to request traffic-slowing measures in a neighborhood. As I sat at the hearing, I quickly put on my editor's cap and counted words in the draft brochure. Though in a hurry, I could not find any sentence longer than 25 words. That's amazing!! Short sentences are a sign that someone thought clearly enough to share their thoughts concisely.
Last Monday, the Public Works folks announced they are drafting a system to keep track of all the people who have and will request street lights. They are also working on a system to rank all the requests by a variety of criteria including crime rates, whether there are sidewalks present, etc... You'll recall that I have been calling for some time for street lights for Pac Highway in Ponders - which is in the budget, I'm grateful to say. Not surprisingly, that is one of the most highly rated places where lights have been proposed.
Public Works is also drafting a simple brochure that explains how you can request street lights, the various ways to pay for them, and what you can expect when you contact the city. This information will help us more precisely decide how much money to set aside for street lights and traffic-slowing measures. I'll provide more details about this program later, and of course I'm sure you will hear about it from the city as well. I'd hoped to give you a list of the various neighborhoods that have requested lights, but honestly, I need to start thinking about getting my young lad to school.
In a way, there's a theme here for the start of the second 10 years of cityhood. The lack of a clear policy toward property crime was corrosive. The lack of a clear policy toward people who request street lights or measures to slow traffic in their neighborhood was also corrosive. It will be exciting to watch and participate as the city pulls together better customer service.
AT BORDERS: Steve Dunkelberger and I spoke at Borders Books to about two dozen people last Sunday about our new book, "Images of America: Lakewood." Afterward, a couple of people asked me why we had the event in Tacoma; the answer is, we sure tried to have something similar in Lakewood. We still hope to do so. I've heard that Barnes & Noble has stocked the Lakewood book from time to time, so that's certainly a good sign about their interest in the community.
