Neary-Sighted

It's rare for a Lakewood city budget to have clear winners and losers in terms of neighborhoods. Not so in 2008. The city manager passed out copies of the proposed budget for 2008. The city staff is proposing to drop two of our neighborhood patrol districts from the community policing program.

What that means in practical terms is that if you live in the blue area (Tillicum and Gravelly Lake) at the bottom of the map, or the yellowish central area (Lake Steilacoom and Lake Louise) in the left middle of the map, you will no longer be part of the city's community policing program. I call that losing.

The city is going to have extensive hearings to discuss this proposed budget, and we will all hear more. It seems surreal to me that the city is proposing to drop community policing in Tillicum. So there must be more to the story. It may even be that there's a typo, or I am reading something wrong. Neighborhood policing has been key to the dramatic crime reductions in Tillicum. So feel free to check back for clarifications or corrections as I read through the budget and hear from others about its implications.

(For those of you unfamiliar with community policing, the short version is that Lakewood originally planned for each color-coded patrol district in the city to have a special community service officer (CSO: an unarmed but trained law enforcement official), and a neighborhood police officer,(NPO a full police officer who is armed), to get to know neighbors and neighborhoods. The idea is that if you listen closely to neighbors and look for signs proactively long before anyone has to dial 911, you can identify criminals before they can commit any or many crimes.

So that means there should be one pair of officers - CSO and NPO - in each of the six districts, though that's never been fully built out because of budget and other constraints. Last year, a majority of council members overruled a couple of us and voted to only allocate three NPO police officers among those six neighborhoods. I voted no, and not just for the main reason, that community policing is effective. But it's worth noting that aggressive and proactive community policing is one of the few things we do that makes Lakewood unique among any other city you might move to.

There's nothing wrong with being distinctive while you are being effective.

The new budget proposal is to have four districts, each with a community service officer and with a neighborhood patrol officer. The north Lakewood officers are funded with the assistance of state aid and would be based at Western State Hospital to work with all the issues there. Now, it's great that we are finally starting a district in Oakbrook and other northern parts of Lakewood. It's great that we want to incorporate community policing into Western State with all of its many complexities. But you have to wonder how much time officers who will be based in Western State Hospital are going to have in the residential and business neighborhoods.

So bottom line, it's great that each district that still has community policing would have both a community service officer and a neighborhood patrol officer. But I don't like the fact that two neighborhoods get cut out.

Here's why I am extra sensitive on the point. Another council member found out by accident a week ago that while the city is supposed to have three neighborhood patrol officers, we have only had two for several months. That means we've had two neighborhood officers each with a neighborhood of 30,000 people in our city of 60,000.

The idea of a neighborhood of 30,000 is so preposterous as to make us all look silly. And more importantly, you have to wonder how effective an officer can be in preventing crime when you give him a neighborhood of 30,000.

Now, there are valid reasons for why they had a staff shortage, but the whole thing has me in a lousy mood. Why does the council tie itself into knots when its priorities are not implemented? What is it about the nature of government that prevents seven council members from clearly enforcing what we budgeted in the belief it represents a high standard of public safety for our citizens?

So the upcoming month of budget hearings - see below for schedule of hearings - must be about more than funding. The council must discuss how we will enforce our standards for 2008. We owe you strong public protection for the trust you place in us.

(And just for housekeeping, if you want a larger view of the city neighborhood policing districts, you can get a larger version at http://www.cityoflakewood.us/images/stories/Police/resources/policedist.jpg You may have to import the photo into your photo editing software to get a good view. The districts that would not have assigned community and neighborhood officers are One and Five on the map)

So let's look ahead. I will share more after the first budget hearing on Wednesday. Meantime, here are just some random thoughts about the early draft budget. Bear in mind, there will be full public hearings and lots of discussion. I may devote entire posts to some of these topics, you lucky people. And I will put up a poll so you can weigh in, like nearly one hundred of you did last year. So meanwhile, here's a short list of the mostly happy stuff:

- Staff proposed developing a comprehensive and clearly planned blueprint for growth so we will have a better Tillicum and American Lake Gardens. Yay for thinking, and planning, ahead! The idea is to ask, in a very systematic way, how we can add jobs and nice housing to that area without displacing residents who are there now. That area is located next or near to major cities and a military base; Tillicum itself is sandwiched between an Interstate and a lake. The area ought to be a thriving neighborhood (though not of 30,000), and hopefully this plan will help set us on a good path.

- Unless I missed it in the fine print, no one is proposing a tax increase like last year's ambush water utility tax. Yay! The budget calls for more police, and they are paid for in large part by growth in sales tax revenues.

- The budget proposes an overhaul of the city web site to make it more useful for citizens. The site has its uses, but it needs to be updated.

- One thing I like about the city manager's new budget format is that each department set goals for 2009-2012. One thing I like about the parks department is that it lists one goal as developing a Farmer's Market inside Fort Steilacoom Park. That's a great idea suggested by State Sen. Mike Carrell, other members of the Lakewood First Lions, and other folks. We need to follow up and explore if it is viable with help from private funding. If you have ever been to the Olympia Farmer's Market, you know the energy and good that a market can bring to a community. And what a great way to reuse one of the barns.

- On the negative side, I no longer seen any mention in the budget of the signs we approved last year to interpret the amazing history of Fort Steilacoom Park. People today need more context, not less, and so I look forward to learning that these interpretive signs are still in the plan. To be blunt about it, other real cities have interpretive signs in their parks to explain history and nature to children and others; it is time Lakewood joined the big leagues.
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