Monday, October 15, 2007
What went wrong? Budget hearing 2, continued
More postings from the hearing room at City Hall as things happen tonight. Hey, this is better than live TV because you do not actually have to watch us ...
Tonight we finally had a good discussion of what went wrong with community policing this year. This discussion is important before we can discuss what we can honestly do in 2008. The unraveling actually begin in late 2006, frankly, when a majority of city council members voted for a budget that failed to adequately provide for community policing.
We reap what we sow, right?
The majority voted to put an unarmed Community Service Officer (CSO)to do crime prevention work in each of the the six neighborhoods/patrol districts. And that was actually pretty good staffing. But those unarmed officers are supposed to work as a pair with armed officers, Neighborhood Patrol Officers, NPOs, who have been through the police academy. But while the majority of the council voted to fully staff the CSOs, the majority of council also voted in late 2006 to put only three Neighborhood Patrol Officers in those six districts in 2007. You'll recall I voted no, because you could predict the short staffing would cause poor service and overwork.
There's a more serious issue that strikes at the heart of the promises we make to our citizens during these budget exercises.
Even though the council funded six CSOs and three NPOs, the city only had a maximum of five NPOs. So throughout this year, one district has always been without a community service officer. And while the council authorized three NPOs, we have had only two for the entire city of Lakewood since early last summer.
The point I just made a couple seconds ago during this hearing is that this failure to fully fund policing is troubling. Behind me are dozens of citizens from Lake City and Tillicum. In a couple minutes, they are going to take turns telling this council that we should leave community service officers in their neighborhoods. But what's the honesty if we grant that request and do not actually fill the positions? What does that do to crime prevention ... not to mention the credibility of government?
What both the city manager and police chief said tonight is that the pressure to fully staff police patrols meant the city could not fully staff either the community service officer program or the neighborhood officers.
As I type, the volunteer chair of our all-volunteer police advisory board, Alan Hart, is commenting that our community policing folks are at risk of burning out. No wonder. We need more of them.
"I can't say stridently enough, we need to retain those people ... If we constrain the number of officers we have, they'll respond to violent crime ... but they won't be able to respond to property crime. We're concerned about that," Alan said.
Alan is saying that we need to fully staff our existing 108 officer positions. The city has not been able to do that due to budget-related delays and the long lead time needed to hire an officer. And ... wow, he's saying it out loud ... "If we want to say we want to eliminate violent crime significantly more, if we're going to put a dent in property crime, if we are going to put a dent in noise problems and problems like that, we think we should have a minimum of 112 to 114 officers."
And therein is a challenge to us. Alan just had the guts to say Lakewood needs police, and should pay for them. His comments were just seconded by the assistant chair to the police advisory board, Fae Crabill.
"The city has been moving forward for 11 years. We don't want it to move backwards. We need the police department there to make it safer," Fae says. "This program works. People want it in their neighborhoods."
So what do we do now? What will the council want to do? Where will we find the money?
Councilman Pad Finnigan has suggested that we might share a team with Tillicum and Lake City "where crime has essentially died." Alan is responding that sharing a team between two neighborhoods would put us in the same position we have been in this year; it would put the police in a tough position as they have to choose between issues in the different neighborhoods.
Councilman Ron Cronk meanwhile has shared that he thinks the four complete teams represent an improvement for the community, even though two neighborhoods would go uncovered. Yours truly once again showed his gift for intemperate language, as I responded, "Sure, if we throw Tillicum and Lake City under the bus..."
It's hard to know, this early in the process, what the council will decide. There will be many more discussions like this, be assured. There's much more to write ...
Forward this post
Tonight we finally had a good discussion of what went wrong with community policing this year. This discussion is important before we can discuss what we can honestly do in 2008. The unraveling actually begin in late 2006, frankly, when a majority of city council members voted for a budget that failed to adequately provide for community policing.
We reap what we sow, right?
The majority voted to put an unarmed Community Service Officer (CSO)to do crime prevention work in each of the the six neighborhoods/patrol districts. And that was actually pretty good staffing. But those unarmed officers are supposed to work as a pair with armed officers, Neighborhood Patrol Officers, NPOs, who have been through the police academy. But while the majority of the council voted to fully staff the CSOs, the majority of council also voted in late 2006 to put only three Neighborhood Patrol Officers in those six districts in 2007. You'll recall I voted no, because you could predict the short staffing would cause poor service and overwork.
There's a more serious issue that strikes at the heart of the promises we make to our citizens during these budget exercises.
Even though the council funded six CSOs and three NPOs, the city only had a maximum of five NPOs. So throughout this year, one district has always been without a community service officer. And while the council authorized three NPOs, we have had only two for the entire city of Lakewood since early last summer.
The point I just made a couple seconds ago during this hearing is that this failure to fully fund policing is troubling. Behind me are dozens of citizens from Lake City and Tillicum. In a couple minutes, they are going to take turns telling this council that we should leave community service officers in their neighborhoods. But what's the honesty if we grant that request and do not actually fill the positions? What does that do to crime prevention ... not to mention the credibility of government?
What both the city manager and police chief said tonight is that the pressure to fully staff police patrols meant the city could not fully staff either the community service officer program or the neighborhood officers.
As I type, the volunteer chair of our all-volunteer police advisory board, Alan Hart, is commenting that our community policing folks are at risk of burning out. No wonder. We need more of them.
"I can't say stridently enough, we need to retain those people ... If we constrain the number of officers we have, they'll respond to violent crime ... but they won't be able to respond to property crime. We're concerned about that," Alan said.
Alan is saying that we need to fully staff our existing 108 officer positions. The city has not been able to do that due to budget-related delays and the long lead time needed to hire an officer. And ... wow, he's saying it out loud ... "If we want to say we want to eliminate violent crime significantly more, if we're going to put a dent in property crime, if we are going to put a dent in noise problems and problems like that, we think we should have a minimum of 112 to 114 officers."
And therein is a challenge to us. Alan just had the guts to say Lakewood needs police, and should pay for them. His comments were just seconded by the assistant chair to the police advisory board, Fae Crabill.
"The city has been moving forward for 11 years. We don't want it to move backwards. We need the police department there to make it safer," Fae says. "This program works. People want it in their neighborhoods."
So what do we do now? What will the council want to do? Where will we find the money?
Councilman Pad Finnigan has suggested that we might share a team with Tillicum and Lake City "where crime has essentially died." Alan is responding that sharing a team between two neighborhoods would put us in the same position we have been in this year; it would put the police in a tough position as they have to choose between issues in the different neighborhoods.
Councilman Ron Cronk meanwhile has shared that he thinks the four complete teams represent an improvement for the community, even though two neighborhoods would go uncovered. Yours truly once again showed his gift for intemperate language, as I responded, "Sure, if we throw Tillicum and Lake City under the bus..."
It's hard to know, this early in the process, what the council will decide. There will be many more discussions like this, be assured. There's much more to write ...
