Modesto Mayor’s proposal calls for big police, fire hits
[Ken Carlson, May. 15, 2010]
Modesto may be forced to shed 60 positions to close a $12.7 million general fund shortfall. Public safety will take the brunt of the cuts, with police losing 35 positions and the Fire Department losing 10. The Police Department will shed 13 sworn officers and a dozen community services officers, more than a third of the nonsworn officers who respond to burglaries, stolen vehicle reports and vandalism.
The budget again calls for nonunion employees to take a 5 percent salary cut in the form of furlough days. “Our organization is trying to work with the city to resolve these budget issues,” said Tony Arguelles, president of the MPOA. “If you have this many layoffs, there is no doubt it would have an impact on the department and the citizens of Modesto.” Under the budget plan, the department would lose eight police officers, two detectives, two sergeants and a lieutenant. Six of the 35 threatened police positions are vacant. When the number of officers is cut, the department commits available staff to respond to major incidents such as robberies and violent crimes, Arguelles said. But it loses the ability to have fully staffed gang, narcotics and auto theft units. Councilman Garrad Marsh, a Finance Committee member, said that with the revenue declines, the city has no choice but to reduce public safety costs.
Safety officers aren’t just being down-sized, they are at risk for being closed down.
City governments rethink how, or if, services provided
Laid-off police officers, unmowed parks, closed libraries. Those are the visible reminders of government’s new, stripped-down reality. Some say there’s no end in sight. While the private sector talks about glimmers of recovery, the conversation at city halls and county buildings across the Northern San Joaquin Valley isn’t about when things will improve. It’s about how government has to redefine itself.
Leaders aren’t wondering how to provide services, they’re wondering if they should provide them at all. Some say public agencies must learn to make do under a state of “permanent fiscal stress.” The discussion for local governments has shifted from “creative budgeting” to “service redesign.”
Here’s a look at what the public can expect more of as cities re-imagine their roles.
- Sharing with other cities. Need police? Ask the city next door. Lathrop, contracts with the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Department for its police services. For small cities such as Oakdale, consolidation will be essential to long-term survival.
- Contracting. In Chicago, it’s parking meters. In Modesto, it’s park maintenance. This relieves cities of a significant burden: employee benefits and retirement costs.
- Residents paying for services. Receive medical care from a Tracy firefighter? Get ready to write a $300 check. Charging people for city services as they use them is a growing trend.
- Taxes. Modesto could pay for a police and fire force to match the city’s population growth if it charged every homeowner a $500 yearly tax. Could you imagine a scenario where people would be willing to pay that fee?
Would a city-wide surveillance network help? After all, let’s not just take back one night, but all of them.
SAFETY and PERSONAL EMPOWERMENT
- LEARN – Learn about citizen empowerment and safe city initiatives. Is there a tech-savvy neighborhood watch in your area? Learn how to make your neighborhood safer.
- ACT – What can you do about it? Using your own self-described super power, make one home, or one block within your city safer. Tell us how you did it.
- IMAGINE – Unleash your creativity and take the lead in lighting up dark alleys!
- Ask A Mentor for Help
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Learn: I did some research. It turns out that Switzerland has the lowest crime rate in the world. Their low crime rate is largley credited to nearly everyone having a gun. not just a gun apparently they got a lot of big guns. m16′s are apparently a normal a present you give to your daughter when she turns 12.Switzerland apparrintly also has mandatory military training, so people don’t just have guns. they know how to use them
Act: Based on Switzerland, I would offer self defense training and try and make it easier to buy a gun.
Imagine. Intercom watches would be used to contact 911 immedietly. a click of your button on your wrist, and you have immidiete contact with emergency services.
*Interactive bone tool on female officers left arm to reveal her weapon*
LEARN: The problem seems simple and the solution seems extremely complicated. The problem lies in the fact that there are too many criminals and not enough police officers. Due to budget cuts and other issues, staff has been cut in the local police force and there are people and issues slipping under the radar because of the lack of numbers on the force.
ACT: My solution, as shown in my animation, actually does require super heros. The good news is that these super heros are very different from Super Jameson. They do not have electric shocking bats or absurdly big muscles. They are the everyday people that live next door to you and I. They are good men and women who volunteer their time and assistance to be peacemakers to smaller, less dangerous issues that occur in our city. This will free up the trained and armed police force for the more dangerous and urgent issues that would take a highly trained individual.
IMAGINE: I believe that in the future we could utilize the use of volunteer, just as the local fire department has. Volunteer fire fighters are paged when their assistance is needed and they respond because they want to volunteer their community service. Volunteer police officers could make a huge difference because if one less officer is tied up in an issue that a volunteer could handle, that may be the one officer that is available to prevent a crime from happening that could save lives.
Learn
Crime is not something to joke about. It’s happening and we’re losing the manpower we need to not only fight it, but prevent it. The problem is, that even with all these cuts to the police and firemen, we’re still not doing anything about it. There are neighborhood watch groups, but very few of them and they lack both manpower and technology. We have to fix how much ground is covered in order to catch things quicker or prevent them altogether.
Act
With my power, I created surveillance cameras to be placed all around the city. With these new eyes scanning the city, we can team up with known neighborhood watch groups in non-dangerous situations, or get cops out immediately to the dangerous ones. The problem with this is the lack of people getting these groups together. SO using my influence on the town, and maybe a little begging, I convinced the people to sign up and agreed to go out on a few watch nights with them. Now we’ve got our eyes and ears ready to stop and prevent any crime headed our way.
Imagine
Technology is a beautiful thing. Being part of the neighborhood watch means we would be in close enough range to use walkie talkies. We could easily notify all members of the group with the touch of a button. With enough money, I would also make sure that each neighborhood watch group would have a police walkie talkie so that in case the criminal is armed, we can get the proper authorities notified for assistance without having to go through 911. We’ve been able to prevent several break-ins and have even prevented a kidnapping. We plan to continue our “winning streak” through our great teamwork and technology.
Note regarding animation: This is my animation as a video because I could not get the interactive bones tool to cooperate. It will be replaced with a .swf as soon as I can figure out how to make it work.
New Note: I decided to take Sandi’s advice and divide the animation. Watch the video, then play with her arm on .swf
Doctor Jerry Rytloc’s Journal Entry #7: Mission 3 – Crime (commence)
LEARN: Law enforcement officers as well as crime is also being affected by the recession. The more people we have to fight crime the higher the chances of crime being stopped. There are ideas such as increasing neighborhood watch areas and using surveillance cameras in different areas of town to prevent crime from happening or to capture the culprit. With more people being laid off in the police department, we should find different ways to help prevent crime.
Police as well as firefighters are funded by tax payers, just like teachers. So these jobs are affected by how well the county or state is doing budget wise. So it’s just not teachers and education that are being affected.
ACT:
I suggests that we create a highly collaborative database with information on gang members and people who had and or will violate the law. If everyone contributes we will be able to keep a tag on gang members and help prevent crime before it happens. The thing with reported crime is that it already happened or it has to happen before the authority know of it. So I will obtain as much information as possible and contribute information I collected to a database where people can use the information to better prepare themselves against wrong doers. Information is vital when it comes to crime, without any information there’s no lead and with no lead the case usually die. So I suggest that everyone who knows the activity of gang members or has been assaulted by a particular law breaker let the authority know the facts. If everyone contributes and compile a database like, preventing crime will be more affective.
IMAGINE:
If I, Healzor can obtain as much resource as possible I would fund or create a organization to prevent crime. It can be anywhere from neighborhood volunteers to people who would like to make a little bit of money while fighting crime. I can’t as everyone to participate and give up there time, that’s just not possible because people have bills to pay. If I can somehow fund such organization and make it grow from Modesto and throughout the country I’d imagine crime would be lowered. As well as have information at people’s fingertips so that will allow a more collaborative communication between people of different counties.
Having been personally robbed and my possessions taken, some of which where very special to me, I know very well the dangers in a lack of security and vigilance. I refuse to let it happen to anyone else! To action!
Learn
I know for a fact that there is no neighborhood watch program here within the apartment complex that I live in. That being said we have one security guard in the evenings that patrols once every hour or so and goes between two or three different apartment complexes. That’s not enough! Installing cameras may help but then people feel like they are losing their privacy. There are plenty of ways that can be utilized to get people more aware and that is key. If you send out letters, fliers and go out and make friends with your neighbors you’re more likely to have an easier time protecting the neighborhood. Why is it that small, small towns have little crime rate? Because by the time the crime is committed seven people already know and they’ve told the entire town what you have done!
Act
Using my gaze of justice to have criminals see the light is a trifle. But the real people that need to see the light are the people next door. How do I do that? I go over and knock, I introduce myself and build up a rapport. If you go over every once in a while or say hello the people start to recognize you and friendships develop and that is the best and quickest way to secure the neighborhood. Get the neighborhood together to meet one another and stop being so scared of the guy next door. Who knows you may just find a friend for life!
As for the fire department and fires, a good way to take care of that is to train volunteers in the neighborhoods. If the fire department can’t get here fast enough then the volunteers who know how to do the job, combined with the new friendships made throughout the neighborhood should be enough to get things together. If you want something done sometimes you simply have to do it yourself!
Imagine
Getting the community together in my neighborhood was just the start. Good caring and hard work developed a sense of kinship that started to filter through the entire populace. As more people got to know other people and friendliness spread the criminals found it harder and harder to do their work because people would always tell. Fear melted away to kind hearted truth and the world slowly became safe… one day at a time.
Cave Bear Learns
This is one smart bear in case anyone forgot. One of my main goals while cruising the mean streets of central California is to scour neighborhoods in search of information. Most of the time I find my information in garbage cans in dark allies but I also read an occasional newspaper when no one is looking. I have a concern about crime in this human world. It seems like it is out of control while funds are short to fight it. Some of the ideas people have had in various parts of the country have been valiant but they aren’t cutting it.
Sure cameras all over town sound good, but in the case of London, where there are one million, it just hasn’t been effective in catching crooks. It may provide deterrence, but that can’t be gauged. Another idea people have had is to provide neighborhood watches. This is like bringing a knife to a gunfight. The watchers may get hurt. They don’t pack any heat. Here in San Joaquin County, there is the Starrs program that provides retired people driving cars to patrol areas. Great idea.
Cave Bear acts:
I have decided to take up residence in a secret location in the city to see what I can do about the problem of crime. I set up shop behind an old water tower and radiate outwards like a giant wave of justice. Using my powers of bear-strength, intelligence, and 35mph sprinting I take a bite out of Mcgruff…errrr I mean crime. My salmon flipping abilities came in handy against a gang one night. As they surrounded me and tried to take me down I flipped each one of them into the next life. Their guns only made me madder. I ripped limbs and slashed jugulars. One guy even had his little brother along in on-the-gang-training. I spared the little one and he hugged me saying “thanks cave bear”.
On another occasion in the middle of the night there were two guys in hoodies trying to steal Hondas. Their first crime was stealing cars. Their second crime was thinking a Honda was worth stealing. But since a missing car might mean some innocent person may miss work, I couldn’t let those losers get away. They are now resting peacefully near my colon.
In my lair near the water tower, I set up motion activated and computer tracking 50 cali-bear machine guns. They track targets that get too close. First the system warns them of their impending doom. Then if they don’t back away, the system warns them that it will shoot on the count of three. But it never makes it to three……because I have it shoot on two. Serves them right.
CAVE BEAR IMAGINES!
How it all goes down five years from now….ahhh yes. There is a family that lives in a small house with green walls decorated in somekind of new wave style. They have a small boy who has to be home alone because his parents both need to work to afford the house. That’s where I come in. I prowl the neighborhoods educating boys and girls about the dangers of strangers.
Its thanksgiving time and little Justin has just gotten home from school. I drop in to tell him of the dangers of opening the door to strangers. There has been a string of burglaries and he needs to know how to stay safe. He tells me that his parents flew to Paris for the holidays and forgot him. I tell him how to set up traps and hazards for burglars trying to steal stuff. My super bear intellect and brain powers tell me that danger is close.
Just then someone breaks in, and it is this big guy in a trenchcoat. He opens the coat and its filled with knives. This burglar sees me and swears he is a knife salesman. I know better, and now he is a half eaten lump of meat in my den behind the water tower. That’s one less criminal on the mean streets.
LEARN: With the current state of the economy, budget cuts are affecting even our law enforcement departments. This means a smaller police force. To help fill the gap that will be left by the officers, investigators, detectives, etc. that have been let go, we, the citizens of this city have to get involved in making and keeping our communities safer. I, Monkey Woman, live in a…how should I say?…um…not a very safe part of town. In fact, one month after moving to this neighborhood, my car was stolen from our front yard…and stripped…SO, being the awesome super hero that I am, I went on the internet to look for ways to help make my community safer!
ACT: Using the information I learned, I came up with several ideas that would make my neighborhood less prone to crime. For example, I could add more street lights around the neighborhood. My car was stolen BECAUSE there was no street light lighting it. I would also ask neighbors to keep their lights on in their front yard and maybe even in their back yard. I am going to start a Neighborhood Watch!! I’ll even put the signs up…that will discourage people from doing criminal acts. Also, I will knock on people’s doors to recruit more people to join Neighborhood Watch; if they don’t answer I will leave some sort of flyer letting them now a neighborhood watch is starting in our area and in what ways everyone can help prevent crime here. I think these flyers will discourage crime as well. I will hold monthly meeting for our Neighborhood Watch. I will also patrol around the streets at night. If I presence any crimes being committed I will use my powers! You don’t remember?…It’s the banana peel I make appear spontaneously in front of bad guys and the poison banana seeds I shoot out of my index fingers…
These street lights will help my community be safer! YAY!
IMAGINE: What if a safety emergency occurred in my neighborhood five years from now? Like, um, what if there were burglars targeting our area…HMM. First, I would deliver flyers to each house to notify the neighbors. I would hold a NW meeting to hear about people’s concerns and also their suggestions. I would also keep watch at night.
As you can tell, this week’s mission was about crime. Rather than try a conventional method of preventing crime, I thought to go right to its source: children. Really, what are babies if not just little criminals. The best way to stop a crime is to stop the criminal from ever picking up a life of crime at all.
Plus, its easy! I met the kid in the comic, Al, back during mission two when I was doing free advertising work for local businesses (you can see him in the video! he’s the one playing with the purple handball). He’s a real sweet kid, but sometimes he doesn’t like to share what’s bothering him. He’s got a real Atlus complex like that, constantly feeling like he has to hold the whole world on his shoulders.
Anyway, he and his mum got into a bit of a row one night and he thought he’d run away from home. I happened to wanted a small pick me up after a rather frightening encounter with the local crime element and he tagged along (mostly I insisted to get him out of the rain). Over burgers, we talked and he got whatever was bothering off of his chest. After several hours, he learned to see things from his mother’s perspective and wasn’t as angry any longer. He went home not long after and now he and his mother are getting along splendidly. I’m happy to report that young Al is no longer in any danger of being a criminal.
Yes, it is as easy as that. Just be a big brother or a big sister to kids who look like they could use a little help carrying their burdens. Their shoulders are smaller than ours, so even a little bit of our help can go a long way.
Learn: If only there were more people to help me out with these damsels in distress causes. Unfortunately, due to this pitiful economic crisis I am forced to take on these crimes all by my lonesome. Not that I’m complaining or anything, but more police officers, and firefighters would surely be fantastic. Bring my follow rescuers back I say!
Crack, bust!!! *Screaming* Help, help! Someone is robbing my house. Have no fear victimized pedestrian, Fierce Dreamer to the rescue. Now I know that these types of things happen quite often, but I must say it is becoming a hassle to save these people from vicious crimes.
It is devastating to learn that Modesto may lose a total of 60 positions split between 35 police officers and 10 firefighters, 13 sworn officers and a dozen community service officers. That means I Fierce Dreamer will have to fill in the spots of those 60 lost positions in order to stop burglary, vandalism, and to put out the fire. These citizens are going to put in harms ways considering the fact that most neighbor hoods do not offer any sort of security or protection. I mean not even my secret dreamer cave have security around it. Although I have to say that the neighborhood I live in before I was Fierce Dreamer did have security roaming around and no one was ever robbed. However there was still an occasional house fire now and then.
Act:
Attention… Attention my fellow citizens please stop with the crime before I Fierce Dreamer take my whole super powerness to a whole another level. Just to warn you some of you might not like what I unleash. Okay… okay that’s just my wishful thinking again coming out of my little tiny ounce of irritation. Someone please explain to me what good can come out of cutting the jobs of police officers and firefighters. Oh yeah that’s right nothing good comes from it. So as I Fierce Dreamer take control into my own hands I will set up surveillance cameras in neighborhoods. Maybe this would trigger a sense of fright in those law breakers. Along with that every neighborhood should have their own criminal watching club. I mean who else know the people that live in your neighborhood better than you do right? The club will meet each week to discuss any suspicious activity that take place. It wouldn’t be to bad of an idea if maybe families and friends attend self defense classes. As for the fire well that’s not really that preventable, but just in case keep a fire extinguisher handy. The more prepared people are the better they are at facing danger.
Imagine:
Destruction in my neighborhood? Ha! Bring it on. My neighbors are well prepared to take on anything brought our way. If it’s a robber we could easily take them down thanks to our wonderful self defense training. Say if there was an incident that requires me to notify my whole neighborhood that would be all done with the touch of button. What button you may ask? Well thanks to that wonderful invention of freedom alert the word gets spread ultra fast. My neighborhood and I have took the liberty to install the freedom alert system in everyone’s house so that when one of us is in danger we just hit the button and wha-lah everyone is aware.
LEARN: This city is safer than 3% of the cities in the US. With more and more police officers and fire fighters being cut from their jobs, this is scary. Our safety is in jeopardy.
Modesto and crime go hand in hand. After doing my internet research, I found out this disturbing statistic – with 100 being the safest, Modesto scores a 3. A three! I knew our town was pretty pitiful, but this made me do a double take.
There is no tech-savvy neighborhood watch in my area. There are no surveillance cameras or high tech devices. We all just watch out for each other as best we can. Now that my husband and I are homeowners, we have developed great relationships with our neighbors. Most of them are retired which is good because they are home during the day. One of our neighbors does a lot of traveling and we make sure to keep an eye on their home. When someone goes out of town, we inform each other. We also have an alarm system. Despite living in what we consider a safe neighborhood, we made sure to get one as soon as we moved in. With two precious young children and possessions we care about, it was a must.
My parents live in a very nice established neighborhood in Modesto. It is a quiet street filled with beautiful homes and friendly, supportive neighbors. When I was in high school, their vehicle was stolen right out of their driveway! I was shocked! No one heard a thing? What?!? It was missing for three days before police found it in an orchard with a homeless drug addict in it. That really opened my eyes to the fact that no neighborhood is safe.
Just last week my mom got her car broken into. She owns her own business downtown and parks in a city parking garage. Windows of cars were shattered and vandalized. I worry about her safety down there at night. Something has to be done!
ACT:
Okay, so Modesto needs a better crime watch system. Here comes Supermom to the rescue yet again! It is obvious that neighborhoods need to rally together to form better neighborhood watch programs. It has to be a team effort! Everyone needs to participate in order to make their home and their street safer. If more homeowners think of other homes as their own, more people will take action to ensure that families are safe.
It’s also good to know what times people are home. Most people have a set schedule throughout the day. Learn it. Making sure everyone is keeping an eye on the neighborhood is key. Note odd behavior, cars and strangers. Phone numbers need to be shared so everyone has the information they needed to contact someone ASAP.
I wll make sure everyone in my neighborhood had an alarm system in place. It is also important to have a sign in the front of your home or stickers on your windows to show that you have this added security. An alarm system will hopefully give my neightbors peace of mind. It will also deter robbers from entering homes in the neighborhood. I will also make sure cars parked outside are equipped with alarms.
Adequate lighting is a crucial. As supermom, I will make sure everyone has a well lit home. How does the neighborhood look? If it’s not clean and well kept, I wil set up a neighborhood clean up day. Keeping your block looking cared for will tell others you care.
I will also hold an informative meeting so everyone in the neighborhood can learn how to better protect themselves against theft and other dangers. Perhaps bringing in experts in self defense would be beneficial. If someone knows a police officer, set up a meeting time. It’s important that neighbors aren’t afraid to build a partnership with police. It’s okay to report suspicious behavior without fear of retaliation.
And since I’m Supermom, I will make sure our police and fire departments had all the funding they need. No more job layoffs and more officers to respond to crime! In our time of economic distress, more and more people are concerned about the rising threat of crime in their community.
IMAGINE:
Cars are being broken into. I swoop down to notify the neighborhood, but see our neighborhood watch program is in effect. This Supermom is proud to see that everyone is working together. Alarm systems are alerting others of danger. Neighbors are making phone calls to notify neighbors and the police. Thieves are getting the message that this neighborhood is not to be messed with. We are all active participants and our master plan is working!
Corrupt Angel Investigates: Unfortunately, the neighborhood that my alter-ego calls home is in the seedy part of town. Yup, wrong side of the tracks for Miss Chani…..good news for super heroes. As far as this super hero can tell, neighborhood safety, crime prevention, and a sense of pride is completely lacking in this part of town. People live in fear. This neighborhood definitely needs help…..NOW.
Act: I can’t have my alter-ego living in such an unsafe environment. Let’s face it……something happens to her I’m toast. So I have to at least make our block safer from all the criminal miscreants out there in this world. I believe it’s time to empower my neighbors, get Chani outta the house (she’s practically a shut-in) I believe the solution to make this place safer is to get everyone involved to protect ourselves from all the criminals. Power is best in numbers. We shall set up a network of information and call it the City-Wide Neighborhood Watch Initiative (CNWI) [YAY anagrams……fancy and official sounding]. Since the police are so underfunded this will eliminate unnecessary calls and assist them in nabbing the bad guys.
Imagine: Here are a few comics produced by my non-super hero counterpart. I got her off the couch and busy making awesome chronicles of my many adventures (aren’t they awesome?!??!). I thank her, even though she complains a lot and wants to busy herself with video games all day long. They display my awesome leadership skills and charisma perfectly…..the last bit shows how my neighborhood watch will work some time into the future. No criminals will be in this neighborhood. All the baddies will be vanquished with my help. We will be watching!
Nice idea. I wouldn’t mind being a cop for a day or two, since we are all superheroes in our won way…
its very interesting to read of all the many shocking events that have happened and are happening all throughout our neighborhoods and we dont even knowing it. and even if we do know it, it may not matter since many times we are cause of the bystander effect adn just do nothing to help out those in need. it really does hurt to read and see all those statistics about the much bulling that goes on and how its affecting all those kids.its crazy to hear about a 6 yr old being charged for murder against a baby. its really shocking to hear all of this. but it is great to hear and see that there are those who stand up to do what ever they can in their power to not just help police to fight crime but the any kids and victims who are exposed to all of this harsh and terrible crimes that go one influencing many people. because of this, i will make sure that i dont become art of this bystander effect adn do what i can to help those who need it . and educate those kids and families who r not aware of the many risks that go on in schools, streets, and our very own neighborhoods.
Education can help solve some of the problems with crime. But we need our PD and FD to be left alone!