What’s the No. 1 public safety issue in Gilroy? It depends who
you ask.
While city leaders and business owners have been exploring the
possibilities of having a downtown police beat, Gilroy Police
Department Chief Denise Turner said her department is focused on
thwarting crimes.
What’s the No. 1 public safety issue in Gilroy? It depends who you ask.
While city leaders and business owners have been exploring the possibilities of having a downtown police beat, Gilroy Police Department Chief Denise Turner said her department is focused on thwarting crimes.
Gilroy City Councilman Bob Dillon, who Monday called the negative perception of downtown “the biggest problem on our plate,” said the GPD should have more police walking or biking downtown to ease residents’ concerns.
“It’s never a bad idea to have more police,” Dillon said. “I approve of it. Now we just have to figure out how to implement it and pay for it.”
Turner said there are no plans to put more officers downtown, as the department focuses much of it resources reducing auto burglaries, which she said is the city’s top crime problem.
The GPD has fielded 139 reports of auto burglaries in the past 90 days, she said.
“We’ve been focusing in on trying to catch these guys doing it,” she said. “They’re really hitting hard now.”
Downtown safety has been in the city’s forefront for several months, breeding differing opinions from city officials and even prompting the GPD and downtown stakeholders to begin a problem-oriented policing program for the area.
“It’s amazing how many people say they never come downtown,” said Gary Walton, local developer and downtown business owner.
Comments from the Discover Gilroy survey showed some residents avoid downtown altogether because they say its dark, unclean and not safe for families.
Launched Dec. 14 and ending Jan. 31, the Discover Gilroy survey was an effort to aid city officials to improve Gilroy as a travel destination, choice town to raise a family, opportune place to move one’s business and succeed.
Turner said the department does send more officers downtown during the summer months because there are more residents and visitors in the area during that time.
For now, Turner said, the GPD does not have an officer solely assigned to downtown, but one officer does typically monitor activity on Monterey Road as part of his or her beat. Other officers patrol streets east and west of Monterey Road, Turner said.
The department used to employ a downtown-specific officer, Turner said, but that position was eliminated due to staff reductions brought on by budget cuts.
In 2008, as part of citywide reductions, the GPD reduced its fleet of officers from 65 to 54, though four officers were later brought back because of grant allocations, GPD Capt. Scott Smithee said.
With fewer officers, the department doesn’t have the resources to set up more downtown-specific patrols, Turner said. She added people’s expectations sometimes don’t match up with the department’s capabilities.
“The level of service is dictated by the budget,” Turner said. “When we can’t meet those expectations, people get frustrated.”
Walton, however, said the GPD wouldn’t have to do much, as even just one uniformed officer or security guard walking downtown sidewalks “does wonders for perception.”
“I think it would do a lot,” Walton said. “And it wouldn’t have to be all the time, even just periodically.”
Walton said it didn’t matter if downtown was statistically as safe as anywhere else in Gilroy. The perception that it wasn’t carried a lot of weight.
Turner said the department used horseback and bicycle patrols downtown in the past but it hasn’t been in their plans recently.
She said the GPD tries to staff extra officers Friday and Saturday nights downtown, but added, “That doesn’t always work out.”
“Sometimes we have people in training, or on vacation or sick,” Turner said.
The GPD unveiled its problem-oriented policing plan last month in an effort to learn what makes residents and visitors wary of venturing downtown. Through that program, the GPD, city officials and several downtown business owners will try to flush out just what can be done to improve the areas’ perception.
Improved lighting, cleaning or fixing unmaintained buildings and, maybe, additional officers are ideas that have been discussed, Turner said.
Councilman Dion Bracco said compared with other areas, downtown is not unsafe, and moving cops there from other parts of the city would leave those areas unserviced.
“Most times I am downtown, I do see a police officer driving there,” Bracco said. “I think if you put even more police somewhere it gives the feeling that it’s a not a safe place.”
Councilman Peter Leroe-Muñoz agreed moving officers to downtown could create service issues. He said the city first needed to determine which areas were most in need of police presence.
“That’s something we’re trying to work out,” Leroe-Muñoz said.
Bracco stressed patience from the community, and said he felt Turner was taking the right approach.
“I think you have to let the police chief do her job,” he said.
