Outrage and homework would go a long way to reassuring Gilroy
residents that city officials respect their tax dollars and will do
everything possible to make sure they are spent prudently.
The saga of the consistent problems Gilroy police car computers have is missing two things: outrage and homework.
On the outrage front, why don’t we see it on the part of city and police officials? Taxpayers are being fleeced to the tune of $50,000 in repairs and replacment parts – so far – yet the police still don’t have the roving dispatch centers they were promised in the $684,559 contract with SecureEye.
We’d like to see some righteous indignation from city and police department officials about the problems that have been going on for at least a year.
Instead of outrage at extra expenditures, lost time and unkept promises, we hear comments like this:
“It’s technology and it’s not working as everyone would like it to,” GPD Capt. Jack Robinson said in what might be the understatement of the year.
“If they fix it, that’s fine,” City Administrator Jay Baksa said of the chronic problems.
It’s not fine.
Gilroy taxpayers are still out the time and energy spent on this problem by city and police department staff, they’re still out the more than $50,000 in repairs and replacement parts spent to try to fix the problem, and they’re still out the product for which they paid nearly $689,000.
On the homework front, we’d like to know what kind of homework was done before city and police department officials decided that SecureEye should be awarded the contract.
Police departments all across the country have successfully installed similar systems.
Did anyone check the satisfaction, repair, and hardware and software records of the companies competing for Gilroy’s bid?
The problems that the GPD has had are not unique to Gilroy, so we can only suspect that a little detective work before the bid was awarded would have turned up a thin or spotty record on those issues.
Outrage and homework would go a long way to reassuring Gilroy residents that city officials respect their tax dollars and will do everything possible to make sure they are spent prudently.
