Jim Ireton On Task Force Meeting

On September 23, 2008 the city of Salisbury’s current administration announced the formation of a new Crime Task Force. For residents of our city who deal with neighborhood blight that leads to more assaults, break ins, prostitution, rape, robberies, auto thefts, and ultimately murders…this action comes far to late for our community to feel like the administration has our best interests in the forefront.

Though every member of the new task force should be commended for participating it is abundantly clear that the citizens of Salisbury have already spoken on the matter of crime and what they want to see our city do.

As our substations have been shuttered. Our police budgets not funded. Our Type 1 crime rates continue far above the national average. Our taxes have gone up 25% in a decade and not a single new police position. Our voices have not been heard. How do we know this…

In every one of our neighborhoods our crime rates have not subsided. Neighborhoods where people are trying to raise families, where homeownership levels are dwindling, the approach to policing our people has not been effective. In the last month, these neighborhoods still teeter on the edge. In the:

University Neighborhood – Averaging 66 calls per week over the last month

Princeton Homes – Averaging 80 calls per week for service over the last month

The Eastside – Averaging 52 calls per week for service over the last month

The Westside – Averaging 140 calls per week for service over the last month

Church Street Neighborhood – Averaging 95 calls for service per week over the last month

Smith Street in North Camden – Averaging 52 calls per week for service over the last month

Our community has said loud and clear what it wants from city hall, and it is not another study! The Chamber of Commerce Crime Reduction Task Force, the coordinated efforts of area law enforcement to get a handle on our gang problem, the signatures on petitions to keep substations on Smith Street and Cecil Street open, the efforts of our neighborhood associations to plead with officials to for help, all of this work has been done, yet we face the establishing of yet another task force.

The crime fighting police officers in this city deserve better than what they have gotten from city hall. And when they suffer, our neighborhoods suffer. Our officers are understaffed and underpaid. In every year since 2003, our police chief has requested additional positions and pay and has gotten none from this administration in its yearly budgets.

2003 – 4 Additional Police Officers not funded

2004 – 5% increase in salaries not funded

2005 – 6% increase in salaries not funded

2006 – 4 Additional Police Officers not funded

2007 – 12 Additional Police Officers not funded

2008 – 6 Additional Police Officers not funded

Law enforcement has been telling city hall what they need, what neighborhoods want, and what could be done to bring crime rates down…city hall has not listened.

Even when we were told that a tax increase for pay parity was need the administration only funded one year of it after getting the tax increase through council. The council majority was pleaded with to comb to through the budget to make cuts to fund public safety…but that too, fell on deaf ears.

So instead of funding the number of police officers requested by the police chief, the number of police officers requested by the public at budget hearings, the number of police officers needed by neighborhoods battling crime on a daily basis – our city administration, with the help of the council majority did nothing. They have accepted virtually every annexation that comes their way – increasing the size of the city that our understaffed and underfunded police department must reach, given away hard earned tax dollars for developer reimbursements, and refused to do due diligence at budget time in order to scrape money together for officers in our neighborhoods.

This new task force is a pre-election season ploy by an administration that has refused to pay for better police protection while paying lip service to our neighborhoods greatest in need.

A good part of the solution to bringing crime rates as already been suggested…what citizens need now is immediate relief by way of reopening police substations and increased numbers in police personnel. More officers on foot patrol and increased bike patrol, comprehensive enforcement of housing codes intended to protect our neighborhoods, the need for increasing the number of jobs which sustain families, homes and neighborhoods….all of these things have been told to city hall.

While the new crime task force could eventually bring something to the table, citizens are outraged at that the administrations response to years of discussing the solutions would be to create another commission.

It is time, in this community, to hear the voices of citizens who deal with the problem of crime every day.

For those neighbors who stand up for their communities, there is no time to waste, no time for more studying. There is only a time for action.