The constituents of West Sacramento expect and should receive high quality of police services, fire services, and comfort level of a timely response with the right equipment during an emergency. What is your assessment of our current Police and Fire Departments?
Jim Cahill
Email: jim@jimcahill.org
Website: www.jimcahill.org
Phone: (916) 531-6264
Our public safety efforts have not kept pace with development. We have had a shortage of police and firefighters since incorporation, based on the suggested ratios to maintain adequate response time
It’s true that a new fire station is finally being constructed in time for the election. However, this represents only an attempt to reduce the deficit, and has been a planned station for many years. More importantly, the hiring of new police and firefighters continues to lag behind other cities, because our compensation package is not competitive.
In a city experiencing an increase in revenues brought on by the passage of a new sales tax and the realization of long-planned commercial expansion, it seems more than odd that we’re unable to pay enough to attract more police and fire recruits. One wonders how many new social programs have been initiated with Measure K sales tax money that could be used to erase this hiring deficit?
West Sacramento was incorporated in large part to assert local control of police and fire services. Throughout our history, there have been promises made to fully fund public safety, once we had grown enough to be able to pay for it. It would be hard to argue that we haven’t reached that point by now.
We already have a plan in place to improve our response time by hiring more police and firefighters. We just need to commit to paying for it, even if it means not taking on more new pet projects.