New facility, more law enforcement but some suggestions go
unheeded
Local residents can expect to see more police officers
patrolling the streets and a new neighborhood watch program, as a
result of the 2008 San Benito County grand jury report. Other
issues brought up in the report, however, such as animal shelter
hours are likely to remain unchanged due to budget cuts.
New facility, more law enforcement but some suggestions go unheeded
Local residents can expect to see more police officers patrolling the streets and a new neighborhood watch program, as a result of the 2008 San Benito County grand jury report. Other issues brought up in the report, however, such as animal shelter hours are likely to remain unchanged due to budget cuts.
Grand jury foreman Roxy Montana said that outside input on the findings of the report are important. The report was released in July. City and county agencies investigated had until October to respond to the recommendations.
“The issues that are brought up are community issues,” Montana said. “The city is just one cog in the wheel. There are outside people that are filled with passion for what they do.”
Many of the city’s responses to the grand jury’s findings were simply “The City of Hollister and the Hollister Police Department agree with the finding” without an explanation of what the agencies planned to do with the recommendations.
“I think that generally, the grand jury puts a lot of energy into every inspection and issue,” Montana said. “It’s really important that the different agencies look at it from the point of the grand jury. Each year, some of the responses come back and it’s like they are in denial.”
Animal shelter hours remain issue
An ongoing concern for the grand jury has been the animal shelter hours of operation. The city staff’s response to findings of unavailability to the “majority of the community” and being contrary to the state’s Hayden Law was simply that they “disagree.”
Though the new animal shelter facility, opened Nov. 8, fulfilled some of the recommendations of the grand jury, such as providing more space for animals and staff members, the operation hours remain the same.
“We’ve got this beautiful new shelter and things haven’t changed a bit,” said Vivian Kennedy, the ACGSR, Inc. president and founder.
The Hayden Law requires that animal shelters hold stray or abandoned animals for at least six days and that “shelters should be open during hours that permit working pet owners to redeem pets during nonworking hours,” according to the state senate Web site. According to city staff, the shelter “holds animals a minimum of seven days before administering euthanasia, one day more than required by law.”
Groups such as ACGSR, Inc. – formerly All Creatures Great and Small – disagree with the interpretation of the law.
“It’s totally unavailable to the public,” Kennedy said, since the hours are inconvenient even for people working in the city.
“I have to give credence to the shelter,” Kennedy said. “Our shelter does try its best to hold animals longer than others.”
Kennedy suggested a staggered lunch period that would allow the shelter to stay open between noon and 1 p.m.
“The city needs to look at other cities with animal shelters because when people fail, animals pay for it with their lives,” Kennedy said.
Animal shelter supervisor Julie Carreiro said “that would be great if we could staff it,” in regards to staying open over lunch. However, with a staff of four full-time employees, being open during the lunch period would be impossible.
“We can’t operate with just one person,” Carreiro said. “We’re trying to do the best we can, but until the city can get us more people, we’re stuck between a rock and a hard place.”
The Hollister Police Department, which is in charge of operating the animal shelter, is in the process of hiring a clerical position for the animal shelter which will help with the availability of animal control officers, according to Chief Jeff Miller. With the set-up as it is, two officers are manning the shelter and one has to stay at the front desk at all times, but with a clerical assistant, there would be two officers to handle incoming animals or make field calls.
Crime prevention programs planned
The grand jury also found that Hollister lacks community programs to curb crime and has a lack of gang enforcement in city areas. In regard to community programs, city staff responded back by saying that the juvenile impact program has been reinstated. The juvenile impact program is a 10-week course that is focused on steering “at-risk” youths away from gangs, which is part of the police’s prevention and intervention strategy. Done on weekends, the program emphasizes instruction, leadership and also has a physical component.
Other programs, such as a neighborhood watch, are also scheduled to be rolled out by June 30, 2010.
While the city is currently lacking such programs, Miller said that citizens are more than welcome to form a neighborhood watch of their own.
“Just because we don’t have a neighborhood watch program, doesn’t mean neighborhoods can’t meet, be alert,” Miller said.
He added that “if any neighborhood wants to form a neighborhood watch, someone from the police department will go to one of their meetings in an effort to encourage this.”
To date, four neighborhoods have had meetings and Miller has attended them to guide them in their planning.
The county does offer neighborhood watch programs and does so with a limited staff, according to Undersheriff Pat Turturicci. He said, “the solution that we use is that we do have neighborhood watch programs.” The program uses sergeants to set up in various communities in the county and supplements the programs with booklets, signs and forums to involve residents in reporting crimes.
Recently, a program was established at the Ridgemark development that helped in the apprehension of 10 juveniles who were burglarizing and vandalizing that community, according to Turturicci.
Other programs the sheriff’s staff offer are a resident vacation program where deputies will check a residence twice in a 24-hour period when the house is unoccupied due to vacation; a gang suppression unit on the weekends; and two school resource officers that talk to students about the dangers of gangs. The officers also give and receive information from students.
Police staffing goes up
One of the findings of the grand jury is that the police department has fewer officers patrolling the community than they should. The city staff agreed with the finding and responded that they plan to hire more officers with Measure T funds. The measure, which increased sales tax to 8.25 percent to fund police and fire protection as well as balance the city’s budget, will allow the city to hire eight more officers throughout the fiscal year 2009/10.
The grand jury used a formula that is used by the Justice Department to estimate how many officers the city should have that suggests that the “full-time officers per 1,000 residents is 1.8 full-time officers.” According to the formula, Hollister should have 55 full-time officers.
While the department is not likely to reach that target, they will hire four officers for the remainder of this financial year and four in the next, Miller said. Of the officers hired, two will go straight to patrol duty, while the two others will become school beat officers. This is a new position with the city and was made possible through an agreement with the Hollister School District in which they paid $100,000 to go towards half of the salaries of the two officers, Miller said. Their main focus will be the schools and the surrounding areas, including crime, traffic and parking.
For fiscal year 2009/10, four more officers will be hired including another patrol officer and a detective. Another will be a unit officer that will head up the drug task force. The final position will be a personnel and community services sergeant that will help to reinstate the neighborhood watch program. Miller said he is big on prevention and “doing things that directly impact crime and crime prevention.”
