Car thefts, burglaries, robberies and occurrences of gang
violence are happening with alarming frequency in our city. It’s
high time that we as a community make sure the Hollister Police
Department is adequately staffed.
Car thefts, burglaries, robberies and occurrences of gang violence are happening with alarming frequency in our city. It’s high time that we as a community make sure the Hollister Police Department is adequately staffed.
Our city leaders need to be actively searching out every available state grant and federal funding source until our police force is up to size.
Gang violence cannot continue at current levels.
City, county and regional leaders must come together and take decisive action to rid our community of gangs.
Our law enforcement agencies must also be working together and with their regional counterparts.
Gangs don’t recognize city and county lines.
Clearly, many of Hollister’s gang problems are linked to problems in Salinas and elsewhere.
As Hollister Police Sgt. Ray Wood recently noted in an opinion piece that appeared on this page “the police department is understaffed by more than 30 officers, according the recommended 1.5 officers per 1,000 population.”
With a host of crimes at nearly record levels, it time for us a community to act and make whatever sacrifices are needed to get staffing up to appropriate levels.
Does that mean hiring 30 police officers? Probably not.
But it does mean we need to hire more officers: as many as are needed to bring crime levels down and keep our streets safe.
Both the Hollister City Council and the San Benito County Board of Supervisors should be looking to and working with their counterparts in Salinas, Gilroy, Santa Clara County and Monterey County. Cooperation is key to fighting gangs.
Local gangs are organized and dedicated to their chosen trade: methamphetamine sales, mayhem and sometimes even murder.
We, as ordinary citizens, need to be just as organized in order to take back the streets of Hollister.
Our elected leaders need to be even more organized. They have a serious job that will require unprecedented levels of cooperation.
We understand that funding is an issue.
However, with proper planning, research and cooperative agreements, we think a big dent can be made in local crime rates.
We also believe much more can be done to fight gangs in our area.
The time to act is now.
Let’s make sure our crime rates start going down.
As voters we have the power to approve more funding.
As residents, many of us would much rather pay a little higher tax than let our youth be shot and killed by feuding gangs that our understaffed police department is unable to control.
