Public Safety

Crime Prevention

When I was President of the Oak Park Neighborhood Improvement Association, I worked closely with the beat cops in our area to take back our parks from drug dealers and gang members, and curb street prostitution. I know the challenges our neighborhoods face every day and have great respect for the officers who work hard to keep them safe. I am proud to have the support of the Sacramento Police Officers Association.

I will continue to fight for more officers on the streets. There are fewer officers now than five years ago; that is not acceptable. We have to be diligent in searching for grant and funding opportunities to bring our ratios back up.

I will also advocate for the highest use of state-of-the-art technology to assist our officers in doing their jobs safer and more efficiently. For example, I recently took part in a police ride-along. I saw our street cops spending too much time filling out reports and not doing what they were trained to do – protecting our community on the streets. Technology exists that would decrease the time officers are at the station filling out reports, freeing them up to do their jobs more effectively.

There is much we can do to prevent crime on our own, aside from traditional law enforcement. For example, when I served on the City Planning Commission, I authored the city’s first residential design guidelines for home builders. Why is that important to crime prevention? The guidelines call for “active windows” facing the street, where neighbors can look out on their neighborhood. Prior to this, more and more homes were being built with only active windows in the back or on second stories. Experience and common sense tells us that more eyes on the streets are a proven crime deterrent. We also required adequate lighting in public and open spaces.

Neighborhood Watch programs are also proven to work and bring neighborhoods together one block at a time. The Golf Course Terrace Neighborhood Association in District 5 is one of the biggest proponents of successful neighborhood watch programs and has done a great job. I will work closely with neighborhood associations and individual neighbors to set up more neighborhood watch programs in the District. They cut crime and are a great way to get to know your neighbors which builds stronger communities.

Fire / Health & Safety

Our firefighters put their lives on the line for us every day. This was evidenced recently when four firefighters were seriously injured by a purposefully set gas leak at an Oak Park home. I am proud to have the support of the Sacramento Area Firefighters.

On the Council I will call for adoption of an updated Fire Master Plan that ensures our staffing and equipment expenditures are appropriate for a City like Sacramento and our practices are relevant to today’s needs.

I recognize the difficult budget situation the City faces. However, I simply do not support engine company “brown outs”, where engines are closed down on a roving basis. A house in District 5 recently burned to the ground at the same time the local engine was browned out. Recently on a visit to Engine 6 in Oak Park, one of the busiest fire houses in the nation, I was dismayed to see it browned out. This policy of browning out is playing Russian roulette with our neighborhoods. To me, public safety is more than rhetoric it has to be a priority.