Of course, Santa Clarans want their community safe, the laws enforced, and the bad guys kept at bay. That just makes good sense.
What may not make sense is the cost to provide these services to the community. Everything the city provides comes with a price tag and our current city council has worked diligently to be prudent in their decisions when it comes to costs.
Thanks to Mayor Lisa Gillmor, who has been on city council almost as long as Methuselah, has made sure your police department is well funded. Not just adequately funded, but to the point they rank as the second highest paid police force in California.
Is it because of the dangerous neighborhoods? The villains lurking in our community? The gun shooting gangs robbing and killing residents? Car thieves running wild? Nope. None of these likely issues rank any higher or lower than our neighboring cities.
City Council Member Suds Jain has investigated this very issue and done a comparison with Santa Clara’s closest neighbor which is comparable in size and population.
Crimes rates in Sunnyvale are about the same as Santa Clara. The population count is comparable to Santa Clara. Arrests numbers are also similar.
The major difference is the COST of Santa Clara’s police force compared to Sunnyvale’s public safety department, whose officers are cross-trained as both police officers and firefighters.
Sunnyvale budgets and spends $95.8 million annually on public safety.
By comparison Santa Clara, with a very similar population to Sunnyvale spends $161 million on public safety.
Why?
Because over her many years on city council, Mayor Lisa Gillmor has bought Santa Clara police with city money. They now have so much money the Santa Clara PD , for the last 8 years, has been mailing out campaign literature supporting Gillmor’s chosen candidates. Unbelievable!
You won’t be surprised to know that their candidates are not the ones trying to bring city costs under control and who have applied sound management practices to running the city.
Consider what Santa Clara could do with $60 million in additional funding. For openers, a new city swimming pool comes to mind.
The story of Santa Clara PD is a financial nightmare come to life, and residents are paying dearly for this not-so-pretty dream.
Previous Milestones:
Milestones – A Foot in the Door! – Opinion
Milestones – Fair Play? Not at Nextdoor – Opinion
Milestones – To Tell The Truth … – Opinion
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Thanks Lisa!