The letter from Jeff Christian in the July 27 issue of The Citizen sparked my curiosity. I wondered how one might determine if the amount of police vehicles, on hand and requested, was justified.
Being a senior citizen with time to spare, and having a friend of 50-plus years who recently retired as chief from the police department in my boyhood home town in New Jersey, I asked him for his take on our department’s vehicle proposal.
While comparing that town to Peachtree City would be an apples to oranges exercise since his town is smaller in population and size, he did offer some insight.
Their police force is about half the size but their vehicles total only 10. He and the captain were assigned cars that they took home at the end of each day. Vehicle life was only about three years as they were each in near constant use.
So, one could ask, he suggests, “If the manpower level isn’t to be increased and the vehicles’ service lives are constant, why do we need more vehicles?”
While he opined that the the citation writing seems to be “aggressive,” he didn’t venture to comment whether or not it seemed reasonable or justified, a stance I would expect a former police officer to take.
But he did say that a meaningful way to question the issue is to ask the media to check with “comparable jurisdictions,” meaning those with similar area, population, crime statistics, etc.
Further, they can “easily collect F.B.I. Uniform Crime Reports (UCR).” Every jurisdiction submits numbers to the state which are then sent to the F.B.I. for comparison on an annual basis.
Finally, in a remark intended for me, he said it didn’t seem like there was much of an effort here to cut costs when all the economic signs indicate it is warranted.
I concur. So, how about we ask for a lot more rationale to justify these significant expenditures before any purchase approval is given?
R.F. O’Neill
Peachtree City, Ga.
