Issues-Crime-PublicSafety

Our success in driving down crime in San Bernardino has been so significant over the past four years, that our
city recently received recognition from the White House. I was asked to fly to Washington DC and meet with
the Vice President, U.S. Attorney General, and other top White House staff to discuss our city's success and
how San Bernardino could be a model for other cities across the nation.

While we should take pride in receiving national recognition for our tremendous progress, I am not satisfied.
We must do more.

(1) MORE POLICE TO PATROL OUR STREETS. When I assumed office, there were not enough police
officers in our city to fully staff all 24 beats. I found that unacceptable and a major reason crime was
skyrocketing in our community. We needed to move toward a more pro-active, community policing model and
fully staff our police beats. Measure Z has helped us correct that problem. But it is not enough.

Recently we have begun to increase the number of police beats in San Bernardino, to ensure our police officers
are better able to prevent crime in our neighborhoods. We now have 28 beats. Also, by creating an additional
work shift in our Police Department, we have strategically redeployed our police officers to ensure that the
maximum number of officers are on the streets during the chronically "high crime" periods of the day.

These actions are smart proactive policing, but they require more police officers and resources. That is why I
will continue to aggressively pursue all available funding for increasing the number of police officers in our city.
For example, I recently led the effort to obtain federal funding to hire 16 additional police for three years. But
when these grant funds run out in three years, we must have developed sufficient local resources to maintain
these 16 officers as permanent additions to our police force.

In my discussions last month at the White House with Vice President Biden and Attorney General Holder, I
emphasized the critical importance of federal support for additional police officers and asked the White House
to continue the new $1 billion Community Oriented Policing and Problem Solving (COPPS) hiring program for
the foreseeable future. To move this agenda forward, several mayors and I co-authored a letter to the Vice
President on this issue on behalf of the United States Conference of Mayors.

(2) TOUGH OVERSIGHT AND STRICT ACCOUNTABILITY FOR PAROLEES. Parolees are the
highest crime-committing population we have. In California, our prisons do almost nothing to make sure that
prisoners who are released have changed their behavior and are prepared to reintegrate and act responsibly
in our community. As a result, parolees in California commit crimes at a much higher rate than any other
segment of our population. This is because our state's prison system is broken. People who commit crimes go
off to prison for an average term of five years, sit in bunkhouses and play in the yards, and then return to our
community typically unchanged, often more hardened, unprepared to be responsible - and thus they
re-victimize our community. This is unacceptable.

We must take action so that San Bernardino is no longer a victim of the State's broken prison system. Because
the State is unwilling to fix the prison system and send us back reformed prisoners, then we must demand
state dollars to keep our community safe through increased oversight and accountability of this problematic
parolee population. Our demand must become more urgent now that the State has decided to release more
parolees without reforming its broken system.

It is not enough for us to act tough and say "parolees don't come here," because they are already here and
they will keep coming. And while we have adopted a moratorium on parolee housing, it is not enough. We have
had a moratorium in place for two years, and the number of parolees living here has not diminished, and the
rate at which parolees re-victimize our community has not changed.

We must stop the political games and actually get tough on parolees! We must focus our energy on actions that
will have the greatest reduction in the rate at which parolees commit crimes. Reducing parolee recidivism will
actually make our community safer - nothing else will. So how do we do this? By mandating tough oversight
and strict accountability for parolees. Problematic and unreformed parolees don't like tough oversight, they
don't like strict accountability, they don't like having their behavior monitored. And that's exactly what we
want for all parolees in San Bernardino, programs that ensure close monitoring of this problematic population
and holds them strictly accountable for their behavior.

For the past several years, I have tried to create this kind of tough parolee oversight and accountability in San
Bernardino. We have worked with our Sheriff's Department and Probation Department to create a Day
Reporting Center that would require problematic parolees in San Bernardino to report daily to a supervised
center, complete job training and life skills courses, and engage constructive activities. This would allow our
police to know on a daily basis the location and activities of these parolees.

We have also worked with Cal State San Bernardino, Goodwill, and a host of other partners to create a
residential multi-service center in an industrial area of San Bernardino that would put problematic parolees in
a rigorous reintegration program. These programs (which exist in Sacramento and San Diego) have been
proven to dramatically reduce the rate at which parolees re-victimize the community, and these programs
allow for rigorous oversight and accountability.

But because we do not have the resources for this kind of parolee oversight and accountability, and because
parolees are the State's responsibility, I have demanded that the State pay for these programs. Sadly, while
the State has supported every one of our efforts and promised funding, each time the State has ultimately
refused funding because of their budget problems. As a community, if we want to address our parolee
problem, we cannot give-up and we must collectively demand funding from the State for this critical oversight
and accountability of parolees in San Bernardino.

(3) ELIMINATE GRAFFITI AND HOLD TAGGERS ACCOUNTABLE. Successfully transforming San
Bernardino into a safe and business-friendly city requires a comprehensive approach to crime that includes
aggressively fighting graffiti. Winning the war on graffiti requires a sustainable, consistent, accountable and
professional battle plan.

Since the City assumed responsibility for the graffiti removal in January 2009, we have substantially
increased graffiti removal efforts. Crews are on the streets 7 days a week, and we are removing more graffiti
than ever. In just the first 8 months of this year we have removed more graffiti than in the previous 12
months. Response times to graffiti calls have dropped tremendously, from 25 days in January to 24 hours
today. Also, resident satisfaction is increasing. In August, 96% of residents who called the City for graffiti
removal, rated the City's response and removal meeting or exceeding their expectations.

Make no mistake, we have a long-road to travel before winning the war on graffiti, but we now have the
sustainable, consistent, accountable and professional battle plan needed for victory.

Now the Council must adopt the "You spray, you pay!" proposal I asked the City Manager and Police Chief to
review several months ago. This law will hold taggers and their parents responsible for the damage they
cause. Several major cities and counties in California have adopted similar laws, like Santa Ana and Los
Angeles County, and we should do the same.

(4) ELIMINATE CRIME-INFESTED HOUSING. Every law enforcement official will tell you that
problematic housing is a significant issue that contributes to crime in San Bernardino. For too long we have
largely sat on our hands and mostly complained about this problem, but done little to actually remedy it.
There have been very occasional projects, but there has been no plan or strategy to clean-up crime-infested
housing.

Since I came into office, for the first time, the City now has an Integrated Housing Strategy that contains
critical elements targeted at the problem of crime-infested housing: (a) a receivership strategy to identify and
force the rehabilitation of problematic housing through a court-appointed receivers; (b) a program that
focuses on cleaning habitually problematic multi-family housing identified by the Police and Code Enforcement
departments through a combination of acquisition, demolition, rehabilitation and accountable professional
management, and (c) and the augmentation of resources for these programs through aggressive procurement
of grants, loans, and federal housing funds.

And, for the first time, the City has a full-time Housing Director responsible for implementing the Integrated
Housing Strategy. As a result, we are aggressively and consistently moving on projects to eliminate
crime-infested housing, like the Meridian apartments that are being demolished and replaced with
single-family homes, and like Sunrise Lane apartments where 60% will be replaced with senior housing and
single-family homes, and the remainder rehabilitated and put under common nonprofit ownership accountable
to the City.

We need to continue this aggressive action and exploit every opportunity. Hesitation and inaction only insures
the same crime-infested dilapidated housing that currently exists will simply continue and put the
surrounding community at-risk.

(5) RISK-BASED STAFFING AND BETTER MEDICAL-AID RESPONSE IN OUR FIRE
DEPARTMENT. Fire safety in San Bernardino is always a critical issue because of our geography and older
buildings. We must continue to look at the strategic deployment of our fire resources in ways that match the
fire risks in San Bernardino and emergency medical needs of the community. Staffing in our Fire Department
should fluctuate based on risk assessment and need, with increased staffing during the annual fire-season and
high-fire danger days, with preventative patrols in our foothills. Staffing, equipment and vehicles in our
stations should also reflect the service demands on our Fire Department. With over 80% of all service calls
being emergency medical assistance, we need to look at staffing paramedic engines that can quickly and
efficiently respond to these calls, while maintaining resources and quick response capability for fire calls.