Wednesday, April 21, 2004

PTC budget must provide public safety

After reviewing the proposed city budget for the coming year, and attending a portion of the offsite Peachtree City Council workshop, I have a deep appreciation for the difficulty and complexity of this budget process. I am greatly disturbed about an issue that’s vital to every person in Peachtree City.

There has been no increase in the staffing level of the Peachtree City Police Department since 1997.

This is most surprising considering the enormous amount of growth, particularly on the west side of the city (toward Newnan on Ga. Highway 54 West), we’ve experienced the past four years.

I learned that Chief Jim Murray has regularly asked for additional staffing, but it hasn’t as yet materialized. The current estimate is that we urgently need three more street patrol people immediately and three more each for the next couple of years.

Considering that it takes almost a year to get a police patrol officer operational on the street, even if we hired three more tomorrow, we wouldn’t see them fully on the job until the first quarter of 2005.

While there are many statistics that support the need for more police patrol people, one most telling is:

In 1997 the police responded to 17,683 calls for service (average response time 3.54 minutes) while in 2003 they answered 77,990 calls for service (average time 5.26 minutes). During 2003 they answered 190 calls for service at Wal-Mart and Home Depot alone.

We actually have a somewhat larger proposed budget planned for recreational facilities than for the police.

Police no longer have the capability to spend much time toward crime prevention. Most time is spent going from call to call. Chief Murray commented at the retreat that he may be obliged to pull the school resource officers and put them on patrol if the situation doesn’t improve. There may also be no personnel for patrolling cart paths.

Our police do an exceptional job in keeping crime down at this point. Most everyone has heard of the tremendous job they’ve done in catching dope dealers in various parts of town recently. The bad guys are here and anyone who doubts that is seriously naive. If our police department doesn’t get some additional staffing soon, your sense of security is going to unravel like an old stock.

What good are soccer fields and first class recreational facilities without adequate police protection? Wal-Mart loses a lot of its appeal if you know you run a good chance of being car-jacked or worse, as has happened in Fayetteville in the past.

I ask that all citizens to contact the mayor and council members and urge them to first budget for full police (and fire department for that matter) staff, THEN the rest of the niceties such as ball fields, tennis courts, etc.

John Dillahunt

Wynnmeade subdivision

Peachtree City, Ga.