This week, Chief Thomas presented the
Police Department’s 2023 Annual Report at the City Council meeting. Though the report is an extensive overview of the Police Department's efforts over the past year, here are some highlights:
- Crime is Down: Please see page 3 of the report it explains the difference in reporting requirements, but the importance of the graph shows crime is down and continues to trend downwards. The graph shows data for 28 years.
- Safety of the Driving Public (as measured by crashes): Please see page 5 of the report, it shows the frequency of crashes have decreased from prior years but has now have been consistent over the past couple of years. Page 7 shows those areas of concern the public has brought to our attention and what the police did to resolve the matter.
- Honor: Accomplishing safety and service goals (above) is extremely important—you’re safer when we meet our goals. However, those goals have to be earned within strong moral, ethical, and legal parameters. Pages 12 (recognition), 13 (discipline), and 14 (training) discuss how we hold ourselves accountable to a set of high moral, ethical, and legal requirements.
- Return on Investment: An odd phrase for government, maybe, it is typically used in business indicating that we invested in personnel, pieces of equipment, etc. to allow officers to work safer, work more efficiently and effectively, help solve crimes, etc. When I say “we invested,” it means you invested. You should know how your tax dollars are used. The items 1, 2 & 3 above show the results of your investment. You can look at items that were purchased (either through tax dollars or Equitable Sharing Funds) on pages 17 & 18 to show how the investment was appropriate.