Editorial by Matt Marquardt –
I’ll make this quick this morning. City Hall is about to blow $76,500 to move a few walls in its first floor. The mayor, council and city administrator claim this will make operations more streamlined and efficient. At the rate they intend to cut city departments and workers, there won’t be anything left to streamline.
I have some advice for these people, who seem blind to the antics of the criminals and generally nasty element around here:
Wake up and step out of the cultural crescent, put your beer can down, look around, turn on a police scanner, and get a clue: This city’s law enforcement needs a bigger presence, a stronger presence. It needs help cleaning up the streets. The summer is just heating up, and the folks I am talking to sense that the delinquency, dereliction, malfeasance and villainy are just getting underway. We now have possible serial arson on our hands, paired with home invasions, bank robberies, vandalism, drug dealing… I could go on.
Please, spend this $76,500 on protecting the citizens. It might help get us through the next 3 months with fewer incidents, prevent an apartment complex burning down, prevent a murder, who knows. Sit down with Chief Lashbrook and see what he really needs, and do it without criticizing and micro-managing. Let the man speak frankly without measuring his words to placate you. He is the best expert we have, not you, so shut your traps and enable our law enforcement to do its job.
