An increase in both violent and property-related crime has the
city’s police department applying for a federal grant that could
add up to five officers to its current staff of 36.
Morgan Hill
An increase in both violent and property-related crime has the city’s police department applying for a federal grant that could add up to five officers to its current staff of 36.
Morgan Hill Police Cmdr. David Swing said the department could win up to $2.5 million from the Community Oriented Policing Services Hiring Recovery Program, which would pay for the salaries and benefits for five full-time officers for three years. Swing said the city’s inability to fill three vacant patrol officer positions has diminished the department’s ability to handle a growing workload the last couple of years.
“If those positions were filled now, we would have two more officers on patrol responding to calls for service. In order to provide better service, we need to increase our staffing,” Swing said. “I think we have a need, and we articulated that need in the grant application.”
The grant, funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act signed by President Barack Obama in February, is administered by the U.S. Department of Justice Community Oriented Policing Services program. The MHPD applied for the grant earlier this month.
Swing noted the CHRP grant is highly competitive, with agencies throughout the country applying for similar amounts of funding. Locally, the city of Gilroy has also applied for the grant, which will dole out one billion dollars to more than 17,000 agencies nationwide.
Swing said the department would likely fill any positions opened by CHRP money with patrol officers. Because the grant would only pay for entry-level salaries and benefits, which is currently $156,000 annually at MHPD, the city would have to pay for the balance if they hire experienced officers for the new spots.
In awarding the grant, the Department of Justice will look not only at the crime rates in applicants’ jurisdictions, but also demographic factors such as unemployment, poverty and foreclosure rates.
Chief Bruce Cumming said the city has dealt with increasing incidents of property crimes, especially auto break-ins, and especially since the last few months of 2008.
“In terms of trends, we are now experiencing effects of the recession,” Cumming said. There have been numerous incidents of theft in which items such as pipes, wires and fixtures have been stolen from unoccupied foreclosed homes, and even some cases of squatting, in which someone has moved into vacant buildings.
Auto thefts also went up 26 percent in the last year, with 93 cases in all of 2008 as opposed to 74 in 2007. In the first three months of 2009, police responded to scores of vehicle break-ins and home burglaries. Even more minor property crimes such as larceny, when items worth a relatively low monetary value are stolen, are on the rise.
Another trend Cumming pointed out is increasing gang activity, noted by the growing volume of aggravated assaults. From 2007 to 2008, that category went up 15 percent with 53 incidents reported last year, though Morgan Hill hasn’t seen a homicide since 2005.
Also, drug use has apparently continued to climb. Cumming said officers make “constant arrests” for drug sales, possession, and being under the influence.
As of Thursday, officers have responded to 155 drug-related cases in 2009, compared to 392 in all of 2008 and 418 in 2007.
With the police force’s total workload increasing each year as the city’s population increases, while staff levels remain the same, officers have to prioritize calls and respond to the more serious incidents first.
“Things involving danger or harm to people get the first response,” Cumming said. “But when you don’t have enough people and you’ve got calls, sometimes they have to pend.”
Sgt. Jerry Neumayer added that the department has only one property crimes detective and one detective investigating crimes against a person, such as child abuse.
He said despite the shortage of resources, one way officers have tried to curb gang violence, which has increased throughout Santa Clara County, is to conduct more parole checks and probation searches on known gang members and other convicted criminals. Plus, they also work with Gilroy police and the Sheriff’s Office to keep a check on people with criminal histories.
In 2008, the MHPD worked a total of 37,866 cases, of which 16,570 were “self-initiated” or proactive, and 21,296 were “citizen-initiated” or reactive. That translates to about a 44 percent rate of proactive policing.
Swing explained that proactive policing includes traffic and pedestrian stops and patrol checks in which suspicious activity is seen, resulting in further investigation and arrests.
“Enforcement, patrols, and education are the ways to prevent crime. We encourage officers to be in the community and be proactive,” Swing said. “If we were to receive the CHRP grant, we would expect to see some of those events increase, and see citizen initiated events decrease.”
Compared to nearby Gilroy, whose population is close to 51,000, crime in Morgan Hill, population nearly 39,000, is still relatively low. Last year, for example, Gilroy saw four times as many robberies as Morgan Hill; more than double the number of aggravated assaults; and nearly double the total property crimes.
Morgan Hill also has a lower ratio of officers per 1,000 residents than Gilroy, and less than the national average. That ratio is about .95 in Morgan Hill and 1.13 in Gilroy. The average ratio for cities with similar populations nationwide is 1.8, according to Department of Justice statistics.
Mayor Steve Tate said the city council pays attention to the local crime numbers and always looks for new funding sources for police such as the CHRP grant, and a failed attempt to pass a utility tax last November, known as Measure G, to fund up to nine police positions.
The city currently faces a $1.5 million budget deficit going into next year, and laid off five full-time employees this year due to shortages in sales tax, development fee, and property tax revenues.
“Overall, I think we’re still safe,” Tate said.
