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Sgt. Rainer Navarro, center, and his Gang Crimes Team conduct a probation search at Motel 6 North in Santa Rosa on Friday night. (JOHN BURGESS / PD)
A turf war broke out on the Santa Rosa City Council on Tuesday over whether the city is doing enough to measure the effectiveness of its gang prevention efforts, with rival council members sparring over whether the debate was a legitimate issue or political posturing.
Following a presentation by police Chief Tom Schwedhelm about the department’s efforts to track gang crime statistics, Councilman Gary Wysocky tussled with Mayor Ernesto Olivares, a former police lieutenant who headed the city’s gang prevention programs from 2006 to 2008.
Wysocky, citing a January Police Department analysis of five years of gang crime data, sought to portray the city’s efforts as falling short of goals.
“Promises were made, and one of the promises was we’re going to cut gang crime in half by 2010,” Wysocky said. “These numbers say it hasn’t happened. We haven’t even come close.”
Olivares said he “took offense” at Wysocky trying to use a report to “muddy the waters” and mislead the public by inappropriately comparing two sets of data.
“It’s almost like yelling fire in a theater. It’s not happening,” Olivares said. “People see that this city is much safer and much different because of the efforts that have been put out by this community working together.”
Following a particularly testy exchange between the two, Councilman Scott Bartley weighed in on the motivations at play in the debate. “I smell election in the air,” Bartley said, calling the issue a “tempest in a teapot.”
Both Wysocky and Olivares are up for re-election this fall.
But others backed Wysocky’s concerns.
Lisa Maldonado, executive director of the North Bay Labor Council, previously served on the Measure O Oversight Committee and said it was “very frustrating” to not have gang crime statistics provided despite repeated requests. She praised Wysocky for questioning the numbers, which she called “half-baked.”
Schwedhelm explained that the Police Department began providing gang crime statistics to the Mayor’s Gang Prevention Task Force in 2006, but that effort stopped in 2008 when, facing budget cuts, a decision was made to stop doing so.
“We were looking at do we keep the uniform on the street, or do we lose people from behind the scenes?” Schwedhelm said.
That crime analyst function has now returned, thanks to a federal grant. Gang crime statistics are again being produced, but year-to-year comparisons are not possible because the methodologies have changed, the chief said.
Wysocky said he never recalled being told that the budget cuts would hamper the city’s ability to track the success of its gang crime efforts, and said he was “mystified” by how years of data could now be invalid.
“The public is spending millions of dollars and we’re not telling them whether it’s successful or not,” he said.
Councilwoman Susan Gorin said she didn’t think the issue was “an election ploy,” but rather spoke to “the accountability built into Measure O,” the quarter-cent sales tax passed in 2004 to support police, fire and gang prevention services.
“We have a responsibility to track some kind of statistics in order to prove whether or not that money has been effectively expended,” Gorin said.
Schwedhelm urged council members not to look to a single statistic to gauge the effectiveness of an entire program.
“With an issue as dynamic and complicated as gang prevention, there is not that one magic bullet, that one magic thing that will lead to our success,” he said.
Other metrics he uses include prosecution rates, quality of the investigations and connections gang prevention officers make with the community, such as with the children at Kawana Springs Elementary School, where a gang-related stabbing occurred early last year.
“Very few of those can you put a number to, but those are the things that I use to help evaluate our effectiveness,” Schwedhelm said.
Later in the meeting, the council approved the creation of a new anti-gang position with a salary of up to $119,000, a 20 percent increase over the amount previously paid for the post.
Several members of the public said the salary was too high and would be better used on programs, also noting that the person hired for the job should be bilingual and multi-cultural.
Councilman John Sawyer said the residents who voted for Measure O and the families affected by gang violence deserve a qualified person in the position.
“I wanted to do it a couple of years ago. We were outvoted. I think we should move forward,” he said.
The measure passed 6-1, with Wysocky voting against it.
You can reach Staff Writer Kevin McCallum at 521-5207 or kevin.mccallum@pressdemocrat.com.
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Skippy:
You asked “why are gangs even legal?”
One problem that we as taxpayers face is that we allow the government to define what a “gang” is and then that same government enforces what it defines using our money without following standard statistical methodology.
The “gang police” are as UN-necessary as the “bomb squad” that Sonoma County insists on funding despite a genuine lack of need.
Police already have all the weapons they need. Police already have all the laws to back them up. They don’t need a “gang squad” except to justify extra pay and overtime for themselves.
Note the expensive brand new position they just created at our expense?
If the Press Democrat were truly doing its job, it would publish detail about just how much the “gang squad” costs us as a community in wages, perks, overtime, and man hours as well as the total number of officers involved in that “anti-gang” activity.
More importantly, just what is that “anti-gang” activity that the police claim is such a deterrent? WHAT exactly do they do that routine police work does not do ?
After 7 years this is all they have to offer? Where was the tax money spent? Do they know how many gang members there are in Santa Rosa? Can they identify a gang crime? How many gang members have been arrested in the past 7 years? What types of gang crimes have been committed?
All of this nonsense about hiring a stat collector is a diversion. This is a major management failure in the Police Chief’s office, the city managers office and by the City Council.
Why was Measure O passed? Where has that money been spent?
Lots of questions and no answers except a comment from a council member stating the Aryan Brotherhood is formidable. I am not sure that prison gang is a major threat in Santa Rosa but the Mexican gang do present a threat. That council comment unfortunately represents the understanding of gang activity in Santa Rosa and their apparent lack of concern.
“Wysocky said he never recalled being told that the budget cuts would hamper the city’s ability to track the success of its gang crime efforts”
Mr numbers is now claiming that ‘He didn’t know’ cuts in staffing would have any effect on services provided. He is either lying or ignorant on the most basic level. Either of which, … he shouldn’t be sitting on the council.
We`should take a page out of Carlsbad playbook. They are raising water and sewer rates 10% a month for the next four months, pricing the poor out of being able to live there. It is constructive, but effective in forcing multi family house holds out of the area.
Why are gangs even legal?
Why do we tolerate the open operation of known professional criminal organizations at all?
Why do we allow our Constitutional rights to be used as a societal suicide pact?
Why are we financing a Big Govt that cannot or will not account for their performance?
Just asking.
Steve Humphery:
Things that the police and local government do NOT want us to notice.
They claim they were measuring via one method of numbers.
They then claim that it was necessary to stop calculations due to a budget cut.
Today, they claim they are again calculating the same things but by a totally different method which is not compatible with the first method they used.
The result? A bunch of numbers that mean nothing but for which they stole our money to fund the activity.
Oh, but the gang police claim they are making progress even though, uh, they cannot demonstrate anything and we must simply take their word for it.
You have to love the data extractions government uses to determine if their efforts are making an improvement. Seems simple to just see how many arrested over the course of a year are gang members. You can do that with a checkbox at the booking counter, or one on the police report. Tally em up once a month, then annually, and presto you get measurement. Your programs either move the needle or not.
It seems unimaginable that you would not measure your progress.
I think Wysocky hit a nerve, a very large nerve. Worse yet his fellow council members mocked his question which is almost more unimaginable.
This is another unfortunate example of inept leadership. When will we learn?
“”Councilman Scott Bartley weighed in on the motivations at play in the debate. “I smell election in the air,” “”
With something as important as this particular issue, its revealing to read about the lame comment by Councilman Scott Bartley who obviously has nothing better to offer the community.
What exactly do YOU have to say, Scott Bartley, other than snide, childish, stupid comments such as the one you are quoted as stating?
Not much, I’ll bet.
The City should have budgeted for this when they declared themselves a sanctuary city for illegal aliens. Not that the hard working undocumented workers are the problem, it’s their kids, US citizens, that are running riot.