I read Mila Doty’s letter comparing our cost per capita for our public safety to other East Valley towns, and citing that we are lower than they are. So What? We need to look at the cost to do the job at hand, not compare us to our neighbors.
Maybe they, too, are paying too much? Per Bob Burns, In 2016 Rural Metro had 3,425 calls, mostly medical and the occasional snake removal, or about 10 per day. No mention of real fires. Yet we contract for 26 firefighters, eight on each shift! Could these “mostly medical” and snake removal incidents be handled by EMTs at a lot lower cost?
For MCSO, what do the three detectives have to do in our very quiet town? One murder in 25 years? How about the 32 officers? Yes, we have the MCSO available air support and SWAT teams, but for our town, who needs these services? Look around, how much crime are we fighting? This is closer to Mayberry than East St. Louis.
I am not saying that we do not need these services or these providers, but I am saying that we either need to renegotiate these contracts and reduce personnel and annual costs, or create our own public safety departments, like we used to have. The projected annual increases do not seem reasonable to me, and you too should see these rising costs as being unsustainable. Especially with a 10 percent annual increase! Do you want to pay twice as much, $7.9 million, for MCSO in seven years, versus the $3.9 million that we are paying now? Hire our own police and fire fighters and get this annual expense under control!
Vote no, then renegotiate or hire our own public safety personnel.
