Matt Kelty On Public Safety

Matt Kelty has issued a press release outlining three public safety initiatives he'd like to roll out. In brief these are:

1. Re-institute the very successful Community Oriented Policing initiatives first established by former Mayor Paul Helmke, which have since atrophied under the current administration.


2. Improving emergency life saving services, specifically a comprehensive re-evaluation of the emergency medical response system and services.


3. Consolidate and streamline City and County Emergency Communications.

Let's start by looking past the fact that Tom Henry has already discussed items 2 and 3 in his press release issued 2 weeks ago. In Kelty's first issue he's insinuating that the Fort Wayne City Police have significantly cut back on their Community Oriented Policing programs and philosophy. I suppose that would be news to Chief Of Police Rusty York considering his most recent annual support says the following:

2005 Goals & Objectives
Police Training Center
Provide public outreach programs to the community and build on the community-oriented policing foundation.
Achieved.

Vice & Narcotics
Maintain a presence in the community and achieve greater interaction with the neighborhood associations.
Achieved.

Now I don't know enough about the inner-workings of the local police to know who's right here. Perhaps a local officer that reads this can pass on more information because I have a hard time believing anything Matt Kelty says these days.

I also find it interesting that Kelty is going to achieve all these initiatives while cutting taxes by 10% and instituting a zero-growth budget. By the way, how is Kelty's red-lining of next year's budget going? Oh you mean, he hasn't pointed out anything from the current budget that he'd cut?

I'm shocked...