Let's set priorities -- and pay for them

When thieves broke into more than a dozen homes in Meadow Pointe, residents were angry and scared. More important, they didn't want to feel helpless. So they asked sheriff's officials whether they could do anything to help catch the bad guys who had been sneaking into their homes at night for the past several months.

The answer? Help the good guys see better in the dark.

So residents persuaded the neighborhood's two Community Development District boards to contribute $1,000 each toward a night vision device. Residents also collected $500 in donations.

Residents wanted to help even though an undercover unit caught two men in February. Deputies said they spotted the men as they tried to steal a package from the doorstep of a home in the neighborhood.

The residents presented the night vision device to Sheriff Bob White on Thursday night at a town meeting.

"That's a great thing, when a community participates in what we do," said White, who showed off the small black device that looks more like a camcorder than the goggles many might picture. "This is not something we can just go out and purchase."

The instrument gives the user the same visual prowess that some animals have.

"A lot of animals, especially cats, can see very well at night," said F.J. Collura, who manages the Sheriff's Office Crime Prevention Unit, which oversees more than 200 crime watch programs and security patrols.

Some communities have donated bicycles, he said, but this is the first donation of a night vision device.

The meeting Thursday was White's first in Meadow Pointe, one of the largest developments in Pasco County. White has been holding informal gatherings in neighborhoods across the county since he took office last year.

Everywhere, he said, the biggest problem is the same: speeders.

"The lack of police presence in Pasco County has allowed people to drive any way they choose," he told the audience of more than 20 in the community clubhouse.

Perhaps nobody knows that better than Lisa Grey, who lives in Wrencrest village. She has tried to let her two daughters, Nichole, 11, and Ariel, 9, ride their bicycles to school one day a week, but now she fears it's become too dangerous.

"I don't let them ride alone, even in the bike lane, out of fear of somebody running them over," Grey said.

Drivers don't even respect a school zone, where the speed limit is 15 mph and crossing guards direct traffic in patrol uniforms, Grey said.

"Everybody speeds right in their face," she said.

"What school?" asked White, and he wrote down the name Sand Pine Elementary.

"We do 40 (mph) or a little bit less, we get run over," said Tim Lemaster, who runs a business that repairs restaurant equipment.

As a resident of Meadow Pointe II, I understand their frustrations. Like them, I see the light poles the day after some reckless driver has taken them out. I fume in my Honda Civic as teenagers in souped-up sports cars blow past me.

Almost two years ago, my husband was sideswiped as he was turning into our village. The driver didn't even bother to stop. My husband was uninjured, but our insurance had to pay to fix the dents and replace our car's front bumper, minus the $500 deductible, of course.

White said the 14 state troopers recently assigned to Pasco will bolster traffic enforcement and free up deputies to prevent or solve more crimes.

He also said that restructuring has put more deputies on the road and that a grant is paying for 200 new laptop computers to be installed in patrol cars. That will allow deputies to file reports electronically and will unburden the agency's overburdened communications system.

He stressed that the agency is doing all it can with what it has. If we want more, we need to tell the County Commission.

Trouble is, people who clamor for more law enforcement many times are the same ones who warn commissioners to keep their taxes down.

At the same time, they also tell commissioners they need more parks and libraries.

We have to set priorities and decide what's worth paying for.

-- Lisa Buie is the editor of the central/east edition of the Pasco Times. You can reach her at (813) 909-4604 or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 4604. Her e-mail address is

buie@sptimes.com.

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