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Survey helps police narrow their focus
By CHRIS TISCH, Times Staff Writer CLEARWATER -- In a just-compiled survey of residents by the Clearwater Police Department, more than 1,000 respondents provided police Chief Sid Klein with some positive comments, some negative comments and some potential firepower. The good news: About 91 percent of people who answered the survey feel the city is a safe place. Nearly 89 percent feel their own neighborhood is safe. The bad news: The majority of city residents feel two issues -- traffic and burglary -- are the most looming problems facing the city and their neighborhood. The potential firepower: With city officials taking a hard look at the department's staffing and threatening to let positions dry up next year, Klein hopes the survey will show that more staffing is needed in traffic and burglary enforcement. "That is kind of what I use as my marching orders to my troops as to where we're good and where we're bad," Klein said of the survey. The survey is the seventh the department has conducted in 12 years. In that time, traffic and burglary have consistently been city residents' main concerns. In response, Klein created an expanded traffic unit in 1999 and launched a burglary initiative in 2000. Though the number of traffic citations has jumped and the number of solved burglary cases has risen, this year's survey revealed that traffic and burglary still are the main public safety issues on Clearwater residents' minds. "They are still my problems," Klein said. "And they are still growing." Klein said he was most pleased to see that people believe Clearwater is a safe place, though residents of some parts of the city appear to feel safer than others. While more than 90 percent of the respondents who live in Clearwater Beach and in the east side of the city said they feel their neighborhoods and city are safe, that number was lower for people who live in the west side of the mainland, which includes areas surrounding downtown. About 89 percent of those people said they feel the city is safe. About 77 percent said they think their neighborhood is safe. Still, Klein said he was pleased with the numbers. "If there was one thing I would want to glean, it's if people feel safe," he said. "And they do. It is important that people have a perception that they are safe." Respondents also reported their contact with police was generally positive. Citywide, more than 80 percent of the respondents who had come in contact with the police said they were satisfied. About 15 percent said they were not and 5 percent had no opinion. Citywide, at least 75 percent of respondents said they had a good opinion of the department, less than 6 percent had a poor opinion and the rest had no opinion. But Klein said he appreciates that the survey shows where citizens have concerns. For instance, 33 percent of residents who live in the west side of the mainland said they never see police patroling their neighborhood. That number jumps to 43.3 in the east side of town. "That's a valid concern," Klein said. "We're literally, in some of our districts, hopping from call to call." That kind of call volume doesn't leave much time for officers to patrol neighborhoods or do pro-active police work. But, as in previous surveys, traffic and burglary continue to bob to the top of the list of residents' concerns. This, despite the formation of a 12-officer traffic unit that has issued 50 percent more citations compared to last year; and a burglary initiative that has resulted in more burglary arrests. Klein says he wants to expand the traffic unit's efforts. He would like the unit to take on traffic-calming responsibilities, such as placing speed-reading signs in residential neighborhoods. "Clearly, traffic is the No. 1 issue," Klein said. When it comes to burglary, Klein said he wants to focus more on prevention. His initiatives so far have focused mostly on solving burglaries, which involves training officers to question suspects in all crimes about whether they have committed any recent break-ins. But burglary is usually a crime of opportunity. Thieves look for unlocked doors, open garages and other signs that there is easy entry. Klein thinks more focus on education and prevention could curb the burglary problem. Last year, there were 1,188 burglaries in Clearwater, more than five times the number of robberies. Klein has mastered ways of getting close to the community, and he thinks those avenues can be used to increase education and prevention. His department has a newsletter and a Web site that sends out automatic e-mail messages with crime information on specific neighborhoods. The department frequently uses its auto-dialer system to alert residents of crime concerns in their area. Klein also hosts his own television show, which he hopes to bring into local neighborhoods with the department's large command bus. While Klein's TV show, Blueline CPD, has had steady viewership over the last year, the department's Internet activity has increased 10 percent in that time, said Sgt., Doug Griffith. "The focus is to get people involved in their neighborhood," Klein said. "And with technology, we can do that. It gets it down to being very personal. When you get it down to the block and to the house ... that gets very personal." But there's more Klein has in mind. A week before this survey was compiled, Klein stood before city commissioners, who had asked him to justify his budget and staffing. The Police Department takes the biggest chunk of the city's budget, and commissioners wanted to know where Klein's money was going. They questioned him for more than an hour. Afterward, commissioners said they had no plans to cut Klein's budget this year. But next year, grants that pay for about a dozen officer positions will expire. City officials have said Klein must give up those positions, that his staffing of more than 260 officers will decrease. He's been ordered to prepare the department for that. But Klein has said he's not done fighting for those positions yet. He has said he may propose a way to keep them on board. Could the survey -- which includes generally positive evaluations of the department along with more than 230 traffic complaints and more than 140 burglary complaints from citizens -- play into his plans? Sitting at his desk Friday, Klein smiled and said: "You read my mind."
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