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By ERIC STIRGUS
© St. Petersburg Times, published June 13, 2001
LARGO -- Police Chief Lester Aradi laid out a detailed plan Tuesday to re-energize the department's much-maligned community policing program.
His ideas include:
Creating a unit that would focus on traffic enforcement.
Assigning an officer to identify and meet the needs of seniors.
Starting an academy to educate residents about law enforcement.
Launching bicycle and foot patrols in Largo Central Park.
Designating an officer to handle mental health calls.
Airing a half-hour television program that features crime-prevention tips.
Aradi planned to discuss his proposal with city commissioners Tuesday evening. Although he does not need the commissioners' formal approval, the chief wanted their thoughts and guidance on his ideas.
He said creating the new programs would not expand the department's budget, which is important because all city departments have been asked to trim expenses so the city can avoid a future property tax hike.
"I think we will be able to deliver more for less," he said.
Largo's community policing efforts were criticized last year when community leaders and city officials said the program, begun in 1993, was a shell of its former glory.
Residents said they no longer saw officers patrol their neighborhoods. And the five neighborhood resource centers, where officers were to spend time to get to know residents, became nothing more than places to fill out paperwork.
The city had planned to review the community policing program last summer but waited until a new chief was hired to replace Jerry Bloechle, who retired last October. Aradi was hired in February.
The idea expected to ignite the greatest debate is Aradi's plan to shut down the neighborhood resource center on Clearwater-Largo Road. The center was Largo's first and was created to curb drug dealing and prostitution. In recent years, the center -- like the four others in the city -- was rarely used by officers.
Considering monthly rent of $600, the center's lack of activity and it not being equipped to accommodate people with disabilities, Aradi thinks it might be best to close it down.
"It is a costly and ineffective substation," said Aradi.
Ron Bortolini, a Clearwater-Largo Road merchant who fought to get a larger police presence in the area in the early 1990s, urged the chief to keep that center, saying the number of vagrants in the area has increased since 1996.
"They made a commitment to us, and I think they should stick by it," he said.
Aradi said he's open to using another building in that area for a new center.
Aradi said that most calls he has gotten from residents focus on traffic problems. So he wants to create a unit with a lieutenant, sergeant and four officers that would search for traffic violators, as well as make safety presentations to community groups.
"I'm trying to listen to the community and they are speaking very loudly about traffic safety," he said.
The citizen's police academy is an idea Aradi borrowed from his days in Buffalo Grove, Ill., where he was deputy chief. Aradi thinks bicycle and foot patrols in the park would make people feel safe in downtown Largo, if the city's economic development efforts are successful.
The chief said he wants to have an officer specialize in dealing with senior citizens, noting they are sometimes the victims of home improvement and bank-loan scams. And he would use an officer to work with mentally ill people officers come across and also coordinate efforts within the area among mental health providers.
"I believe law enforcement is not doing enough to meet the needs of an aging population," he said.