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NoHo West is proud to have sponsored Councilmember Paul Krekorian’s Public Safety Town Hall on Thursday, January 17, 2019 at Valley College. We provided much needed refreshments and greeted attendees informing them about the upcoming elections and how they can get involved.
Councilmember Krekorian kicked off the evening by explaining that his office had compiled all the incoming questions and grouped them to help Chief Mike Moore address like concerns together. Questions primarily were focused on the topics of homelessness, prevention of property crimes and traffic safety. Anyone who still has a question after the Town Hall is invited to email it to his office and they will get it answered.
Chief Moore began his remarks sharing how he had been with the LAPD 36 years and the year he started there were 1,100 homicides. Last year there were 259. Even so, there continue to be opportunities to improve. He is pursuing a strategy to move officers back to the field. By hiring back civilian employees, they have been able to move 41 officers to the field. Also critical to the effort of moving officers out to the field is increasing the use of volunteers. Volunteers function as a force multiplier, working at desks, calling back victims etc. The goal is to have 5,000 volunteers in 21 stations. The LAPD is asking us to join them!
Another key goal is to modernize technology, computers, network speed, and the way they take reports. The average age of their computers is eight years. The current approach for taking incident reports can require 2.5 hours to report that a car was dinged. They would like to move to taking reports via tablets or other electronic means. They recently moved theft reports that don’t require investigation to an online reporting system for users to complete themselves.
Regarding the homeless Chief Moore remarked that we cannot enforce our way out of it. More housing is needed. Bridge housing at El Pueblo has been beneficial because people sleeping on the street is more dangerous than sleeping in Bridge Housing. In that area, not everyone is off the street at night, but during the day it is reduced to zero. Safe parking lots are full, but there are still plenty of empty parking lots. We need more safe parking lots. Outreach workers for the homeless have increased, and more are needed. Each of these approaches is a step forward, but there is so much more to do, as we have enough homeless in LA County to fill Dodger Stadium.
You can watch the whole Town Hall from the comfort of your own home at anytime on Facebook.