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NSBNEWS.net photo by Henry Frederick. Police Chief Ronald Pagano's cops have busted a burglary ring and shut down a meth lab.
These are challenging times for New Smyrna Beach Police Chief Ron Pagano. Finances are extremely tight, but he has done a yeoman's job keeping his undermanned police force on the streets and the results have been powerfully strong, especially with a rash of beachside burglaries involving rental properties where electronics such as flat-screen TVs were targeted.
It's easy to take political shots at the cops since they are well-paid by community standards, but who among us would trade places with them. I certainly wouldn't.
Contrary to popular belief, hiring more cops doesn't reduce crime since much of policing is reacting, though police visibility and time in the patrol car can pay dividends as was the case with police officer Jennifer Fike, who checked out a suspicious vehicle that led to the arrests of two suspected burglars in the recent rash of mostly unoccupied residential properties on the beachside where electronics, such as flat-screen TVs and DVRs were targeted.
A third person, believed to be a part of the burglaries was arrested on charges connected to the manufacturing of chemicals for a meth lab.
Pagano made a major concession last summer when then-Interim City Manager Khalid Resheidat asked department heads to cut 10 percent from their budgets for the current fiscal year.
Pagano did more than his fair share, leaving five cop positions unfilled. This after a mini crime wave earlier last year along the State Road 44 business corridor involving two armed carjackings at K-Mart plaza and the NSB Regional Shopping Center, several armed robberies, purse snatchings along that stretch and the justified-fatal shooting of an armed robber by a retired cop working as a security guard at the Medicinne Shoppe on U.S. 1 last January (see our recap of the Top 100 stories of the year, led by the Medicinne Shoppe killing).
But now, Pagano is having a tougher time with scheduling and manpower. Two women officers are on desk duty due to pregnancies, a third officer is on medical leave, a fourth officer is on active duty with the military and a fifth could be called up for the same thing.
Still, the cops persevere. Pagano hasn't gone to the city for help, but if things were to deteriorate, he might have to.
During times of fiscal constraint, the first responders, police and fire, are the first to go when it comes to budget cuts. They are also the community's lifeline. NSBNEWS.net pestered Pagano for weeks for his daily police logs. We run them twice daily -- under day shift and overnight police patrol reports in PDF format (a computer term for the way they are delivered, which doesn't allow any information that is public to be deleted or doctored). That means every stop, every broken tail-light, headlight, domestic, drunken, violent, or any other conceivable category of crime, traffic, well-being or complaint is there for everyone who wants to reads it.
Besides having the five positions go unfilled, the unionized police officers went without a pay raise, as did the firefighters, bargaining in good faith with the city.
This all the while the city paying fired-City Manager John Hagood in excess of $300,000 in severance, the Community Redevelopment Agency spending in excess of $400,000 o buy the former Dunn Lumber building at West Canal and U.S. 1 that soon will be demolished with no stated purpose to justify the purchase. And there's $40,000 in CRA spending for "Christmas on Canal Street," far above and beyond an outdoor Christmas tree. These issues will be explored in the few days under our continuing series, "Show Me The Money."
The list goes on and on for projects that on their face seem viable and worthy in normal times, but these are far from normal times. The Southeast Volusia proponents for a hotel on Flagler Avenue mentioned three dozen businesses closing shop.
In the meantime, crack-addicted, mentally ill and others down on their luck continue to take up time for police who also have to deal with potentially violent property crimes, drug dealing and careless motorists who sometimes need a wake-up call through a ticket, even a warning.
Those of you who doubt the severity of street-level crimes can sit on my porch on U.S. 1 at 2 in the morning when the cop cars go whizzing by with flashing lights. I'm right smack in the middle of it and pleased to know the cops are right there when called upon.
Please remember that during budget season. Often, we take cops and firefighters for granted until we really need them.
I know a thing or two about violent crime and police response, having actively covered crime in Volusia County since 2005, both on the street and in the courtroom. Motre than other other reporter, by far, from the execution of serial killer Aileen Wuornos to the Trull brothers NSB beachside spring break homicides to the teen who fatally killed another at the former NSB skateboard park by kicking him in the head.I've seen scores of lives changed in an instant because of crime.
With this in mind, in addition to the "Show Me The Money" series, that looks at fiscal spending, NSBNEWS.net will tackle a new project: "How Safe Are We?"
We;ll take you inside the patrol car for a ride along, profile experts in policing, including Pagano-critic and NSBNEWS.net blogger Palmer Wilson, who specializes in public safety, and others, including crime victims, political and community leaders.