Life Of Jason

Last night’s town hall meeting at the Brentwood Library was fairly uneventful.  As you can see from the photo, there wasn’t a really large crowd of people there to talk to some of the movers and shakers of the City of Springfield.

Most of them seemed to be there to discuss traffic on Seminole and when the discussion turned to the city’s plan to lower residential neighborhood speed limits to 25 m.p.h. the verbal lashing began in force.  These residents went on and on about people allegedly speeding through their neighborhood, how it endangers their children and how it’s St. John’s fault for closing down a street.  Their demands to fix it included the completely absurd suggestion to put speed bumps in a major road.  They said their road was a neighborhood road and that until St. John’s closed down a street they didn’t have traffic problems like this on Seminole.

OK, let me say first I understand wanting to keep children safe and to keep people from excessively speeding through areas where traffic can be heavy at times.  I understand not wanting to hear someone squealing their tires outside your house at 10pm.  I’m not unsympathetic to this at all and as a homeowner now myself I understand how it can be a burden on a neighborhood.  However, let’s be real here folks.

First, I’ve been in the area since 2000 and I haven’t once though of Seminole between Glenstone and St. John’s as a “neighborhood road.”  I’ve always considered it a major artery and have taken it many times myself when I wanted to avoid traffic on Sunshine.  Maybe twenty years ago it was a neighborhood street but you haven’t been since the new millennium began and it makes you look a little naive to claim now that it’s just a neighborhood road.   It’s your neighborhood, sure.  It may even be your neighborhood’s road but that doesn’t mean it’s some little side street that’s not important to overall traffic flow in the city.

I’m sorry to say the suggestion…practically demand by some…to put speed bumps on that road looked absolutely foolish.  That’s not a reasonable nor rational suggestion and it’s hard to take someone seriously when their suggestion is to clog up only one section of a major road with multiple speed bumps.  This is especially true for a road where ambulances rush to bring people in need of live saving medical attention.

One of the residents says she sits out and takes pictures of cars speeding through and gets their license plates.  She wants to turn them into the police to be prosecuted for speeding.  Chief Lynn Rowe explained that this was impossible because of the way laws are set and some of the residents wanted an ordinance put in place to let them do it like the way citations for red light cameras are installed.  (Chief Rowe said that was not possible either.)

Did this woman actually stop to think about what she was really advocating?  I don’t think she did because all she was really doing was opening up a situation where someone with a grudge could take some photos and falsely claim that another person was breaking the law.  Police reports with false information would skyrocket.   It would be open season on anyone.   (Note:  I’m not saying this woman would necessarily use this to go after someone who didn’t really speed down her street.  I’m just pointing out that such a system has no way to guarantee the honesty of the person making the report.)

Another suggestion to put empty police cars on the street was a more welcomed idea.  (I think it’s a great idea.)  When people see a police car they automatically slow down even if they’re not speeding!  This would be a way to utilize city resources that otherwise would be sitting in a lot accomplishing nothing.  Chief Rowe was open to that as well as increasing patrols in that area.  Hopefully, they can find something that is beneficial to these residents without being a burden on all city residents.

You just have to remember that you can’t end all people from speeding or teenagers from peeling out.  They’re teenagers.  They do that.  More than likely, you did that.

We had the usual comments that the city’s looking at small things instead of the big picture.  The hard part of hearing comments like this is that someone’s small thing is someone else’s big picture.  Usually, the size of that picture is determined by how much whatever’s being discussed hits their property or what they want to do.

Some good info came from the meeting as well.  Jodie Adams of the Parks Board talked about improvements that are coming including a new equestrian center.  I asked her after the meeting about it because my first reaction was “if someone’s rich enough to afford a horse to go riding on then they should be able to afford to find a private equestrian center.”  Turns out this is going to be more than just for horse owners.  Low income families can go out and let their kids experience horseback riding where chances are they never could experience it before this center.   Much to my surprise and delight, the center will also be offering the disabled a chance to get riding lessons and to interact with the horses.  I’ve seen what this kind of therapy can do to help especially children with special needs and this could be a tremendous blessing for many Springfield families.

We heard about the progress of the Southwest 2 Power Plant and saw some photos of the designs.  Everything is on time and on budget according to CU.

Chief Rowe talked about crime and how “smash and grab” robberies are really spiking right now.

“If you have something valuable in your car that you want to keep then take it inside with you,” Rowe said.

Rowe told of incidents where people were inside for matters of minutes and would come out to find smashed windows and valuables gone or in one case the entire car stolen from a parking lot in the middle of the day.  Rowe reiterated that part of helping reduce crime is our being vigilant as citizens and taking a few extra precautions.

Rowe also talked about gangs and having problems getting solid police officers.  He said that perhaps when “our men and women come back from Iraq and Afghanistan we can get some more qualified officers.”

After the meeting, I asked Chief Rowe about these two issues.  First, on gangs, he said that in reality these folks are just saying they are gang members without really being gang members.  Rowe said that now you can see people in the same car with different gang colors (”last week I saw a car where one guy had on blue, one guy had on red and two others had Colorado Rockies gear on,” Rowe told me.)    Rowe said that it’s about “drugs and thugs.”  These folks are involved in the drug trade and are out to make the money for themselves.

This is the point that some local media have ignored in the rush to brand a gang problem in the city of Springfield.   Here’s the truth of it:  gangs in major cities are out for the good of the whole group and not just the individual members.  Gangs are aimed to make lives better overall and in a sense to help each other overcome problems.  In Springfield, we have people who are involved in the drug trade and may work together but ultimately it’s every man for themselves and all about them making money for themselves and that is NOT like gang activity in LA, New York or even St. Louis & Kansas City.   That’s why this is not a gang problem in Springfield.

Finally, I asked Chief Rowe point blank:  “Is the fact the city has been underfunding the police pension plan and the fact everyone knows about it a factor in your having trouble finding qualified officers?”  Rowe’s face fell and he simply said “yes.”  Then a moment later he added that Springfield is also behind when it comes to the salaries of our police officers.  He said compared to other cities of our size the average starting pay for an officer is around $38,000 a year.  In Springfield, it’s $31,000.  The city council approved a 3% increase for next year but that’s only around $900.  That still doesn’t make Springfield competitive when it comes to the best officers coming to the region.  If we’re continually lower than the Highway Patrol and other cities of comparable size then unless someone has a compelling reason beyond money and secure retirement to stay here they’re gone.

City Council needs to fix the police pension problem NOW.  We need to find a way to seriously increase the pay of our police officers and make Springfield competitive when it comes to the best and the brightest young officers.  I don’t know where this money will come from (just being honest) but there has to be a way to find a solution to the problem.  For example, we have this money potentially coming into the city from forcing trash haulers to use city landfills.  If that’s the case, why can’t some of that money be designated for the police and fire pension?  (Maybe legally it can’t be done but the question should at least be raised.)

In a sense, the issues that woman had with traffic on her street come back to an underfunded police force in need of officers.   That’s a major problem that needs to be fixed.

Don’t forget, LifeofJason is going to have an exclusive interview next week with Mayor Tom Carlson.  He will be asked about the police pension issue and the pay for police officers.  If you have issues you would like to see raised, post them in comments or e-mail me.  I can’t promise they will be asked but I plan to ask many questions from e-mails I’ve received thus far.