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In this entry on Tuesday, I wrote about the debate regarding whether council should go to ballot with annexing West Hill.
Many people have been wondering how the policing would change on West Hill if it were annexed to Renton.
Today, I spoke with Renton Police Chief Kevin Milosevich to get the numbers directly from the source.
And the law enforcement proposal is impressive. Renton would dedicate 36 police officers, including 5 detectives, to patrol and investigate crimes on West Hill. West Hill would be covered by an all-new police “West Sector”; Renton police currently divide the city into a North Sector and a South Sector.
The new West Sector would have one new Patrol Commander, four new patrol sergeants, 24 new patrol officers, and two motorcycle officers– all dedicated to patrolling the West Hill. In addition, there would be a new detective supervisor and four new detectives dedicated to crime resolution on West Hill. When scheduled around the clock, this works out to a typical presence of seven officers. This will surge up to nine officers during the hours the motorcycle officers are patrolling. The numbers on patrol will occasionally dip below seven during times of significant illness or vacation, but would never drop below a minumum of five commisioned armed officers at any hour of the day or night.
This compares to our understanding that King County typically staffs West Hill with two deputies, which drops to one if one is needed for transport or back-up elsewhere.
In summary, it appears Renton would provide approximately three or four times as much police presence on West Hill as King County currently provides, with greater dedication of detective support.
In addition, Chief Milosevich tells me that the Renton plan would also provide seven non-commissioned police personnel dedicated to West Hill crime resolution, prosecution, and prevention, and animal control. New evidence technicians, records specialists, a training export, a community crime prevention/block watch coordinator, and a new animal control officer would fill these needs.
Finally, Developmental Services would be providing a new code enforcement officer for West Hill, specifically to enforce clean-up of derelict buildings and other code-violation nuisances. King County just has a few of these inspectors covering the whole county, so this would be a major increase in attention to code enforcement. And for those owners who need permits to repair their derelict buildings, Renton has the staffing and procedures to process these much quicker than King County.
And the money for this comes from… ???
taxes to the new neighbors, money from the state and county. Remember the Mayor has stated that KC needs to assist Renton financially to take this area off their hands.
I do support the annexation but only if it can be done without raising taxes or cutting services.
Right! Good question. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but here is what I remember in rough terms.
We would collect about 7.3 million per year initially in taxes and fees from the area (property tax, utility tax, sales tax, gambling tax, license fees, permit fees, etc), and we would get another 2.5 million per year from the state for the first ten years, for a total of about 9.8 million in 2012. This police package is a five to six million dollar package, so by itself it would consume slightly more than half of the approximately 9.8 million in revenues coming in from West Hill. We of course also need to pay for fire service, road maintenance, parks, economic development, and all the other services the city provides, and taken together these items (including this policing plan) are currently projected to cost us about 1.5 million more per year than the 9.8 million Renton will receive in revenues on an annual basis. We also have to fund first-year and second year start-up costs (equipment for all the new employees, etc), which are projected to add up to about four million more up-front. The 1.5 million dollar annual deficit, plus the one-time equipment costs, are why the Mayor and Council are struggling with this decision.
Oops! I posted at the same time as Dave… so this comment responds to the anonymous one at the top.
Hmmmm…It sure would be nice to clean up that area, I think it would really help not only Renton but the other surrounding areas where we go to work, shop, and play. What have been some of the proposed solutions to the deficit that it would cause?
Clean up the area – how? Adding police does not clean it up, and code enforcement will not clean up properties where the owners choose not to spend the money to upgrade (or don’t have it). And it’s one thing for a code enforcement officer to cite a property for a violation – and quite another for Renton to spend the money in staff and courts to try to enforce it. Does Renton even have the tough slumlord laws that Auburn enforces?
Code Enforcement
Renton has been doing aggressive code enforcement for nearly a decade. It is likely that Auburn learned how to deal with slumlords and hoarders from several cities, including Renton. A lot of good work has been done via code enforcement in the west Highlands and in parts of the Benson Hill area. Yes, much work remains and perhaps some codes should be tougher. There is a limit to what the city can do in a few years, especially when the Highlands Community Council was actively taking the side of the slumlords and fabricating lies about Renton using eminent domain to force the slumlords to sell some of their shabby hovels, rather than continuing to rent them to illegal immigrants who don’t always understand how substandard the housing actually is. Mayor Cathy did not always act solicitously, but in the case of trying to accelerate Highlands revitalization, her heart was in the right place. Personally, I would have loved to see a few of the worst slumlords dispossessed of their rat-hole cash-cows. Perhaps a few of the others would have at least bought a couple of gallons of paint.
Renton also has an innovative program that organizes community volunteers to help neighbors who are not physically or financially able to clean and paint. The previous mayor seemed to be much more invested in promoting the volunteer program. Perhaps it was easier to get local companies to provide free materials a couple of years ago, or perhaps Denis, like a lot of other characters with ties to the mass media, is counting on The Obama to heal the Earth, cause the oceans to recede and mend the old housing. Or maybe this is one of the programs that are suffering because employee cutbacks have been concentrated in the union that does not represent police or fire. Renton must do more community revitalization, not less, in economically challenging times.
Once the Renton Community is finally unified, when Renton’s West Hill annexes to the city, we should encourage even more bold action to push slumlords sell or improve their intentionally under maintained units. As other posts have pointed out, Renton already includes several areas that would benefit from more attention to basic maintenance and perhaps a more law abiding attitude among some of the residents. Renton must further enhance its ability to persuade inattentive property owners and law breakers to shape up or move anyway. The challenges facing many West Hill neighborhoods present an opportunity to extend the benefits of community revitalization to the west as well as the northeast, east, southeast and to the center of downtown. The benefits of community revitalization don’t stay in the neighborhood improved, they come back to Renton. Why would we pass on the opportunity to benefit from a revitalized Renton West Hill?
Union Hat
well Renton likes to cut other services since and give all their money to police and fire while other departments get layoffs even though the services are needed.
they cut so many jobs the last year its a joke.
Why all these proposed annexations? Doesn’t Renton already have enough issues to take care of? There’s already enough depressed and dilapidated areas here already which are just begging to be filled by criminals. Who are the drug dealers selling to? Who are the gangbangers hanging out with? Where are the pulltabbers pulling? Fixing Skyway or West Hill or whatever isn’t going to change that so fix the local problems first. Raise taxes here and make it unaffordable for the lowlifes to settle here, that’ll do it. Perhaps the best way to save Renton is to destroy some of it.
KC has demonstrated that they are incapable of fixing the problems in the annexation areas, but they are still collecting the taxes. Renton will use the revenue to address the problems which will help the annexation areas AND help us fix the problems in Renton. Many of the people committing crimes here, live next door in the de-policed areas being run down by the county. Annexing is smart, even if it costs more money now, because in the long run, crime will be reduced all over town.
Tighten the policing plan
I really like the aggressive approach to policing the West Hill, but the cost is really high and the plan delivers way more police than are working in any other area of Renton. The plan needs to include programmed reductions as the crime rate is reduced over then next decade and as the sales tax credit times out.
Unfortunately, the plan will probably end up getting trimmed in order to balance the budget. Even if only half of the plan was implemented, there would be twice as many police serving the area as King County delivers now. Perhaps one patrol district could be drawn to include Lakeridge and Bryn Mawr, the less dangerous area, and only one patrol officer assigned to the vehicle. The district to the south of the hill could be expanded into the Earlington area, also a litter lower crime rate there. This mild reduction would save the cost of five officer salaries or a bit over half a million dollars.
Real Bad Idea
Annexing Skyway is a very bad idea in these economic times. That area will eat up the resources of the city. I don’t think people realize how bad it is up there. Here are my predictions if it goes through. The current taxpayers will see a decline of current services. The city will face a huge shortfall of money and will have to make more cuts. It looks to me like a form of redistribution of wealth. When a business grows too big, too fast, it usually fails. This is the same thing that will happen to the city. It may sound exciting to the council members that voted to push this through, but it will be a mess. Dang liberalism! TCC