PUBLIC SAFETY

By Tom Brault

My background in and commitment to ensuring a safer Oceanside

I am currently serving in my second term as a member of the City's Police & Fire Commission, which was created in 1992 for the task of researching and making recommendations to the Council on all matters pertaining to public safety. A high priority for us as a Commission (and for me as a Councilmember) is ensuring that our Police and Fire Departments have adequate staffing, equipment and facilities to perform their vital duties.

With our projected growth as a City, we should be planning for a new fire station in the near term. This is an expensive, but critically important budget item. And we simply MUST find room within the budget for more police officers on the street. The average ratio for San Diego County is 1.33 officers per 1,000 population. Oceanside's current level is only 1.06 per 1,000. I am currently working with the Chief of Police "crunching the numbers", preparing a report to the Commission to justify additional officers for traffic patrol to help make our neighborhood streets safer.

I was elected Chairman by my fellow commissioners in 1999, and I was reelected by a unanimous vote for the year 2000-01. Many of the changes I brought to the Police & Fire Commission as Chairman reflect the same values and strengths I would like to bring to the City Council.

• A MORE PROACTIVE APPROACH.

My impression of the Commission under the previous Chairman was that our only function seemed to be considering topics which were brought to us by the departments. We were basically serving as a "rubberstamp" for staff ideas. We did not even have a current workplan on file.

Following my lead, the Commission has drafted, adopted and is currently implementing an ambitious workplan which details 12 major areas of public safety that we will focus upon # from long-term strategic plans and staffing levels for the Police and Fire Departments; traffic safety and speeding in neighborhoods; monitoring and suppression of gang activity with an emphasis on providing more positive opportunities / activities / facilities for our youth; plus lots more. (Our full workplan is posted on the City's website at < http://www.ci.oceanside.ca.us/Advisory/police.html >)

• WORKING EFFECTIVELY WITH COLLEAGUES

I value the talents and insights of my fellow commissioners, and I have sought to more actively involve them in all facets of the work of the Commission. One of the first things I did as Chairman was circulate a survey amongst the commissioners to determine our shared topics of interest and priorities for the year ahead. We spent the better part of my first meeting as Chairman in a philosophical discussion of how we viewed our role as a Commission and what we wanted to accomplish together.

I was instrumental in the formation of standing committees, ensuring that all major areas of public safety were given an assigned focus and reporting responsibility. I actively and routinely encourage my fellow commissioners to participate in the selection of items for our meeting agendas. I am open to any ideas and suggestions that come to me, while still acting as a clear leader, decision maker and spokesman for the group. In short, I seek to have my colleagues on the Commission informed, involved, active and empowered throughout the process.

• WORKING TOWARD MORE EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

Oceanside has 26 different commissions, committees and boards. Frequently the missions and areas of interest overlap across commissions. Far too often, one commission would be working on a topic which was also in the sphere of another commission, yet neither group would be aware of what the other was doing. Frustrated by this inefficiency and lack of communication, together with Kay Parker (Chair of the Housing Commission), I organized and moderated a joint meeting of the Chairs and representatives from all of the City's various advisory groups. This May 5, 2000 meeting was very successful and brought forth ideas and strategies for improving the avenues of communication between commissions / between each commission and the Council / between commissions and their assigned staff / and between commissions and the general public. One very valuable result of that discussion was the posting of each commissions' workplan and agenda on the City's website. Now it is a very simple matter for the Chairpersons of each advisory group to click onto the website to know within minutes what is "on the table" at all of the various commissions and committees, so that cross-communication and sharing of research responsibilities when appropriate can streamline the advisory process. (Two cases in point: The Police & Fire Commission is currently working with the Telecommunications Committee reviewing proposals for upgrades / modernization of interlinked communication systems for both Police and Fire Department usage. We are also interacting with the Transportation Commission in looking at options and methods to attempt to control the problem of speeding through our residential streets.) Working together on these global issues brings more expertise and more efficiency to the system.

• ENCOURAGING AND IMPLEMENTING CITIZEN INPUT

I firmly believe that the function of government at all levels is to represent the interests of the people, the citizens, whom we have the honor to serve. As Chairman of the Police & Fire Commission I have worked on many levels to make the citizens of Oceanside more aware of and more involved in the public safety process. Several of our studies and projects started with a question or suggestion from the general public which I brought forward to the full Commission for consideration and action. The most significant of those to date has been the Premises ID Program. A private citizen approached me personally and related her frustration driving down the streets of Oceanside trying to locate addresses, only to find that far too frequently the identifying address numbers were either not present or not readily visible from the street. More than just being an annoyance, this clearly impacts public safety, as any unnecessary delay in an emergency vehicle's locating a business or residence in need of service is simply unacceptable. I took this citizen's complaint to the Commission and then to the Fire, Police, Planning, Building and Community Service Departments. The result was a city-wide cooperative plan to emphasize the awareness and enforcement of premises identification, including routine sweeps by the Senior Volunteer Patrol to detect non-compliant buildings and a Hotline number (760-435-4085) available for all citizens to call in to report any difficulty in seeing addresses. Fire Chief Dale Geldert has called this "one of the finest, most effective city-wide programs I have ever seen in a long time."

This was an excellent example of local government in action. A citizen's concern brought to a receptive and responsive representative resulted in a swift study of the problem and decisive action, leading to a positive result for the community. I will bring this style of being approachable, receptive and responsive to my role as Councilmember, and I look forward to being able to serve the needs of the community by being your voice and a dedicated representative of your interests.