Even TV-3’s Neil Heinen gets it!
Why isn’t WI State Journal weighing in?
WISC TV-3 did great job reporting the Orchard Ridge neighborhood association’s call for more public safety by adding more police officers to the Madison city budget.
⇒ That budget will be debated next Tuesday, November 12, in the City-Council chambers. The meeting starts at 5:30 — one hour earlier than normal. Please sign up before hand, in person, to testify or (at least) register your support for more police officers and deleting the $200,000 police critic. In the meantime, e-mail your alders now.
UPDATE: More police and fire fighters, kill the police auditor/monitor. Those are among the amendments being offered. — WI State Journal
TV-3 interviewed my neighbor Theresa Drinka whose home was shot at by a drive-by shooter while she was at home. She shows interviewer Amy Reid where the bullet entered her home.
‘Feeling safe is a basic need’:
Neighborhood association wants funding for more police officers
WISC TV-3 editorialist Neil Heinen:
We’ve heard from an awful lot of citizens that public safety is a concern, and they want adequate funding for police services. We don’t know what the magic number is for additional police offices, but we need some additional officers now. Likewise, we’d like to see full-funding of the community-based peer-support initiative that has been so successful in addressing violent crime in the city.
Very concerned
Orchard Ridge neighborhood association, under the capable presidency of Mike Thomsen, conducted a survey that attracted a 20% response rate — about 200 respondents. The Orchard Ridge neighborhood survey:
Residents’ two greatest concerns are
- Public safety: 74% “concerned” to “very concerned
- Having their voices heard by decisionmakers: 68% “concerned” to “very concerned”
Rate these possible reasons for your concern about walking after dark. The top responses were:
- Fear of being assaulted or robbed: 76% said this is “the reason” or “somewhat the reason”
- Speeding vehicles: 77% said this is “the reason” or “somewhat the reason”
How many additional police officers should the city hire?
- 76% of respondents wanted the department brought immediately to full strength with 31 additional officers hired
- 14% would hire 19 more officers now
- Only 6% of respondents would hire no additional officers.
The Orchard Ridge neighborhood assn’s Bottom Line:
We see the physically and emotionally exhausted officers, often working overtime, doing their best to deal with it and more, from drug overdoses to mental health crises and everything in between. Please, focus on making the neighborhoods of Southwest Madison as safe as the neighborhoods along the shores of our wonderful lakes. And let us take care of our officers by making the Madison Police Department a safe, healthy, desirable place to work.
Blaska Policy Werkes 
8 responses to “‘Feeling safe is a basic need’”
Rhodes-Conway doesn’t give a shit about what people think and this survey proves it. She’s got her agenda and her worshippers. 6% of respondents would not hire more cops. So, she’s listening to 6% of the people.
RECALL RHODES-CONWAY.
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Nobody can disagree that it’s important for people to feel safe, in their homes, on the streets, in the schools, everywhere. Alder Furman of District 19 recently posted a long discussion on Nextdoor in which he claimed that the most pressing need to to retain officers, not hire new ones. He cited figures that purport to show, in spite of attrition in police and many examples of juvenile crime, that crime of all sorts is down in Madison for the past 12 years. As somebody here wrote recently, my comments seem to represent somebody not of these parts,. or not for very long, so maybe that person with a longer view can explain why we shouldn’t believe Furman. I don’t doubt the concerns of fellow citizens, only whether adding more police, some compromise between adding and retaining, or some other solution entirely different should be on the table.
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When basic needs of a civilized society (e.g., “feeling safe”) are ignored by civic leaders who are too busy wringing their hands over made-up issues like “racial disparities” and “institutional racism” and transgender “rights,” ordinary citizens need to take matters into their own hands. If I lived in a neighborhood plagued by the kind of life-endangering crime described above, I’d be organizing my neighbors into a 24/7 armed patrol that will operate until the city leaders get the message that protecting the lives and property of residents–not elitist projects like rapid transit, boutique markets, and banning noisy airplanes–needs to be at the top of their priority list.
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Paul Kersey’s of the area UNITE!
Nothing brings out AWOL POS parents like when one of their miscreant wannabe Thugs-in-Training gets justifiably VENTILATED!
Read some of the idiotic comments by aggrieved mother Temia Hairston, which all come under the heading of “look what someone has did to mah baaaaaaaaaaaby!!!!!”
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes!
The Gotch
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Gotch -W-O-W ! Just WOW. Good catch… great hyperlink. I’ll call it: “Crime Doesn’t Pay, version 1.0” Quote from article: “The employee had a gun because there are violent thugs out there (like Ms. Hairston’s son) who possess neither impulse control nor decency.” ‘Nuff said…
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@George’s Son;
You’re too kind, and your accolades too welcome, yet I must confess the desire for higher praise.
Were @AnonyBob to summarily pan my observations, with extreme prejudice, I’d feel I’m on the right track and…um…complete!
The Gotch
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Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now!): “And then I realized… like I was shot… like I was shot with a diamond… a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought, my God… the genius of that! The genius! The will to do that! Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure.”
The 77 Square Miles Surrounded By A Sea Of Reality needs their Diamond Bullet moment, and THIS could be it:
Designate “Public Safety” as a Human Right.
Not the kind of Human Rights that are proper basic needs provided by a benevolent society, but the kind that terminally lazy Post-Modern-Neo-Lefties push; Human Wants.
You know, like:
*Free College,
*College Debt forgiveness,
*Freedom from having your PRECIOUS FEELINGS bruised,
*Freedom from having your stupid opinions challenged,
*Free Health Care,
*Free food,
*Free accommodations,
*Free transportation,
*Freedom to sit on your fat @$$ and NOT have to work,
*Free fully loaded EBT card,
*Free ObamaPhone with unlimited an data plan, etc., etc., etc.
And Open Borders for any future democrat voters, I mean asylum seekers, to enter and enjoy all the more More MORE high quality/quantity Free $#!T whenever they take a notion.
The kicker? That kind of Human Right is not subject to the scrutiny of rudimentary oversight, cost considerations, basic accountability, or any of the other RACIST obstacles that prudent best practices adherence would preclude.
Before you know it, Madison would have it’s own Blue Wave, only this one will have badges.
The Gotch
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You forgot the freedom of transgendered persons or those who “identify” as something other than what the evidence between their legs might indicate to choose which public restroom they use.
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