Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/110922
Sarasota News Leader February 22, 2013 Page 16 Would you consider merging the SPD and the Sarasota County Sheriff���s OfLumpkin: The oil change, the tires, the gas, fice? has to add up to be pretty big over time. I���m careful because I haven���t verified this myself, Dorfman: No, I wouldn���t. but I���ve heard it could run up to $600,000 a Lumpkin: No, I don���t think so. The SPD for year. If they lived in the city and we gave them the most part gives the TLC the city needs. a bonus, it would still be a lot cheaper. Having ridden with them, I���ve seen how the reIf we do let them drive their cars, and they lationships they���ve built up over a lifetime are live in the neighborhood, I would like to live valuable. It was an eye-opening experience for next door to a cop and have that deterrent [to me. I don���t live in Newtown, but I was born and raised there. I even had a stigma against crime]. the police at one point. When I was a young ��������� man, in high school and college, I was getting Police consume the largest fraction of stopped all the time. the city���s budget, using more than the My breakthrough came from my mother. She sum of all property taxes collected an- said, ���Listen, don���t judge a whole race of peonually. Is there room for improvement ple based on the acts of a few. There are good, in how Sarasota polices itself? If yes, and there are bad. So don���t have a complex.��� where and how? Some of these guys have built relationships And North Port. Theisen: There���s more spent on them than is over years that are invaluable in helping them solve crimes. collected in taxes? Property taxes. There is other revenue A lot of people in Newtown don���t cooperate, and when there���s a shooting, somebody too. knows. I can go to the barbershop and say, Theisen: There���s room for improvement in all ���Who did it?��� and I can get an answer. Will human endeavors, of course. I think the High they tell the investigator? Probably not. Point [N.C.] initiative [regarding more effective community policing efforts] has been a As I understand it, the ratio in the city is greatgood start. It sounds like a good idea. We���ll er for cops to citizens, and I think that���s a good know more about it in a year or so. That���s one thing. If we don���t find some solutions, it���s going to be hard to stop that cry for merger. thing. Anything else is firmly resisted by the police Theisen: The office duplication. I see no reaunion, but I have suggested that they use a son to have duplication in office functions, little less expensive cruiser. Those things cost such as maintaining a property room. You $50,000. I don���t know if we have to spend must make the property room a little bit bigger and you know, you can merge those de$50,000 on each one. partments. I���ve been in those property rooms ��������� and there doesn���t seem to be a hell of a lot