Joshua Melvin has a pretty detailed article in the San Mateo County Times today about the on-going look at merging various combinations of Peninsula police departments. A couple of excerpts that caught my eye are:
Discussions, which have been informal, center on what a merged department would look like. Burlingame police Capt. Mike Matteucci and San Mateo Deputy Chief Mike Callagy came up with a staffing chart and rough dollar amounts for expenses.
Matteucci said they looked at several possibilities, including a Burlingame and San Mateo merger, and a combined San Mateo, Burlingame and Millbrae department. Matteucci said that based on the rough calculations, a consolidation could save up to $2 million per year.
and
But the cities involved in the discussions are very different in terms of population and crime.
San Mateo's nearly 92,000 residents reported 360 violent crimes in 2008, while the population of Burlingame was about 27,000 had 68 violent crimes reported, according to FBI statistics. Those same FBI numbers say that San Bruno's 40,000 residents and Millbrae's 20,000 people reported, respectively, 120 and 35 violent crimes last year.
Keeping in mind that violent crime is only one metric among many, the range is from 1.75 per thousand people (Millbrae) to 3.9 per thousand (San Mateo). I would not have guessed that San Mateo was two and a quarter times higher than Millbrae. All of this might be approximate since the City of Millbrae's website lists its population as 21,387.
This type of consolidation has to be considered in light of the revenue picture and the prospects for the state taking even more of cities revenues. I just don't believe any city or county can grow its way out of trouble in this economy and this state.
Posted by: SJM | November 30, 2009 at 10:17 AM
The lasted chapter of the police merger talks took place last night and is described here: http://www.smdailyjournal.com/article_preview.php?id=157966&title=Step%20forward%20for%20shared%20police%20records,%20dispatch
The bottom line is dispatch and records yes, full force merger, no. The Journal sort of missed the main point which was a full merger would mean closing the Bgame station and the council found that unacceptable.
Posted by: Joe | May 03, 2011 at 09:19 AM