September 12, 2024 – As President of the Clovis Police Officers Association, I represent 110 rank and file members in our association. The CPOA is supporting Measure Y and we are urging Clovis residents to do the same.
Measure Y is a ballot measure you will be asked to vote on in November which would increase our sales tax by one percent. The funds will stay local and be used to pay for police and fire staffing, as well as other needed city services.
Clovis has long been known for being the safest city in the valley, and one of the safest in the State of California. This is why many families have chosen to call Clovis home. Maintaining that safety ranking is not easy or cheap.
Clovis Police Chief Curt Fleming provided a “State of the Department” presentation in 2021. This was done to educate our residents and City Council that we are going to have to make difficult decisions as a department pertaining to the services that we can reasonably provide to our citizens, with the budget we have to work with.
As a result of this presentation, in January 2022, the Clovis City Council created a Citizens Advisory Committee to evaluate the police department on current staffing and funding. That committee determined that the police department does not have adequate resources to provide the proper level of service that the residents of Clovis expect.
The Clovis Police Department has been operating with the same number of officers as it did nearly 15 years ago, while our city’s population has grown nearly 40 percent. Meanwhile, the city is facing increasing public safety challenges such as violent crime, homelessness, and theft.
The police department has had to reduce several positions within the department to maintain the backbone of the department, which is patrol. Having additional funding to increase our personnel numbers will allow us to have more officers assigned to specialty units such as investigations, gangs, narcotics, auto theft, traffic, municipal code enforcement, and youth programs such as drug education.
Currently we have three officers assigned to traffic enforcement, one of which is a supervisor, for a city population of nearly 130,000 people and nearly 24 square miles. This is not acceptable; we must do better to ensure roadway safety for our citizens and student drivers. Our roadways are busier than ever, and there are far too many distractions in society for drivers and pedestrians.
Current police staffing levels are not sustainable to ensure the proper safety of our community. Over the last decade, California’s Legislatures have passed several bills that have decriminalized various crimes. The metrics used to measure crimes were much different a decade ago than they are today.
I am here to tell you that communities, including Clovis, are not safer contrary to what Sacramento thinks. The streets are more violent today. We have seen more assaults on police officers and residents, increased drug abuse, mental health issues, and homelessness on our streets.
To combat legislation from Sacramento, we need more resources on the streets. We need the staffing to be more proactive and less reactive. We have all worked hard to maintain Clovis, and we do not want to lose the “Clovis Way of Life”.