New federal grant will help School
Resource Officer program
October 08, 2014
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula News
The $250,000 grant awarded to Santa Paula Police by the Department of Justice will help provide the two School Resource Officers (SRO) and not “Boots on the ground,” personnel, according to SPPD Chief Steve McLean.
The grant was announced last week by the Justice Department, which noted a total of $124 million in Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grants would be split between 215 police departments nationwide, including 28 in California.
“These targeted investments will help to address acute needs - such as high rates of violent crime - funding 75 percent of the salary and benefits of every newly-hired or rehired officer for three full years,” Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement.
The city already receives an annual COPS grant of $100,000, separate funding used primarily for training and equipment purposes as well as continued operation of the Community Policing Building at Las Piedras Park.
McLean said the latest grant was applied for “months ago... we used the school grant writer,” for the funding.
“This has nothing to do with Measure F, nothing to do with boots-on-the-ground officers, this is strictly for School Resource Officers,” that are now assigned to Santa Paula High and Isbell Middle schools.
“Youth is where it all starts,” and as such SROs said McLean, are not only serving on campuses to quell problems but also to provide role models and mentors.
“Arresting gang bangers,” he added, “is not a long-term strategy... we’ve got to go to the heart of why kids join gangs,” identify those children at-risk for gang involvement and work with parents and the schools staff to “get kids back on the right track.”
Next month Santa Paula voters will be asked to decide Measure F, which would raise the city’s sales tax 1 percentage point to 8.5 percent. Expected to generate $1.6 million a year, with 50 percent going to police, 25 percent to fire services and 25 percent to road maintenance.
The measure, which would sunset in 12 years, requires two-thirds voter approval.
There has been an active campaign in support of Measure F and no formal opposition, although some have questioned aspects of the measure such as the inclusion of roads when they say public safety should be the priority.
Led by Citizens for a Safer Santa Paula, Measure F is the result of a series of murder that have plagued the city since May 2013. There have been 9 homicides since that time, including the deaths of four women, “All innocent victims,” said McLean.
A stray bullet killed one woman in March after gang members exchanged gunfire in front of her High Street home.
In the previous nine years, from 2003 to 2012, there were eight homicides total.
Citizens started demanding that the Santa Paula Police Department, which had been reduced from 34 officers to 20 at the time McLean joined the city in July 2013, hire more cops and the grassroots Citizens for a Safer Santa Paula was formed.
Although Santa Paula now has 29 officers, McLean said of the 11 uniformed patrol officers on the street, six are rookies with less than six months’ experience.
