City Council President Charlie Mallow said in a Daily News article today that the consolidation of dispatch services "handicaps our police a bit." Council OK'ed consolidation Monday, and the county legislature will vote on it tonight.
[Harriet] Scopano, a senior citizen, felt safer with someone at the station around the clock. Mallow, City Council president, said the city would lose its small-town appeal and become more like his native crime-ridden Buffalo.
Now that the station at 10 W. Main St. will close for nights and weekends, both of them feel the same, they said.
That just doesn't sound right.
Moving the dispatchers 1.7 miles away will make Batavia like "a crime-ridden Buffalo"? That just doesn't sound right. Scopano is quoted later on in the article as saying that "we'll have to watch ourselves, especially in the parking lot." It doesn't seem reasonable to suggest that just because dispatchers will no longer occupy the facility at all hours that the parking lot outside of headquarters will become more of a risk for violent crime. Heck, there's hardly any violent crime in Batavia as it is. It's one of the reasons why Batavia is a better place to live than, say, Buffalo. Do we really believe that criminals will now congregate outside the police station?
Police Chief Randy Baker makes a good point.
"For citizens, you're not going to see much of a change. We locked the doors after hours anyway for dispatchers to let (visitors) in," he said. "If someone is in immediate danger, they can go to the lobby at the jail. That's a manned area. They've always had that."
Don't people just call 911 when they're in trouble? Who goes to the police station? We call the police. They come to us if we're in trouble. That's why they've got the fast cars with the loud sirens and the bright flashing lights.
City officers are certain to shift their perspectives to go along with the changes, Mallow said. "They're going to do what they need to do to protect the citizens," he said.
Exactly. Especially since what they do won't change. Nor will what the dispatchers do change. The only thing that will change, really, is that when you call the police for an emergency, they'll pick up your phone a mile and a half away from where they did it before.
This seems to be a bit out of
This seems to be a bit out of context and about a year old. Let me try to explain.
Many people have moved to Batavia from Buffalo and Rochester to avoid the crime and live in a small town atmosphere. I drive from Webster every day so my children can grow up in a safe environment. Devoting fewer resources to our police force will undoubtedly weaken its effectiveness. The many reasons for this were debated publicly for months at nausea. A long story short is, the effect of closing our police station at night takes away some of the peace of mind and connection people have always had to that station.
This has been a long debate for years and the end result revolved around the cost of keeping the station the way it was or changing our ways to make our tax dollars stretch. In the end, the city could not afford NOT to consolidate police dispatch. That doesn’t mean in a perfect world it wasn’t better to keep our police station open 24-7.
My change of heart and rationalization that we couldn't move on without consolidation pushed this issue forward. I have never believed we as a community didn’t lose something by closing the station during off hours, or all the other benefits that have been debated to death.
We as a city need to move on and make do with what we have.
The Batavia "Poe-Poe" station
The Batavia "Poe-Poe" station should have never moved.
It wont show up at first, not because this isnt a great town with limited crime, or the great ability and response of the civil servants, But:
When you start cutting money you can bet things will get worse.
Batavia is not Buffalo or Rochester thank goodness.
Thats what makes it special.