The CotoBuzz Journal, Community Journalism

In the words of former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani from his speech at DMD New York in June 2002 when asked by an audience member how he got crime under control, he replied " ...the city set up the right tracking metrics and benchmarks.....If you can't measure it, you can't manage it; and you can't manage it if you are not measuring it." Like Rudy, we are firm believers in that old management adage anent public safety. Hence we have been developing public safety management tools for the past several years - the OCSD Blogger is not an example of such management tools, as there is no pattern recognition or slice and dice features.

Consider as a way of illustration, one of the incidents we are following up:

In this case, a DUI related accident and subsequent arrest of a witness for other causes, the CHP closes the investigation. It is now up to the OCDA to bring up charges. The CHP spokesperson has no idea when and if the DA will ever bring up any charges "may take years before we even hear about it, if at all", he said. When we ask for case numbers, we are told that the DA uses its own numbering system, and there may not be any correlation at all between the CHP's numbering system, and that of the OCDA's office. We get a case number from the CHP for the DUI accident, but only the time of the arrest for the arrested witness, since the CHP is apparently unable to handle two different incidents and the latter was not traffic related.

We then contacted the OCDA, gave them the information we had received from the CHP - over 24 hours later they have been unable to correlate the information frm the CHP to the OCDA intake.

Never mind that the OCDA's office last month, charged Heidi Lynn Housel, a clerk in the traffic department of the Orange County Superior Court, with one felony count of altering public documents - fixing 18 tickets on behalf of family members and friends. That is, when OCDA the CHP, the OCSD and other law enforcement agencies do not have a common information language, there is an opportunity for crime - the bigger issue is that the public safety is not well served.

Last Monday, August 4, 2008 a bomb squad found and destroyed an explosive substance some 100 yards from the end of Via Taliana, a slope in O'Neill Regional Park. We have not been able to confirm with the OCSD the status of the investigation, and whether or not Homeland Security will get involved.

On March 12, 2006 Mr. Morteza Manian was transported to Mission Regional Hospital, and succumbed after being struck by a car driven by a Coto teen, while he was riding his bicycle. Eventually the teen was taken into custody, charged with vehicular manslaughter, felony hit and run and resisting and delaying or obstructing an officer.

Because the driver was a teen, the OCDA refused to discuss anything related to the case, citing confidentiality laws and regulations. Mainstream media did not report the tragic incident.

Mr. Morteza Manian

That did not prevent the homeowners association board of directors from blaming Mr. Manian "for vehicle code violations". The teen was able to attend summer school that year and was driving again shortly after the accident: Price tag? 200 hours community service.

Blogger and San Bernardino Police Officers' Association consultant Joseph Turner, recently made the argument that the city needs additional funding to support additional officers in response to "Mayor Pat Morris' recent attempt to blame the San Bernardino Police Officers' Association (SBPOA)"

We challenged Mr. Turner's assertion that adding labor, absent any semblance of competition, employees in the public safety monopoly will do just enough to reach retirement.

The typical politically correct response regarding public safety is to increase the budget and place additional police officer on the street, in order to "improve public safety" - rarely is the argument supported by relevant key public safety indicators, specifically correlated to departmental efficiency.

Mr. Turner response follows:

"In the Summer of 2006, San Bernardino enjoyed the assistance of additional police officers through partnerships with various other law enforcement agencies. Crime decreased dramatically.

Not coincidentally, when the partnerships expired, crime ticked up once again.

Our city recently hired additional officers through increased revenue from a sales tax increase in November 2006. Monies from that measure started filtering into the city coffers in the second quarter of 2007. With the hiring and training of officers, they finally started coming on line this year and recent reports are that crime has dropped 10% in the first half of this year"

Not sure if the "partnerships" Mr. Turner refers to are the more traditional law enforcement cooperative efforts, or whether he refers to some sort of outsourcing - or does money change hands, that we do not know about, when different law enforcement agencies talk to each other?

We are convinced that cities such as Los Angeles, San Bernardino or Rancho Santa Margarita, cannot police their way out of gangs, cannot rely on policing to fight crime and vandalism, or even terrorism - it takes a coordinated effort, including
· Coordination of the various law enforcement agencies in the community
· Public awareness
· Engineering - traffic patters, resident patters, Data mining, etc.
· Law enforcement visibility
· Metrics, metrics, metrics.

Chat with Coto de Caza (CZ) Enforcement Coordinator
Resident: Does the association have any regulations regarding the use of motorized vehicles by teens in general and specifically the use of motorized skateboards, such as the ones in the photos below? If so, what are these?

Coto de Caza Stabbing Incident Update
Coto de Caza - An 18th birthday celebration in Coto de Caza over the past weekend, where allegedly spirits were flowing freely and party-goers ranged in age from 18 to late 20s and the homeowner was there at the time, eventually turned into a stabbing...

You aid and abet teen drinking, you pay ? Mission Viejo
Thousand Oaks, Mission Viejo, Irvine and Lake Forest continually rank at the top of the list of the safest cities for the size in the nation by FBI reporting standards. In fact, the 2004 FBI person crime risk index for Coto de Caza was twice that of...

Dangerous Coto de Caza Roads and Intersections
The changing Coto de Caza demographics have had a major impact on the collision pattern as shown below. Whereas for the period from 2000 through November 2004, 75% of the collisions in the community involved three roads, current collision distribution...

Coto de Caza, 2Q2007 CHP Collision Summary
The newly elected CZ Master Association Board of directors? president has vowed to improve the relationship between the board and CHP management, a minimum requirement in order to increase the CHP traffic patrol to at least 2006 levels. We think that...

1Q2007 Coto de Caza Crime and Vandalism Report
A comparison between the 1Q2006 and 1Q2007 Crime and Vandalism reports shows that a favorite Coto de Caza crime is fraud, that the Peter Pan Syndrome continues to be alive and well (crime is evenly distributed between kids and adults) and a criminal...

CZ Master Association CC&R Violator's List
We continue to receive a flurry of complaints from Coto residents regarding soliciting and door-to-door distribution of service sales literature, including maid, painting, landscaping, remodeling, (etc.)

The CotoBuzz Journal March 2007
Public Safety - A Job For the Gendarmerie Royale Du Coto de Caza! A Tribute to Mr. Morteza Manian On the First Anniversary of His Tragic Death

CHP DOES ITS JOB – CZ BOARD PLEASE DO YOURS! - Despite the public abuse the CHP has received from the Coto de Caza board of directors ever since the board was coerced into bringing the CHP back for pro-active traffic patrol, figures indicate that the CHP is doing its job: Trend for accident rate is down and close to pre-firing levels. Just as important, the number of Coto residents arrested for DUI is down. See chart below for actual accident rate.

I am concerned about safety and nuisance, as these toys can reach excessive speeds and be overly loud.

CZ Master Enforcement Coordinator: Unlicensed drivers are not allowed to operate any motorized vehicle within CZ Master including, but not limited to golf carts, mopeds, motorbikes, motorized skateboards, etc. Golf carts, motorized skateboards and similar vehicles may not be operated on the streets in the CZ Master Association.

Resident: What do you do when Unlicensed drivers do operate motorized vehicle within CZ Maste"r - kids regularly do so in the Hillsboro district in general and up and down Torrey Pines in particular, usually during weekdays and between 2:00 -6:00 pm.

CZ Master Enforcement Coordinator: If witnessed and kids in area for a bit you could call patrol at 949 888-3800 to come and try to contact kids and tell them they are not allowed to operate these types of motor vehicles within the community or you could fill out the attached rules and violation report form and forward it to me if you have the names/addresses of children and I will sent letter(s) to the homeowners.

Resident: Thanks - I would gladly file a report if I had the name of the kids.

I am not sure calling the patrol would help - my daughter called that number few days back to report a disturbance at around 2:00 am - she got the first degree, so she gave up on whoever responded. She would not wake me up at that time and nothing was done. Not the first time

Your response implies that the patrol has not filed any complaints in the last few weeks for this issue - right?

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