News and Announcements :: August 24, 2009
As the incoming chair of the Tucson Police Foundation, I want to express my deep appreciation to Jerry Shuchardt the previous chair for his tireless efforts on behalf of the Foundation, the Tucson Police Department, and of course most importantly the people who live, work and visit in Tucson. I also want to express my thanks to Mike Feder who as the Executive Director helped to raise important funds for the Foundation and to raise the community's awareness about the Foundation and our important role in helping the police department and our community. Mike has become a board member for the Tucson Police Foundation while holding down an important position with the Pima County Sports Authority as their new Executive Director. I also want to welcome our new Executive Director, Rob LaMaster — we are excited to have him on board with us. I also want to welcome another of our new board members, Jerry Benson with Target.
I want to thank all of you who have renewed your membership with the Tucson Police Foundation or have become new members. The bottom line is, WE NEED YOU! Without your contributions, your time and your efforts, it would be difficult to provide the support our police officers and their leaders need in order to address the problems of crime, the fear of crime and the negative impact crime can have on our community. I feel very fortunate to work with a committed and proactive Board of Directors, staff and volunteers at the Foundation, who have been hard at work helping to raise funds for the men and women of the Tucson Police Department. We have a new Chief of Police, Roberto Villasenor who is going to be an outstanding police chief and he has the talent both at the command level, supervisory level and at the officer level to address problems of crime. I know, I have worked with him and with the officers for the past 34 years. I have participated in neighborhood association meetings, held Division Advisory Committee meetings and worked with department commanders to address the growing crime problem through the Targeted Operational Planning program. We have been recognized across the United States for our innovative programs from community collaboration to operations and training. Some departments are now using some of our programs. We need more officers, in addition to equipment and program support as a result of budget shortfalls.
For Tucson this is critical, because it is likely that next year the budget conditions will be even worse. Crime doesn't take weekends off, no vacations for the criminals, they are out there working 24/7 to take what you have worked hard to earn, by fear or force through the increasing level of thefts, home invasions, or to sell drugs to your children to name a few of their nefarious undertakings. And crime doesn't just have an isolated impact on the victim, although any victim would rather it not be them. But crime has real costs, the cost of additional medical care, the cost of replacing personal property, the cost of more insurance, of security and alarms to prevent further crime, the economic cost of losing time away from work, impacting the efficient operations of businesses and ultimately people who leave Tucson because of the quality of life. And there are more costs associated with crime, the cost of not being able to recruit businesses to help our employment levels, with resulting negative impact on our tax base, the costs associated with arresting, jailing, and trying more and more criminals, but most importantly the personal tragedies and the cost to the psyche of the community. There comes a time when the community just begins to accept the fact that, "our crime rate is what it is." We can combat this attitude by becoming more engaged in our community, starting with ensuring our police department and the Chief has all the staffing and resources he needs to get the job done.
We are going to work in partnership with the police department and the community in developing a shared vision for Tucson to become one of the "Safest Cities in America." We can only achieve this by supporting the police department and their collaborative efforts in the community. We need more officers, and we want to achieve our mission of supporting the men and women of the Tucson Police Department and ultimately our community through fund raising, sharing crime prevention information, and helping with programs that will make our community safer and more secure. I look forward to working with all of you in the coming year.
Rich