I am the son of a Police Officer and I have first hand experience of the sacrifices that officers make, not only themselves, but their families as well. As a family, Holidays, Birthdays, school programs, attending church services etc. were often done without my father because his shift work often interfered with our home schedule.  Being a Police Officer is a very tough career, both physically and mentaly. I remember my father telling me as a teenager when I asked him about life as a Policeman, and he told me that it is a difficult job because no one calls the Police to let them know that their son or daughter just aced their spelling test or received all A’s on their report card. The only calls the Police receive are bad news. Although I am empathetic to the Police Force, our history can not be forgotten. I believe we are asking too much of our Officers in the duties that we are expecting them to perform.

The Vallejo Police Department needs some restructuring.

During my career in the Department of Veterans Affairs, we made national news because Veterans were dying on waiting lists. We administrators had to take a hard look at all of our programs, and determine which were core services, and which were not. I personally helped develop the new Care in the Community program at VA so we could purchase care for Veterans in the community which was not core to VAs mission. That way we could focus our resources on the core services that VA provides. We need to take this same top down approach to the Vallejo Police Department. We will conduct a review to determine Core Duties vs. Non Core Duties of the police. Non Core Duties (ex. Code Enforcement, Wellness Checks, Non emergency 911 calls, etc.) need to be moved out from under the police dept, so that the police can focus efforts/staff/resources on Core Duties.

This restructuring will allow the Vallejo Police Department to better utilize their resources and be better equipped to answer many more of the non Priority One calls. Our citizens deserve to have police respond in a more timely manner.