City should scale back police force

Kim Palzes

My husband and I are frankly dumbfounded by the fact that the city

finds it necessary to make any budget cutbacks. As homeowners, we pay

an exorbitant amount of money to live in Huntington Beach, not to

mention that we already pay for most city services, such as trash

removal and also pay city tax surcharges on some utilities.

If you want to know where cutbacks need to be made, try getting

rid of some of the unnecessary noise pollution created by helicopters

that endlessly hover over our neighborhoods at all times of the day

and night.

Isn’t Huntington Beach supposed to be one of the safest cities in

America? If so, why does the city feel it is necessary to have

helicopters constantly on patrol? I read the police blotters every

week. Nothing goes on that warrants the use of helicopters. This

includes the ludicrous events that we witnessed on the Fourth of

July, when a helicopter attempted to shine its spotlight on some of

the hundreds of fireworks that were being set off Downtown, probably

due in part to the fact that no one from the city could be bothered

scouting a new location for its own fireworks display and therefore

didn’t have one.

Well, that’s not actually the whole story. They did consider

having them at the beach, but the mayor voted it down, citing the

“potential riot” excuse. This irrational justification was used even

after the police said they would have had no problems supplying the

extra manpower required.

Another cutback the city could wisely make would be in the number

of police they have driving up and down our deserted beaches at all

hours of the night. Is this really necessary? I have seen other large

cities, such as San Diego, leave their beaches open all night long

without any repercussions. Are we still so paranoid about the riots

that we can’t think straight? I realize that some patrolling of the

beaches at night is essential for everyone’s safety, however, one

would think that the omnipresent helicopters would be capable of

spotting any nearby residents who might decide to take a stroll along

the beach past its 10 p.m. curfew.

Finally, why should the maintenance of our city’s parks and

recreational areas suffer from budget cutbacks? Other cities

routinely use prisoners and/or people performing court-ordered

community service for work detail in city parks. Is there some reason

Huntington Beach could not also take advantage of these types of

programs? I am sick and tired of reading about teachers being laid

off in a school system where we have to pay to rent our own gymnasium

for athletic events.

We need to get our priorities straight and hold some people

accountable for all of these financial travesties.

* KIM PALZES is a Huntington Beach resident. To contribute to

“Sounding Off” e-mail us at [email protected] or fax us at (714)

965-7174.