At the time of this posting, members of the San Jose Restaurant & Entertainment Association are presenting a plan to the San Jose City Council for “community policing” in the downtown entertainment district. The plan, a response to the city’s efforts to impose up to $80,000 in fees on a number of downtown nightclubs, calls for instituting a new version of the “shared employment” model, in which police officers are directly compensated by club owners. It also calls on Chief Rob Davis to use the powers given to him by the urgency ordinance passed in 2006. View the Powerpoint of the San Jose Restaurant & Entertainment Association community policing proposal.
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Community Policing Downtown
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Chief Rob Davis spoke in opposition to the Restaurant & Entertainment Association proposal at today’s San Jose City Council meeting.
How ironic—Mardi Gras is one of the very few high arrest nights in DTSJ. So, what group of hooligans will show up tonight to start trouble so that Raj can have something else to criticize about SJPD?
Wow, the police being paid directly by the clubs?
SJPD paid by SJPD = Bad power hungry cops?
SJPD paid by clubs/bars = Corruption?
Can’t win either way I suppose.
*note: I am a proud supporter of the SJPD and believe they do the right thing 95% of the time.*
Last thing I want is to walk through the home I call downtown and have some punk kids or hoodlums attempt to harass me. Our cops do great work.
Though I’m not too big of a fan of the San Jose State University Police (http://sanjosecityliving.com/sjsu-police-officer-collides-with-bystander/)
-Andrew
No doubt Raj will be out with his videocam and groupies scoping out officers in high hopes of discovering misconduct. Raj, many in this forum continue to wait for your response to a question posed repeatedly here: Why do you persist in your campaign of hate against the SJPD? I understand you may hope to have pitstop on your political resume someday but do you really expect to parlay this into some type of public service?
I expect, as usual, you will disregard these questions, and gleefully wax about some video you hope will further your watchdog career. Raj,…if you are listening, the silence of your response is deafening.
I was living downtown and frequenting the SoFA district the last time this system was used, and it frankly felt wrong. I saw the officers posted up in front of the clubs acting like muscle for the bouncers (it let clubs higher skinnier bouncers since they didn’t have to try to physically intimidate potential troublemakers.)
We all felt that the officers were paid employees of the clubs being allowed to wear public uniforms and carry service pistols (aka all the trappings of public servants) while engaging in private business (acting as paid security guards at an outrageous scale set by the Police Department.) If felt like the nightclub owners were being blackmailed by the department into hiring officers who wanted easy moonlighting for extra pay, and that they were getting paid muscle with the trappings of authority.
Because it looked and felt so long, as the leadership changed at the city and in the department, one of the welcome reforms was removing this obvious conflicts of interests.
I’ll have to read the exact proposal to see what’s different. I can see having a benefit assessment district that taxes businesses to pay for additional coverage than could otherwise be afforded, but how could you do it in a way so that some floral shop open 8-5 and doesn’t see any benefit from extra officers on Friday and Saturday’s from 10 pm to 4 am (other than a slightly reduced risk of a broken window.)
Should residents also pay for increased patrols in downtown on the weekends? Restaurants or just clubs? Movie Theaters? Would the extra taxes during these bad economic times be another reason to give up on downtown and go with traditional suburban locations?
I don’t know the answers, but as previously implemented I saw the way it worked and it looked and felt really wrong (but I was just a young undergrad and not really connected with club owners or officers beyond casual conversations.)
Doesn’t it feel like this economic crises in CA is creating solutions to our problems that are perhaps worse than just accepting the pain of straight spending cuts. For example the CSU is cheating the Education Code by using mandatory fees to fund operations as a backdoor tuition hike that gets no legislative oversight.
To preserve jobs we’re taxing free services left and right (park fees, etc…) and it’s turning into more and more of a two-tiered society where you either can afford to enjoy everything that society supposedly offers or you’re just poor and stuck trying to piece together whatever you can afford between rent, gas, fees, taxes and food. Some people can afford to ignore nuisance laws like carpool lanes and cell phone laws because they make enough to consider the occasional nuisance of paying a ticket small price for the convenience. (Think Larry Ellison and the flight curfew at SJ Airport.)
I think this new downtown Police cost recovery plan is similar. If you can afford to buy access to uniformed officers you will be treated differently than a small business owner who can’t afford that same kind of direct access.
I’m not totally opposed or in favor of this, but based upon prior experience and “gut feelings” I hope we really look at this before rushing to approve anything in the heat of a budget crises that we’ll regret later.
Don’t worry JMO, the SJPD hooligans will be out cracking the skulls of young black and brown people tonight. You should just go put on your white sheet and ride with them.