The Santa Barbara City Council was updated Tuesday by the Police Department on recent crime stats and heard a presentation on the drought from the Water Resources Department.
The Police Department announced that it will be losing two of its beat coordinators, who work closely with their assigned neighborhoods of the city.
The Eastside community will be losing its beat coordinator, Officer Adrian Gutierrez, as he transitions to teach an anti-gang curriculum in local schools for the department. Gutierrez has been a beloved beat coordinator in the neighborhood, where he also lives.
He will be heading up a one-year pilot of the Gang Resistance Education and Training, or G.R.E.A.T program. The program is spearheaded by the Department of Justice, which provides the curriculum focusing on teaching children to make the right choices.
Gutierrez will be teaching this curriculum to fifth-graders at Franklin, Cleveland, McKinley, Harding and several other schools in the Santa Barbara Unified School District starting in October.
Beat coordinator Officer Kent Wojciechoski, also known as “Wojo,” is retiring and his replacement will be sent to the Eastside.
When asked when the coordinators would be replaced, Police Chief Cam Sanchez said the department was working on making some new hires, one of whom will help fill the coordinator space.
“We’re getting there, and we hope to get back to the four (beat coordinators),” Sanchez said.
He also went over Part 1 crimes with the council, which include homicides, rape and burglary. These crime rates saw a 13 percent decrease from 2012 to 2013, Sanchez said. Four homicides in Santa Barbara occurred in 2013, two that were vehicular, one stabbing and one gunshot case, he said.
Sanchez also went over stats for the July 4 holiday as well as Fiesta, which were both relatively quiet compared to past years. The Fourth of July was busy but people were safe, he said, although municipal code violations and traffic violations increased.
“It was really safe and pretty quiet,” he said.
Fiesta was also a safer event than in the past, with 48 arrests for the week, most of which were people arrested on warrants, not crimes in progress.
Deputy Chief Frank Mannix said the city is seeing a decrease in violent crimes in general. However, aggravated assaults are up about 6.5 percent this year as opposed to the average over the past five years, he said. That type of assault would include a domestic violence case, assault with a deadly weapon and the like, he said.
One rape occurred last month, compared to an average of three per month, and one homicide — a vehicular death — occurred in the last 12 months.
Property crimes are generally trending lower than previous years but thefts from vehicle rates have increased. Many of those cases are “smash and grab” situations, where people leave their property inside the car and then the vehicle window is broken and the property is taken, said Capt. Alex Altavilla.
Capt. David Whitham talked about strategies the department is taking to deal with skateboarders in the downtown corridor and also revisited the discussion about nonsworn officers working to patrol the area.
The council recently discussed adding community service liaisons, or “yellow shirts,” that are hourly nonsworn officers who work directly with the Tactical Patrol Force, two are on State Street and two are on Milpas Street.
They are a component of the restorative policing program and help identify nuisance-related crimes and help report them, Whitham said.
Whether to fill those positions or to use the money to hire a police officer has been a point of contention among the council members, some of whom asked Sanchez which he would rather see.
“Of course I would take a police officer, but I think there are other ways to go as well,” Sanchez said, adding that the yellow shirts are dedicated to that area, whereas a police officer might be pulled away to other things.
The council was also updated on the drought, getting some encouraging numbers that show residents are conserving more water.
The city’s conservation efforts saw a 25 percent water reduction in August, according to acting water resources manager Joshua Haggmark
“Whatever people are doing, keep doing it,” he said, adding that conservation is particularly important during summer months.
Conservation is more difficult during the winter months when water use is primarily indoor usage, he said.
Haggmark said water users across the city had stepped up in the effort, and that restaurants, agricultural users and all types of residential users put forward significant reduction.
“We’d be very pleased if this can continue,” he said.
The city’s desalination plant is expected to start operation in summer of 2016 and next week, the city will go over an in-depth summary of their permits, costs and funding for the plant.
Rebate programs are so popular that city staff are asking for more money to keep up with the staff time spent, 324 people signing up for the smart landscape rebate programs.
City staff members have also been conducting hundreds of free water checkups and following up on more than 600 water complaints, Haggmark said.
The department is asking for an additional $225,000 by next year to meet the ongoing staff needs, he said.
— Noozhawk staff writer Lara Cooper can be reached at lcooper@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
