Chief Says Lafayette is Safer; Hardworking Detective Named Officer of the Year

Lafayette Police Chief Mike Hubbard presented the 2010 Yearly Activity Report to the City Council on Monday, using a PowerPoint presentation to compare the city’s law enforcement budget and crime rates to other East Bay cities, and taking time to extol the work ethic of his officers.

Before the chief could explain the first slide, which showed his Fiscal Year 2008-2009 budget outline, council member Don Tatzin read ahead and commented that the cost per resident, $198.09, seemed high. Tatzin asked what it included.

Hubbard said the cost per resident was not arrived at simply by dividing the $4 million-plus dollar budget by 17, the number of sworn officers in the department. His response, that the budget included non-sworn officers, satisfied the council.

Further clarifying his response Tuesday, Hubbard said the budget included non-sworn officers, gas for patrol cars and everything else it takes to run the department. Dividing the budget by 17 would have meant each officer earned more than $300,000, he said, which is not the case.

After Monday's police budget discussion, Hubbard reported that calls for service were down and that there were no homicides in 2010.

“We’ll continue to knock on wood and be grateful that Lafayette continues to be a very safe city," he said. "You’re much more likely to be injured in a traffic accident than in a violent crime."

Crimes against property, from residential burglaries to commercial thefts, held relatively steady for the year, according to department records. Hubbard said a drop in the number of burglaries in Orinda piqued his interest and he talked with Chief Jeff Jennings to see if they could pinpoint a reason. Investigations seemed to make a key difference in the number of those crimes, Hubbard said, promising to discuss the issue later in his report.

The number of narcotic and drug arrests in town prompted Tatzin to ask for an explanation. Hubbard explained that LPD's patrol of nearby Highway 24 was responsible for any uptick.

“There’s a lot of drugs moving through the tunnel," he said. "If you take away the patrol on the highway, the narcotic cases go down drastically."

The chief  emphasized that he would rather concentrate available forces on the streets of Lafayette than have officers investigating cases on Highway 24, generally considered the jurisdiction of the Highway Patrol.

Vehicle accidents in Lafayette were down last year, Hubbard said, largely because of the price of gas and its effect on driving habits, though the number of parking citations issued in town remained significant.

The number of false alarms police in Lafayette answered also was high last year, with all but two of the 2,102 alarms officers responded to last year turning out to be false. Tatzin asked if there weren't fees the city could assess residents whose systems burden the department with repeated false alarms.

Hubbard said that a  penalty fee structure was in the city code, but there was no administrative system to enforce it.

Hubbard took time at Monday's meeting to praise the work of Detective Adam Hernandez, a five-year veteran of the department whose knack for solving cases and being in the right place at the right time made a dramatic impact on the city's crime rate last year.

In February, after Hernandez helped make a case against two auto burglars, the auto-burglary rate nosedived the following month. Residential burglaries fell from 25 to two in a similar time period after key arrests by the detective.

“We’ve put a patrol officer on half-time work with Detective Hernandez so he can handle more cases,” said Hubbard, announcing that the detective's duties would change in the near future.

“He needs a break,” Hubbard said. 

He reassured the council that Hernandez was training his successor and proceeded to name  him the Lafayette Police Officer of the Year.

After recognition of the officer, council member Brandt Andersson asked Hubbard about comparisons with Moraga and Orinda's law-enforcement record for 2011.

“We don’t have a Lamorinda Police Department," Hubbard said, "but we really do work together. Our bad guys are their bad guys and their bad guys are our bad guys."  Collaboration and a system of mutual aid on emergency calls is making a difference, he said.

Bringing Monday's police services report and discussion to a close, Tatzin asked if the recent election of Sheriff David Livingston would bring changes to the department, which provides its services on a contractual basis with the city.

Hubbard said he didn’t know, yet, but a planned meeting with Sheriff's Department administration would provide answers soon.