EDITORIAL LESSONS IN POLICING BRATTON CUTS RESPONSE TIMES; WILL CITY HALL CUT FAT?BY slashing citywide response times, the Los Angeles Police Department "LAPD" and "L.A.P.D." redirect here. For other uses, see LAPD (disambiguation).  This article or section is written like an . has shown that small reforms can make a huge difference. Let's hope our elected officials in City Hall are paying attention Noun 1. paying attention - paying particular notice (as to children or helpless people); "his attentiveness to her wishes"; "he spends without heed to the consequences"attentiveness, heed, regard . In a time when government tells us we need to pay higher taxes in exchange for a lower quality of public services Public services is a term usually used to mean services provided by government to its citizens, either directly (through the public sector) or by financing private provision of services. , the LAPD 1. LAPD - Link Access Procedure on the D channel. 2. LAPD - Los Angeles Police Department. under Chief William Bratton has done just the opposite, giving us better policing without extracting an additional penny. All it took was a change in policy. Five months ago, the department began allowing officers to use lights and sirens for most emergency calls. Since then, police use their lights and sirens more than five times as often, and response times have dropped from a dreadful average of 10 minutes to a far more manageable 6.7 minutes. In the San Fernando Valley San Fernando Valley Valley, southern California, U.S. Northwest of central Los Angeles, the valley is bounded by the San Gabriel, Santa Susana, and Santa Monica mountains and the Simi Hills. , where response times have traditionally been the worst, they've dropped from 11 minutes to 7.1 minutes. Credit goes to Bratton and other officials who were willing to think creatively, to use common sense, to identify a problem and take constructive efforts to correct it. If only some of Bratton's ingenuity would rub off on his bosses in City Hall. There, city leaders oversee a bloated, overpaid o·ver·pay v. o·ver·paid , o·ver·pay·ing, o·ver·pays v.tr. 1. To pay (a party) too much. 2. To pay an amount in excess of (a sum due). v.intr. To pay too much. bureaucracy that consumes the public treasury. Rampant and unchecked inefficiencies leave insufficient resources for the LAPD, which is why Bratton can't just hire some more badly needed cops to reduce response times. But if Bratton can make efficiencies in the interest of making L.A. safer, the city's political leaders should, too. Rather than simply seeking more money - as they do through Measure A, which would raise the county sales tax sales tax, levy on the sale of goods or services, generally calculated as a percentage of the selling price, and sometimes called a purchase tax. It is usually collected in the form of an extra charge by the retailer, who remits the tax to the government. by one-half a percent - they ought to use resources more effectively. City leaders have a measure before them to make economies and put the savings into the LAPD. They should not delay. If they act quickly and come through for the LAPD, they would have a lot more credibility - and Los Angeles would be a lot safer. |
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