Two separate events encouraging community policing are planned next week in Boulder Creek. The first, scheduled for Tuesday evening, Aug. 7, is National Night Out; an event organized by local communities nation-wide honoring public safety responders and celebrating the goals of community policing- that is, neighbors cooperating with law enforcement and firefighters to make their communities safer.
“It’s a party with an important purpose. On National Night Out, neighbors and local law enforcement meet, greet, eat and solidify their partnerships,” according to Matt Peskin, National Project Coordinator, from an online newsletter for the event.
The National Night Out celebration will begin at 6 p.m. at the Boulder Creek Fire Station and will include a free barbeque, a petting zoo, face painting, a bounce house and a raffle, all focused on children for a family event. There will be several tables and pop-up kiosks for information about community organizations.
On Thursday evening, August 9, the County Sheriff’s Department is hosting a one-year anniversary party for the Sheriff’s Boulder Creek Service Center. Justin Acton, owner of the Boulder Creek Pizza and Pub, will be catering the event with pizza at the Sheriff’s Service Center and County Sheriff personnel, especially Deputy Sheriff Adam Roberts who is in charge of the Sheriff’s substation, will be looking to meet and talk with as many local folks as possible.
Acton, president of the Boulder Creek Business Association, both as a business owner and advocate for business owners in Boulder Creek, is an enthusiastic supporter of the Sheriff’s presence and participation with the community since the substation was opened last year.
“Has the Sheriff’s service center had an impact on safety in Boulder Creek? Absolutely. Is our downtown safer with the Sheriff’s substation located right where it is- so visitors to Big Basin and the mountains beyond know the Sheriff has a presence here? Without a doubt,” Acton said.
Deputy Sheriff Roberts has a life-long familiarity with the San Lorenzo Valley, having been born and raised in Felton and graduating from SLV High School. “It’s not like I had to get to know this community, I’ve lived in the valley my whole life and at least once a day I’m waving at somebody I know, and I’m often stopping somebody I know – which can be difficult,” Roberts said.
Moving from regular patrol responsibilities to the community policing division was not entirely what Roberts was expecting.
“I’m not necessarily answering calls for service, although I do sometimes, I’m doing much more community outreach work, working directly in the community with school safety meetings, working on specific longer term problems, and looking for solutions to recurring problems,” Roberts said.
The Community Policing Division conducts outreach and training presentations to different community groups including School Lock-Down training for school administrators, in the event of an active shooter, a presentation for business owners on work place violence, as well as place of worship violence. Community Policing programs also include a Child Safety Program given four times a year to second graders throughout the county on basic safety practices for children.
According to a 2016 report, “21st Century Policing” produced by the Sheriff’s Department, “Community policing emphasizes working with neighborhood residents to co-produce public safety. Law enforcement agencies should, therefore, work with community residents to identify problems and collaborate on implementing solutions that produce meaningful results for the community.”
Sheriff Roberts gives examples of doing exactly that. One example was seeking out and working with an absentee property owner to close down a homeless camp that was a source of numerous complaints. Another example is going the extra mile with counseling and discussing options with an apparently homeless, chronic inebriate who needed more services than simply getting arrested and thrown into the sobering center downtown. Sheriff Roberts said he hopes this man’s absence from the street counts as some kind of success.
“Last month (June), we had the lowest monthly crime rate in over two years in the entire unincorporated county,” said Sergeant Jordan Brownlee, who supervises both the Felton and Boulder Creek substations. A review of crime statistics shows an “ebb and flow” of both property and violent crime in “Beat 2”, which includes Boulder Creek and Ben Lomond, with burglaries and petty thefts ticking up during the summer months.
Crime statistics for “Beat 2” show the Boulder Creek Service Station has had a slight effect reducing crime, but Sheriff Roberts is quick to point out that much of his work is not reflected in the numbers. During the six month period between June and December 2017, there were 23 burglaries and 11 cars reported stolen in “Beat 2”, and these numbers dropped slightly to 18 burglaries and 10 cars stolen between January and June 2018. However, a measure of success in community cooperation is a fairly sharp rise in the monthly number of calls for service, which increased an average of 17 percent in “Beat 2” over the course of last year.
Another measure of success that Sheriff Roberts wanted to emphasize was the work of community volunteers in the Sheriff’s Service Center. Trained volunteers who take non-emergency phone calls, meet and take reports from “walk-in” citizens, as well as “volunteer drivers” who help identify abandoned cars and generally keep an eye on the community.
“We have a great group of volunteers, and we’re now fully staffed to have a volunteer here between 8-4 p.m., five days a week. This is a great help, and we get a lot of information about what’s going on from our volunteers,” Roberts said.
