Sheriff's Dept Delivers Spoonful of Sugar

“A Spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down

The medicine go down-wown

The medicine go down

Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down

In a most delightful way”

Tuesday night the Orange County Sheriff’s Department (OCSD) seeks to renew their contract with the City at an additional cost of $1,264.577 or 8.5% over last year. This is the second year in a row that contract costs increase has been $1,000,000+. But crime data for 2016 has just been released and it looks like Lake Forest has made some significant leaps forward. For the first time we are among those cities in Southern California with the lowest crime rate. In prior years almost every one of our neighbors had a lower crime rate than we did. The only city to be consistently higher (worse) than us was Laguna Hills. But now we are 3rd, just behind RSM and Aliso Viejo. FWIW, RSM and Aliso Viejo have been the #1 lowest and #2 lowest crime rate cities for 2013 through 2016, and in 2012 Aliso Viejo slipped to 3rd, behind Laguna Woods.

Here is the data

VIOLENT CRIMES PER 1,000

• 2012 – 15.5 per 1,000
• 2013 – 11.58 per 1,000
• 2014 – 9.86 per 1,000
• 2015 – 12.59 per 1,000
• 2016 – 10.14 per 1,000

CRIME RATE RANK

• 2012 – Rank 9
• 2013 – Rank 7
• 2014 – Rank 6
• 2015 – Rank 7
• 2016 – Rank 3

So along with a big gulp of medicine ($1.2 million increase) we are getting a spoonful of sugar (actual and comparative decrease in crime rate).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Jim Gardner is on the City Council for Lake Forest. You can check him out on LinkedIn and/or Facebook and you can share your thoughts about the City at Lake Forest Town Square on Facebook. His comments are not meant to reflect official City Policy.

Dr. Gardner has office hours every Tuesday from 3 pm to 5 pm at the City Hall. In addition, he holds a mini town meeting every month. The next meeting will be on June 10 at 2 pm at the Foothill Ranch Public Library.