Historical October 1986 report or notice. Original dates, prices and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
Good police protection is a real concern for all of us. So, when Nancy Farmer notified all the block captains in the Skinker-DeBaliviere neighborhood about a meeting concerning the consolidation of the St. Louis Police Department, I attended.
We have all heard and read about the creation of three super districts to replace the present nine districts but still feel skeptical about the change. Police Chief Robert Sheetz spoke to us about the plan and then attempted to answer our questions about it.
If the plan works as he claims it will, we should have improved police protection.
From listening to the Chief I understand that there are two primary purposes to the plan.
First, it will reduce costs at a time when the city budget is stretched to its limits. Second, it will actually put more police officers on patrol in our streets and neighborhoods.
The plan will reduce the total number of police officers, but by consolidating the districts it will free up people for patrol who are now tied to desk jobs. Also, civilians will assume some desk jobs now handled by police officers.
There is considerable duplication of services in the nine districts that will be eliminated by the plan. Furthermore, the Chief intends to begin sending selected police officers who live in the city home with police cars to make the police more visible in our neighborhoods.
This has worked well in St. Louis County and other big cities, he says.
After his presentation he allowed us to ask questions and express our concerns.
The first concern is where will these super district stations be located. Obviously, they need to be geographically spread throughout the city.
According to the Chief, this decision has not yet been made, but he did admit that the old Kennedy Skills Center building is being considered as a possible site.
Many people expressed concern over loss of personal contact with the police by not having a seventh district station house with a Captain who gets to know us and our problems. Chief Sheets responded that the plan had already been modified to keep the district captains in the new stations so that this kind of personal contact is still possible by phone and through meetings. Captain Page, present Captain of the Seventh District, spoke up saying that his greatest problem in the Seventh is a manpower shortage and since the plan would give him more men and women to deploy, our district would have improved police protection.
There was considerable skepticism expressed about the benefits to be derived from police officers taking cars home and concern that most of these policemen and women do not live in our part of town anyway.
The Chief tried to assure everyone that these cars would not be concentrated on the South Side!
As the meeting ended, I felt that many people in the Seventh District were very uneasy still about the plan and fearful that police protection, which they already felt to be less than adequate, might get worse.
If the plan really does put more police officers on patrol in our district, if we still are able to maintain a personal relationship with a Captain who knows us and our district, and if enough officers live in our neighborhoods in the Seventh who are taking their police cars home, perhaps better police protection will be the end result of the district consolidations.
The “if’s” may cause some continued concern over the proposed changes.
Another “if” that is in our power to change is my belief that increased police protection would result in the Seventh District if more of us attended the meetings such as this one.
We have a Seventh District citizens group led by Community Relations Officer Marilyn Mullen that meets monthly with the Captain of our district on the first Tuesday of each month.
The next meeting will be at 7:00 p.m. on October 7 in the auditorium of Yalem Center, which is the building at 724 N. Union in front of the Seventh District Police Station.
A presentation will be made by a representative of the Federal Drug Enforcement Agency. Let’s start attending, so as citizens we do our part to ensure good police protection for our neighborhood. (Editor’s Note: Margaret Campbell is block captain for the 6100 block of Pershing.)
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, October 1986.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1986_10.pdf, printed page(s) 1, 8; PDF page(s) 1, 8.
