South San Francisco, CA May 5, 2015 Submitted by Leslie Arroyo, City of South San Francisco
New South San Francisco Police Chief: I Want To Hear From You
What public safety services are important to you, South San Francisco? As your new Police Chief, getting community input is one of my top priorities for keeping SSF one of the safest communities in the Bay Area. As a twenty-two year veteran of the SSF Police Department, I am honored to be your Chief. We have a strong tradition of working with residents to build relationships and focus on community policing. Thanks in large part to these conversations, our Police Department enjoys your trust and prioritizes services important to you, such as neighborhood patrols and maintaining 9-1-1 emergency response times.
In this spirit, I have started a series of Town Hall meetings focused on the state of public safety in our City and to hear from you on ways we can better serve your safety needs.
South San Francisco is one of the safest communities in the Bay Area, with crimes like assaults, stolen vehicles, homicide and burglary below the rates of comparable Bay Area cities. But we should always strive to do even better.
To maintain our safety and quality of life, we must continue to prioritize proven programs like neighborhood patrols, gang suppression, and youth programs like the Youth Police Academy. Our City prides itself in taking a multi-faceted approach to keeping our community safe with additional programs such as the City’s Library Department that complements traditional public safety efforts by offering a wide variety of programs and services to engage and educate our local children and teens, including a homework program, interactive science and art programs in the afterschool hours, and a wide range of summer learning and volunteering opportunities. The Parks and Recreation Department also offers a variety of programs and activities, including licensed Before and After School childcare, middle school sports programs, recreation classes, special events, and robust youth and teen summer camp programs. These local public safety, educational and recreational programs keep youth off the street, out of trouble and away from gangs and drugs, while building community relations and instilling a lifelong set of real-world skills.
How do we maintain emergency response times? How do we continue to keep youth and teens out of trouble? How do we continue robust neighborhood patrols? How do we continue to recruit and retain well-trained and qualified public safety officers? A 21st century Police Department requires a 21st century approach. We want to honor and continue our tradition of prioritizing community-based public safety programs.
We should all be proud to live in a city where residents and leadership value public safety and work together to achieve the community-based solutions that prevent crime from happening in the first place. Maintaining essential public safety programs is critical to our quality of life. We cannot do this without sufficient local programs that work or well-trained, qualified, local public safety officers. Local control over local needs is the key to maintaining successful public safety programs.
That’s why I want to hear from as many community members as possible. Please join the conversation about maintaining public safety and our quality of life in South San Francisco by attending an upcoming Town Hall meeting:
| Date: Wednesday, May 6 2015
Time: 7:00 PM |
Date: Monday, June 1 2015 Time: 7:00 PM Location: Morelos Hall, 209 Miller Avenue |
Over the coming months, the Police Department and the City will continue to solicit community input. Information about future Town Halls will be posted on the City calendar at www.ssf.net. If you are not able to attend a Town Hall in person, you can still provide your feedback by filling out a brief community survey at www.surveymonkey.com/s/CityofSSF.
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Police Chief Jeff Azzopardi has served as a South San Francisco Police Officer for over twenty-two years. He was appointed Chief in September of 2014.
Dear Chief,
Since the removal of the red light cameras, on Westborough and El Camino, and Hickey, I am wondering if police have been dispatched to catch people not stopping at the red lights before making a right turn or any turns at either intersection. It seems there is more traffic now, and I avoid this corridor and travel along Mission Road to get to Colma, for less traffic. I know we have adequate manpower to dispatch an officer a few hrs. a day to catch and make honest drivers observe traffic laws.
Dear Chief Azzopardi, I live in Brentwood and have the same problem,speeding on Rockwood Dr., something that”s been going on for years. When we call,they roll out the radar trailer in the morning & come get it that evening. This is a band aid solution that has NOT worked & we need a long term solution. This problem happens mostly in the morning and in the evenings. Anything that would resolve this long term problem would be appreciated. Thank You.
Andrew and Tony,
Thank you for sharing your concerns and we will also share these with the appropriate departments. I ask you and everyone to please contact me/SSFPD by using the following email address, [email protected] This is the most efficient way for us to address your concerns in a timely fashion. As I mentioned earlier we take speeding vehicles very seriously. These areas will be addressed shortly!
Chief,
I concur with Paul’s statement regarding cars speeding in residential areas. I have lived in South San Francisco since I was 5, and now I am 35 and I live on Commercial now. Being a narrow two way road with cars parked on both sidewalks, it is difficult to see on coming cars as well as pedestrians coming out of our driveways. Several times over the past few years I have narrowly missed getting into an accident because a car was traveling 40-50 mph down Commercial either to or from Chestnut Ave/Linden. Rather than stopping, the car would whiz by as if we were a piece of trash they didn’t want to run over.
Placing speed humps on the more residential streets such as Miller, Baden and Commercial will divert traffic to Grand Avenue where the streets are wider and there are stop lights to regulate the flow of traffic, or choose an alternative route to 101, major thoroughfares such as El Camino or Hillside. At the very least, it will slow down the cars that do travel down the streets that connect Chestnut and Linden. Thank you for your time.
Dear Chief I live in sunshine gardens lately there have a lot of cars speeding up down on holly street and Sunnyside and it only takes one time for tragic accident to occur . I realize you have other urgent issues to deal with but this is a matter that should be addressed . Hopefully this well be addressed thank you
Paul,
Thank you very much for making us aware of your concerns. I will forward them to our patrol and traffic divisions so we can address the area. Speeding is a common complaint from our residents and we take the issue very seriously. Thanks for your kind words about Officer Velez. He as well as the rest of our officers care about our community and work hard for them everyday. What we don’t get everyday is compliments from the public so thank you!! Let me know if you have further concerns or comments.
Chief Jeff Azzopardi.