We need more police in the 8th District
Over the last year, I’ve been hearing stories from people living in Northeast Philadelphia’s 8th Police District that police response time to calls made into the district or 911 are very slow. It is to the point where officers aren’t even showing up. To further complicate this matter is the upcoming months, a number of police officers are retiring and they’re not being replaced.
The 8th district simply does not have enough police officers allotted to this area to deal with a crime rate that slowly keeps rising. Because the crimes committed in this district aren’t sensational enough to make the 6 o’clock news, it does not mean these crimes aren’t important and causing problems to our taxpayers. They are also putting the safety of our neighborhoods at risk.
The citizens of this area deserve the same amount of protection as any other district. Crime is increasing and it’s only going to get worse. This is assuming that the other districts aren’t experiencing the same problems we are. If they are, that means this problem is widespread, which is very unsettling.
Because of this information, I have decided to petition the mayor of Philadelphia, Michael Nutter, and Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey to demand more police protection for the families in Northeast Philadelphia (and elsewhere if this is a widespread epidemic).
The 8th District is the biggest district in Philadelphia. We, in this area of the city, pay our taxes, as other areas of the city do, and we deserve the right to expect a police officer to respond to a call, and to take our calls seriously.
What happens if we don’t address this? We become a district where criminals become more confident in committing more crime. Once they know that police presence is minimal, what is to stop them? Let’s hire more officers, before we have to find out.
To sign the petitions go to Facebook and search the Facebook page: Working Together to Protect Our Neighborhood and Streets from Crime.
Click like on the page and the petition is there. Thank you in advance. Your neighborhood needs you.
David Lee
Chalfont
New bill will combat city’s vacant properties
Large vacant buildings are empty threats to our firefighters and neighborhoods.
Two and a half years has passed since a deadly five-alarm fire ripped through an abandoned, five-story, 80,000-square-foot hosiery warehouse on York Street. The blaze took the lives of Philadelphia Fire Department Lt. Robert Neary and Firefighter Daniel Sweeney, and injured two other firefighters.
The 1880s era structure, covering more than half a city block, was unsecured, dilapidated and a known home to dozens of squatters.
Fires in abandoned buildings are often suspicious and incendiary. They also cause more firefighter injuries and deaths than any other property classification. Such structures are targets for vandals and kill the fabric of our neighborhoods.
I introduced Bill №140055 to serve as a comprehensive response to the threat presented by large vacant buildings and utilize time-tested national best practices.
City Council gave their unanimous support of my legislation. It creates a task force to drive the initiative and mandates collaboration between the Fire Department and Licenses and Inspections. They will team up to proactively inspect, triage and evaluate structures for security, risk threat, code violations and pre-fire planning purposes. It also requires the systematic collection of vital building information and data sharing across city departments.
This long overdue measure will protect out firefighters and make our communities safer.
The courageous and brave sacrifices made on April 9, 2012, by Lt. Robert Neary and Firefighter Daniel Sweeney should not have been in vain.
Mayor Nutter, it’s now time to make this bill a law.
Dennis M. O’Brien
Councilman-At-Large
