Houston police situation needs greater study

Houston made its last city payroll because Gorilla Fireworks paid $43,000 in sales tax from December fireworks sales early. The city’s 2011 fiscal year budget is balanced because city council recently cut $33,000 for its building maintenance and other areas of the budget.

One of the major items in the Houston city budget, the police department, is too much of a drain on the city’s already tight purse-strings, prompting the council to consider placing a question on the general election ballot to raise property taxes by as much as 2 mills. That’s a more than 15 percent increase, or about $300 more on a property tax bill for a home assessed at $150,000.

Since the Houston Police Department became caught up in controversy last year when a former officer shot and killed animals at the city shelter, Houston has been in perpetual 911 emergency mode. Now the council says there’s just not enough money to fund its own department into the future.

City Treasurer Carolyn Grabowski said that when Houston first created its own police force in 2004, council and city officials at the time didn’t plan for how to fund the department.

“We’re just desperate for a constant stream of revenue,” she said at a recent city council work session. “The blame for this started in 2004 when the police department was created. … The city had no new businesses and zero capital and no plan, but they started a police department anyway.”

If memory serves, part of Houston’s motivation for creating its own city police force was to reduce response times when police assistance was needed. Prior to October 2006 when the Mat-Su West Post opened, officers were dispatched from the Trooper post in Palmer and response times were lengthy.

But with this new post opened at Mile 49 of the Parks Highway, off Pittman Road, Houston residents might want to review their options.

Over the past year, Houston’s police department has been used as a political pawn as much as it has for policing the city. With the mayor serving as the official chief of the police, the department is at the whim of whoever holds that office, regardless of the mayor’s qualifications to run a law enforcement operation. As a result, police officers have had to defend themselves as much against petty politicking and infighting among city officials as they have against legitimate threats to their community, like drunk drivers and domestic violence.

The real losers in this whole Houston police soap opera are the city’s residents. They deserve better, and we commend the council for looking for solutions to do just that.

But the council is missing the mark again.

In the end, Houston residents deserve the absolute best and most professional police protection possible, whether that’s from their own force or by contracting with Alaska State Troopers to provide it. It’s not a matter of civic pride, it’s a matter of public safety.

Instead of looking to voters for a significant property tax increase to fund a department the city hasn’t shown recently it’s capable of running professionally and efficiently, the council needs to start over.

The first step is to ask the hard question — do we really need our own police department? To answer this, the council needs help.

We think Houston residents would be much better served if the council would appoint a blue ribbon Houston Police Department Committee. Appoint key city officials, business leaders and regular residents and task them with studying the police department. Can the city support its own police force? If so, what is needed to do so?

Have the committee come back to the council with recommendations. If those recommendations conclude a property tax increase truly is the best solution, then go forward with putting that to the voters.