Stephanie Brinkerhoff-Riley Calls West Sector Police Office Re-location Mistake

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    Dear Mayor Lloyd,stephanie picture
    I am writing regarding the proposed moved of the west sector office to CK Newsome. I understand that you may be reconsidering this move, and I encourage such a change. The current location of the West Sector office is 1.4 miles from the downtown police headquarters and located in an area with a higher crime rate in comparison to other parts of the City. The location on a main artery of Jacobsville along with the cars that come and go from that location in the normal course of business are a deterrent to crime.
    The movement of this office to CK Newsome appears to be a knee jerk reaction to what is most likely an isolated event of a teenager with a gun. CK Newsome is approximately 1000 yards from the EPD downtown headquarters (as a crow flies) or .6 miles. This location is not centered in a neighborhood and will do little to act as a deterrent to crime in the area. Meanwhile, the loss of the location in Jacobsville will potentially create a gap of law enforcement and send the wrong message to residents in the area that have criminal motives.
    If the issue is safety at CK Newsome, it seems that funding off-duty police officers during certain events at the center would be significantly less expensive than this proposed move. Additionally, it would avoid the loss of the West Sector office in a neighborhood that is working so hard to turn around the stigma that is attached to it.
    The Jacobsville Area Community Corporation Board and President of the Northside Business Association have contacted me regarding this matter. I would appreciate a continued discussion, and I thank you for your time.
    Stephanie Brinkerhoff-Riley
    3rd Ward City Council
    Please take time and vote in todays “Readers Poll”
    Copyright 2015 City County Observer. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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    41 COMMENTS

    1. This makes a lot of sense. The thoroughness and pragmatism of SBR is going to be missed on the City Council.

      • All public officials must be hyperaware of problems in communities of color, lest the cry of racism be loosed. Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter that Jacobsville/Jimtown/Boxtown, and other areas north of South Sector are ACTUALLY at least as crime-ridden (if not more so) than the downtown area. There is no equivalent of Rev. Brooks or Councilwoman Robinson in these neighborhoods to take to the cameras or faceypages and accuse EPD and the Winnecke administration of neglect.

        A couple of dirtbags pop off a couple of rounds. Instead of the commonsense solutions that SBR puts forth, everybody has to start spinning in circles and moving things around to placate the more vociferous. It doesn’t matter that the solutions proposed by the administration and EPD may or may not help the situation. Solutions are not the important part. Appearances are, as is the deflection of ‘racist’ criticism.

        • Does it make too much sense to let the local law enforcement do their job and leave politics out of it?

          • Yes. Far too much sense!

            Unfortunately, you really can’t completely separate politics and the LE function of the government (federal, state, or local). Politicians make the laws, decide legal enforcement priorities (based on what voters say at the ballot box and in other forums), and in many cases make upper-echelon law enforcement agency appointments. All these things drive policing policy, all are by definition political.

            Case in point, NYC. When Giuliani took over, the voters were fed up with crime in the city and willing to give LE a long leash to try and get it under control. NYPD policy, determined by the Mayor and his appointees to various LE upper level policymaking positions, got real and raw and crime dropped and the voters were happy. Fast forward a few years, and crime in that city is historically low. The voters (or at least an extremely vocal minority of them) have since decided that now NYPD is being too mean, and DeBlasio is sensitive to those same voters.

            Under past presidents, drug law enforcement at the federal level was a huge political selling point to the voters. Now, not so much – – in fact it has completely swung the other way with calls for reductions in sentencing, de facto federal legalization of MJ and other soft drugs, etc.

            Both of the above are prime example of how politics effect policing.

            • Do you think the three county commissioners apply the same to the “elected”
              sheriff and his department? Would it make sense that the city police chief should be elected by the city residents, instead of being a appointed yes man?

    2. No doubt about it the Mayor’s office is occupied by a guy that could be a stand-in for the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz.
      I will take a little license here,—The residents wish he “had a brain”!

    3. Does one see a trend in executive (city/state) thinking of late, of just coessential?

    4. I thought “Mayor Lloyd” was the other guy, the one in the rumpled suit who answers to ‘Plugger’ ?

      • One prefers Cher concerts while the other prefers Reitz home parties ( presumably drinking with his pinky in the air).

    5. SBR HAS WHAT IT TAKES
      Seeing beyond the dysfunctional re-activity of impulsive local politics
      she suggests …”think about it”… and offers a better option.

      Steph can always count on the respect and support of me and mine.
      With her and about ten more like her in local Governance
      Evansville might return to the vital vibrant and spirited community
      she once was. …

      • Bubba, With the way she addressed the letter she shows her antagonistic and vindictive personality. I hope for her sake her communications are not a product of the problems she had before, or maybe still does.

    6. The call for relocating the parks department after an isolated incident at the C.K. Newsome Center where no supervision was in place was a total overreaction.

      The white lady from Newburgh who runs parks has been in over her head from day one.

      • Dark/light, What difference does the race of the Parks Director make in this situation ?

    7. The news media has referred to the WEST sector office as being on WEST Columbia St. The last time I looked it was at the corner of Columbia & Governor Sts. That would be on EAST Columbia in the old post office. Am I wrong or hane they moved it?

      • Using the Post Office division of Main Street(E&W) and Lloyd Expressway(N&S) you are correct.
        The City Police division of east sector and west sector is the US 41 corridor. The division of West and South sector
        is the Lloyd Expressway. The mayor “thought”, was putting the west sector headquarters into the south sector!

          • The US Postal Address of the west sector headquarters has no bearing on cities police sector!
            As I mention before, the east/west sector line is US41 corridor!!!!!!! Please look it up!

            That’s like comparing political townships area and the US Government Survey townships being the same thing, My political township is Armstrong, but the Government Survey, I am Township 4 South, and Range West 13. The south half of Armstrong Township lies in Township 5 South!

            • You sir. And I personally mean that, have no idea of what this poster actually knows about all those perceived and politically pushed political values .
              Blood is always thicker than water. Policing is a stretch under anyone’s balance today. Smack straight down the politics out of it , it then starts to show some form of what the constitution of the United States was in the first place, then insightfully amended to what you as a nation stand for as humans today.
              “We”, and that doesn’t include your stupid local politics, are not easily fooled.” Its a dawning , and that’s just information, that cannot be hidden for some cronies valuation anymore. Its owned by the available overhead.

            • I repeat, I acknowledge that fact twice, now the third time that the west police sector headquarters is “East Columbia.” I added the fact for the third time that is still well with in that West sector jurisdiction! The dividing line between the east /west sectors IS US 41 corridor!

              I made no such reference, to your “perceived and political pushed political values”!

            • You all missed the point.

              I was chastising an inept novice reporter for failing to fact check and an editor for failing to properly edit the article. My post was written as sarcasm.

              SB-R did an excellent job of analyzing the situation and shining a proper light on it. We will miss her on 1/1/16.

            • Pogo,

              To be balance, while poking fun with novices, will you do the
              same with those “pro’s” editors on this site?

              Example on this site was on Weds the 28th. Posted by the “pro’s”
              here was January 29, “2105”. Mistakes do happen!

            • Armstr…, if you will read and understand what I wrote you will see that I chastised the editors who failed to edit the novice’s failure to fact check.

              You, likewise, failed in your feeble attempt to “dress me down”.

            • Armstr…, if you will read and understand what I wrote you will see that I chastised the editors who failed to edit the novice’s failure to fact check.

              You, likewise, failed in your feeble attempt to “dress me down”. .

            • Pogo,

              My post “was” in a balance, neutral non-bias question! Nothing gain
              to either way. A simple question. I did not, as you would say “dress
              you down” in my previous post. This next paragraph is not neutral!

              Your response does show me you love to pick on the novice, while
              lacking the gonads to do the same, to the editors here.

    8. Too much logic in this letter. Is this the Mayors idea or Chief Bolins idea? Can I get flash bang grenades with that?

    9. isolated event my butt. But I agree theres nothing to be accomplished by a move. Yuo will not stop the violence in that sector. Or any of those areas for that matter. It’s generational, the crime is here to stay. Just don’t go into the inner city at all with carrying several weapons and be ready to shoot it out with those people..

    10. isolated event……lol……..the town drunk yet again shows its ignorance…………..animals will be animals no changing the jungle mentality…..sad but true…………

    11. Lets get real, can we? The “west” sector office has been continually moved further and further from the western side of Evansville over a period of years. The current location is already east (it is located at the address of 410 EAST Columbia if you did not know), which is already a challenge to people who live on the “west” side who are interested in EPD community police assistance (which is one of the things that the sector offices are designed for)

      If you live on the “west” side of Evansville the downtown HQ for EPD is closer to all west side Evansville residents than the “west” sector office. The “west” sector office located near St. Joe and Maryland when it got started many years ago, then got moved over to North Main Street, and now has made it to a location on Evansville map that is considered east as it relates to the street block. By all estimations and equations it is laughable for EPD to call this the “west” sector office. It would be easier to call it the “north” sector office than the “west” sector office.

      Per the EPD website the west sector office is designed for “boundaries of U.S. Highway 41 and the Lloyd Expressway north to the county line, including Ohio Street around to Ray Becker Parkway, including the remainder of the west side to the county line”. So it is around 8-10 blocks from the eastern boundary of Highway 41 and around 4 blocks from the Lloyd Expressway, but I would challenge that the west sector office is 4 or more MILES from the western boundary of the Evansville city line (around Red Bank Road on the Lloyd). Sure seems weighted and slanted more east than west.

      If EPD is so bent on naming these police stations, I have no problem calling them “neighborhood” offices. But they should refrain from lying to themselves (and the rest of us) by proclaiming a building in the 400 block of EAST Columbia as being located in a place to assist the WEST side of Evansville.

      Anybody agree or disagree on that logic? I am truly curious if anyone else has considered this.

      • Sort of the same for the high schools from 1971-72 up to these past several years. When Central left downtown and move to there current location, they were further north then the “old” North High School. Construction of the new NHS correct the “naming” locations.

        The “original topic” was the Mayor wanted to move the headquarters into the South sector, east of the South sector headquarters. The location for the west sector headquarters may be the approx. center of all the police runs. The large western area of this district may equal to that short area east of headquarters for runs?

    12. Stop trying to name the substations geographically. Name them after deserving ex-cops, using the firetruck model. The ‘Charlie Gash Sector Office’, the ‘Phillip Klein’, the ‘Shirley Holder’, etc. The attempts to make the sector office names track loosely with the changing physical aspects of the city only give some people a false sense of security. Change them every 100 years or sooner if something comes up to sully the reputation of a particular office’s namesake.

      In the unlikely event this is ever done we should leave room for Old National to come in with a big promise, even if no dollars, to put their signage on one. ‘Cap’n Bob, He’ll Leave The Light On…’ , oops that’s another project. Naming rights for our police cars and armored vehicles won’t be far behind. A great source of revenue for not much paint. ‘Must be our pizza rolling up’. ‘You wish’.

      In any event, a knee-jerk decision (now walked back) to move an office in response to one incident of gunfire in the same area as the main police station shows weakness and lack of thought. It is not a viable crime fighting strategy. It is, however, typical for this goofy administration.

    Comments are closed.