HomeMy WebLinkAboutCC 1981-04-28 MinutesCITY OF MIAIi1I
OF MEETING HELD ON APRIL 28. 1981
PREPARED BY THE OFFICE OF TH. CITY CLERK
CITY HALL
RALPH G.. ONGIE
CITY CLERK
IT9 NO. ' (SPE..CIAL)
a �
tKEx
CIIYMISSIQJ OF MIAMI, FLORIA4
SMCT APRIL 8. 1981
SP}:CIAL TAXING DISTRICT
rSI
WCE OR
OLUTION NO.
I)I SCUSSION
PACE NO,
1-10
MINUTES OF SPECIAL
COMMISSION MEETING
On the 28th day of April, 1981, the City Commission met
in Special Session at Bayfront Park Auditorium for the purpose
of discussing a special taxing district in the downtown area
to provide for increased police services.
The meeting was called to order at 4:00 O'Clock by Com-
missioner Plummer.
Mr. Plummer: .... tax of assessment district for additional police services
downtown. Does this require a quorum of the Commission?
Mr. Knox: No, sir, a workshop meeting does not require a quorum.
Mr. Plummer: So we can go ahead adn proceed?
Mr. Knox: Yes, sir, if the Chair would choose to.
Mr. Plummer: Well, I don't know that I'm the Chair, but it is 4 O'Clock and
that's the time of the meeting, I don't know why we shouldn't proc-ed out
of courtesy to the public who are here to watch the presentation. For the
record, Madame Clerk, was this meeting duly noted to the public as well as to
the press?
Ms. Hirai: The administration took care of the advertising in the newspapers.
Mr. Plummer: The only reason I'm questioning is the notice did not reach my
desk until late yesterday afternoon and I was informed this morning to com-
pletely rearrange my schedule. Mr. Gary, I'm questioning about notice. The
memo of this meeting did not reach my desk until yesterday afternoon, unfor-
tunately I was not notified by my secretary until this morning. I merely am
trying to satisfy in my mind that the public was invited and had more notice
than we did.
Mr. Gary: I have to defer that to Mr. McManus who handled most of the arrange-
ments.
Mr. Joe McManus: Mr. Commissioner, this was noticed in the paper, we have
contacted, of course, the Downtown Development Authority, the Miami Chamber
of Commerce and the Downtown Business Association. In addition, we have con-
tacted other commercial groups throughout the various neighborhoods of the
City.
Mr. Plummer: All right, sir, as long as the public had notice and no one can
cry foul at a later time.
NOTE: Playor Ferre entered the meeting at this time.
Mayor Ferre: Do you have a copy of the notice in the paper? Woul�' you get
me a copy of it? The DDA was notified, was the Downtown Business Association
also notified? And they're represented here, are they?
Mr. Plummer: Mr. Mayor, just for the record, I would like to tell you and the
people present Father Gibson has gone back to the hospital and will not be here
today. It is thank God, not as serious a thing as we were looking at but he
has gone back for tests and I just wanted that on the record. I called him
prior to coming here asking if he wished that anything be said in his behalf,
he had nothing to offer as far as the first meeting at 4 O'Clock, he did have
a fes comments he wishes for me to give you on the 5 O'Clock meeting.
Mayor Ferre: Well, let's move along then and, Mr. Manager, I guess what we really
ought to begin with is a description of what a special tax district is and speci-
fically how this one would work and what the parameters will be and the minimum
standards and so on.
Mr. Gary: Mr. Mayor, we have before you a packet of information which outlines
what the discussion will entail today. The person who will be in charge of ...
will be Mr. McManus and from the Police Department we have Lt. Jones and also
�� API i 2 8 Tsai
from the Planning Department ..... (INAUDIBLE)
Mayor Ferre: Mr. McManus, before you begin, I think Commissioner Plummer's
question was very apropo.... A copy of the ad that was put in Sunday's
Miami ilerald.....(INAUDIBLE)
Mr. Gary: (INAUDIBLE)
Mayor Ferre: All right, Mr. McManus.
Mr. Joe McManus: Mr. Mayor and Commissioner Plummer and members of the audience,
when the Police and Planning Departments started this study some time ago crime
in the downtown area was perceived as an immediate problem. For example, the
number of index crimes, that is murder, rape, robbery, aggrevated assault, break-
ing and entering, larsony and vehicle theft in the downtown area in 1978 amounted
to 6,321 occurences. In 1979 there were 7,638 occurences and in 1980 there
were 10,552 occurences. The fundamental assumption in the workshop this after-
noon is that those who desire additional police services should have the oppor-
tunity of paying for them. Various packages of additional police services will
be discussed. The questions that are going to be amplified on is what will be
the cost of those additional police services in those packages and secondly, how
will these be paid. No recommendation is being made today and the Commission is
not going to take any action on this item today. Rather, businessmen and inter-
ested citizens are invited to give their comments today or express themselves to
the various organizations, that is the Downtown Development Authority, the Down-
town Business Association and the various chambers of commerce. I would now
like to introduce Lt. Dean De Jong of the Miami Police Department who will intro-
duce the topic. Thank you.
Lt. Dean De Jong: Thank you kindly. Mayor Ferre, Commissioner Plummer, ladies
and gentlemen, what we're here today to talk about is the special tax district,
this is a name that we have come up with. Is there anybody that can't see that?
And throughout the presentation you're probably going to hear me refer to this
as the STD, that, of course, is an abbrevation for Special Tax District and we
thought perhaps if we called it the Special Assessment District and the initials
were SAD that some people might misunderstand so it's not a sad situation, in
this situation it is an STD or Special Tax District. What I want to briefly
discuss today are how we as police officers in the Miami Police Department first
of all distributes police officers throughout the City, what basis we use to do
that. We want to talk briefly about what the present distribution in the Special
Tax District area is, what we project that distribution of police officers to be
in January of 82 and we want to go over some cause factors and some other areas
such as relief factors and things like this which all apply to and affect the
way we distribute manpower and the methods that we are going to use in terms of
future projections for manpower for not only the Special Taxing District but the
City as a whole. The first thing I want to show you is my map of the City of
Miami with some portions missing. This is essentially a map of the City of
Miami and within this area, the yellow area, is the STD or Special Tax District.
This is bordered approximately by 17th Street or the northern boundary of the
DDA on the north. On the west running to the south, the FEC Railroad Property
down to 5th Street then west over to 3rd Avenue which is right by the Police
Station, it continues south again then to Flagler Street and over to the river.
It then follows down the river to the boundary line of the Metro Rapid Transit
System where it proceeds south againto 15th Street Road over to Brickell up to
about 14th Street and then over to the bay and follows the bay line. Essentially
what it is is the Omni area, the downtown core area and an area often referred
to as the Brickell core. That is the particular area that we're talking about
today. Okay, one of the first questions that we have to answer before we talk
about more police is what we do with the number of police officers we presently
have, in other words what kinds of decisions do we make to help us determine
where uniformed police officers go? That, of course, is the subject of this
slide. And basically, we determine distribution of uniformed police officers
b:_sed on two factors. The first is calls for service and the second is part
one crimes. Now by calls for service we mean those calls to which police of-
ficers are dispatched or which they initiate themselves. In other words the
Police Department receives a whole lot of calls every day of the week. On some
of these calls we do not send police officers. The reason for that is it's not
a police matter or we can handle it better and more efficiently over the tele-
phone or there's just a miriad of reasons. So when we talk about calls for ser-
vice what we're talking about is those calls to which police are dispatched or
which a policeman initiates on his own. In other words if a policeman sees a
robbery on the street he takes a signal and makes the police report and we in-
clude those kinds of calls in this category. The second category is the FBI
part one crime breakdown - murder, rape, robbery, aggrevated assault, burglary,
larsony and auto theft. The reason we use these two factors or have used these
�2 AN 281Q8)
f
two factors to basically determine our distribution of manpower is because
they are very measurable, there is nothing abstract about them. They are
fact, they're facts that can be looked up, they're facts that can be docu-
mented and by looking at the amount of occurence, the number of things that
happen in a particular area, we are then able to determine the number of
police resources needed to handle that particular area. Incidentally, as
part of this overall study we looked at the years 1977, 78, 79 and 80 and
discovered that in terms of distribution of manpower and numbers of calls for
service in Part I crimes within the Special Tax District area that that area
of town receives at least its share in terms of these two factors. The next
thing I want to look at is present uniformed police staffing within the Spec-
ial Tax District and this is as of April of this year. What we did was we
looked at daily attendance sheets for the past four weeks just prior to this
meeting and we took weekdays and averaged them out and these are the average
number of officers available per day - this is for a 24 hour time period,
it is important that we note that. This isn't 7 to 7, this is a 24 hour time
period and what we've done then is we have broken them down by type, in other
words type of uniformed police vehicle or person, units and police officers.
The reason for the two breakdowns here is that in some instances we have obvious-
ly more than one police officer in a police car. A good example of this is
where you see the wagons and that is one unit but it takes two police officers
to properly staff it. What we did then is we looked and we saw these aver-
abes. As you can see, patrol cars is 9 units with 13 officers. What that es-
sentially means is that a lot of those units are, in fact, two man units. And
this is, as I said from the last four weeks. This is currently what the staff-
ing is. Once again, to a point that I do want to emphasize here though is
that this is a daily average over here. In other words there are not 32 police
officers period in the Special Taxing District, there are 32 officers on a
daily basis in the Special Taxing District and we're going to in a little bit
talk about relief factors and how that affects that and the number of officers
we're going to need to provide 32 officers on a daily basis. The next thing
we looked at was a projection of what we felt the uniform police staffing
would be in the Special Tax District in January of 1982 and there are several
reasons why we looked at January 1982. The first reason is that this will be
the time when we are up to our budgeted strength of 814. As I'm sure you're
aware, the Commission in 1980 approved an increase in budgeted strength for
us to 814. As of January of 82, we should have reached that full compliment
and second and even more important, we should have the officers of the 814,
should all be to the point where they are sufficiently trained that they can
ride by themselves in one man units. At this point in time that is a problem
for us. As you can see in the other one, when we look at patrol cars, 9 units
and 13 officers. The reason for that is that many of these officers that are
riding in these cars right now are rookie policemen, they need training, they
need guidance, they need help and they are not, to our way of thinking, to our
satisfaction sufficiently trained to perform these duties by themselves. That's
why there is a disproportionate number of police officers up here to police
units. As you can see in our projections, the number of officers will drop
but the number of police cars will remain the same or constant. In other words
they will be mostly one man cars. What does increase are things like canine
units, mounted units, three wheelers and another category called PSA's. Now,
for the benefit of you that don't know what a PSA is, what that stands for is
a Public Service Aide and that is basically a young person who serves in a para-
professional capacity and can handle many of the same kinds of incidents that
police officers currently handle. For instance, he can take reports, he can
give assistance, he can answer q_._-tions for tourists, these kinds of things,
all kinds of things that police officers can do. Where he is limited in his
ability to perform certain kinds of enforcement actions, in other words, a
PSA cannot make an arrest. A PSA cannot repond to a crime in progress because
he has no authority and has no means to protect himself. So there are limits
to what they can do but they perform a very important function and more import-
antly, they provide it at a somewhat lower cost than a police officer.
Mr. Plummer: Lieutenant, two things on that I don't think you've mentioned
that I think are worth mentioning: (1) They are unifcrmed.
Lr. De Jong: That's correct.
Mr. Plummer: Different than a policeman but they are with a uniform. And the
second of all is that they can do things for the policeman to free him up to do
other things and that is very important.
Lt. De Jong: That is correct, two good points. Okay, so what we have here now
is approximately 9 PSA's we feel will be available to the downtown area in Jan-
uary. The Police Department is currently in the process of hiring from 65 to
70 PSA's and the training academy for them is about 3 months in length so they
3 Alp 28 wi
f
should be ready to go by the first of January, 1982. Now, as many of you
know, and I recognize some familiar faces here, I've been to various groups
and I've talked to various people to explain how this particular Special Tax
District Project might work. One of the chief concerns expressed by several
people was the fact that the people of the area expressed a fear of losing
those base police services which they had coming to them as part of their
fair share and the way that we would like to deal with that is we would like
to propose a formula to you that is once again based on the two items, Part I
Crimes, Calls for Service that we have assigned police officers in the past.
But this particular formula gets down to more specifics. what we do is we
take the percentage of Part I Crime of the City total, in other words the
Special Taxing District has a certain number of crimes which occur within that
area and that is a percentage of the total number of crimes that occur in the
City. The same is true for calls for service. We take these two percentages,
total them up, divide them by two and that gives us the percentage of uniform
patrol officers assigned to a particular area whether that is the special tax-
ing district or another area of the city. A practical explanation or example
of this looks like this. Once again, understand that ehse facts and figures
are not real, they're just made for purposes of illustration, not necessarily
what is happening in the City of Miami. Let's say that a city, any city, has
50,000 Part I Crimes, of that a specific area of that city like the Sepcial
Taxing District or some other area has 5,000 of those crimes, that is 10% of
the 50,000 total. Let's say calls for service for the City for that particular
year was 200,000 and of that 200,000, 30,000 were generated by a specific area.
That is 15% of the total calls for service. What we simply do is take 10% and
15%, it adds up to 25%. We divide the 25% in half and it is 12.5%. In other
words what we're saying is that a specific area will receive 12.5% of the uni-
formed patrol officers. If a city had 320 uniformed patrol officers, 12.5%
of that would be 40 so the specific area would receive approximately 12.5%.
Now that can vary a little, there can be one or two percentage point differ-
ence there depending on special needs and these types of things but it is a
pretty clear cut formula yet it is simple, it's straight forward and it is
based on fact and can very easily be monitored if that's the case. Now, what
we have to talk about next is cost factors. In other words, what I had showed
you before in terms of a projected amount of strength is what we would have
or what we project to be the staffing as of 1982 in January. If, and that
staffing, by the way, was without any kind of special or additional tax, if
we go into a Special Taxing District, once again at this point let me state
it is only a proposal at this point. This is to give you some examples or
some ideas on what the cost factors might be. In other words if there were
33 police officers in 1980 costs - and that's important to note, 1980 costs -
it would cost about $1,194,000. As you can see below this we've broken this
down into other things like sworn and PSA's and we've just given you various
sets of factors, various numbers to give you different ideas of the cost of
each of these particular groups of police officers. A point I want to
emphasize with you is that this is not what we're recommending or this is
not what we're saying you have to have, this is simply to give you an example.
There is flexibility built into this, cost factors for different combinations
of police types or sworn or non -sworn can all be figured in. This is not set
in stone by any shape or form. One thing though that we've got to emphasize
here again is that this means 33 officers total, it does not mean 33 officers
every day because of the problem that I explained in terms of relief factor.
,lust to explain a little more clearly what relief factor is and what it means,
we define a relief factor as the number of police officers needed to cover a
beat 10 hours a day 7 days a week, you could say 10 hours a day 6 days a week
or 5, whatever. But for the purposes of this illustration the number of
policemen needed to cover a beat 7 days a week this is how we figure a relief
factor. First we figure the hours needed to cover a beat for a year, that's
10 hours a day and there are 365 days in a year so that means we need 3,650
hours per year to cover one beat 10 hours a day 7 days a week. The average
number of hours a police officer is available for street duty each year is
1,684. The reason for that is: (1) I like to have days off like you like to
have days off, there are holidays, sick days, there are vacation days, police
officers also have to take time off to go into training, they need some very
specialized training to keep up police standards and to maintain an image of
professionalism in terms of the kinds of work they do. So what that means is
it lops some time off this end and on average studies have shown a police of-
ficer is available approximately this amount of time. So you take that 1,684
hours or you take the total number of hours, divide it by this and it shows
that essentially to cover one beat for one year 10 hours a day 7 days a week
you, in fact, need 2.2 officers. It is tough to cut a policeman in tenths so
to give you a better example of what that means is if 32 additional officers
were employed by the Special Taxing District or whatever group that would
mean that if they wanted 10 hours a day, 7 days a week coverage it would mean
that on average approximately 15 officers per day would be available. Now,
94 APR 281981
Cl
in terms of cost and how this cost, we've explained some of these factors
to you. How you pay for them in terms of a tax is something that we have
our tax expert, Mr. Mike Levinson from the Planning Unit here to discuss,
he's going to talk about some basic format, some basic taxint methodology,
if there are additional questions of me or him after this we'd be glad to
answer them.
Mr. Mike Levinson: Commissioner Plummer, Mayor, I see a few other Commis-
sioners back there, my name is Mike Levinson, I'm the economist for the
Planning Department. Given the six cost factors that have just been presented
by Lieutenant De Jong, the objective of the Planning Department was to pre-
pare a cost allocation model which addresses itself to the relationship
between and among the properties, the problems and the police services and
related costs. A particular formula for the Special Assessment Tax will be
levied against the property, the full cost to be assumed by the owners of
each individual piece of property. The purpose of the Special Tax Assessment
is to finance again, to reiterate the specific project in this case the incre-
ment of police services over and above the existing allocation. The total
cost will be distributed among the properties within the designated area on
the basis of a formula which relates the charge to the particular service,
the police services. As you know, in the case of property taxes it is not re-
quired that the property receive the services in proportion to the taxes that
the specific property pays out. In the case of a Special Assessment Tax we
have attempted to put together a formula which to a reasonable extent relates
the charge to the particular service. The formula is a percentage distribu-
tion formula which takes into consideration three fac`.ors, property improve-
ment value, property street frontage and property land value. Each of these
are divided by their respective aggregates, again within the designated area
and in then that quotient in turn is multiplied times a weight factor of 1/3
in this case meaning that each of these factors will be weighted equally.
Our assumption is that the service need is determined equally by all three
of these factors, consequently, each one is weighed the same. These numbers
then are added up and what you get from that is a total cost factor. Now,
this total cost factor will then be multiplied by the total cost of services
and then that will yield the cost of services to each of the property owners.
Now I will in a second go through some of the examples to show you this.
Let me say that the advantages of this particular formula are (1) that it
may be applied to any dollar amount which is the same thing as saying any
level of police services, (2) that it may be applied to any geographic area
similar in size to the downtown tax district or larger and (3) to reiterate
that the required data, the property improvement value, the property street
frontage, property land value are easily retrievable from the County Assessor's
Office. So to stress an obvious point, the simplicity of implementation is
wally the secret to the success of this type of formula and that is what we
are striving for. And now, let me give you an example of some applications
of this. The following applications of the formula are for illustrative
purposes only. They are approximations of the tax increment that each of
these particular uses will have to pay but at this point in time they are
no way the exact amounts right now. Okay, now getting back, as am example,
Burdines, for instance, if we choose the scenario of 33 sworn officers which
was the most expensive, the $1,195,000 price tag would have to pay an addi-
tional $14,760 roughly over and above their existing tax level. Now, this
represents approximately a 4% increase over and above their existing ad valorem
property tax. If we were to select the scenario which involves 16 sworn of-
ficers and no PSA's or the $578,000 price tag scenariu then the increase
would be $7,145 to Burdines or a 2% increase. Then, of course, if we pick
the least expensive or the 8 sworn officers or the $286,500 scenario then
its impact upon Burdines would be a $3,540 increment or a 1% increase over
its existing property tax. Okay, we perform the same exercise....
Mr. Plummer: Excuse me, is that a percentage over their total ad valorem
of City, County and School Board or just their City ad valorem?
Lt. De Jong: Total.
Mr. Plummer: The total ad valorem.
Lt. De Jong: Okay, we perform the same analysis on the Howard Johnson's
on S.E. 2nd Avenue and you can see here that the increase under the three
scenarios is within the range of $2,400 to roughly $10,000 which represents
reSpectively a range of approximately .8% increase to 3.63 increase over
their existing property tax levy. The Revitco Office Building downtown
was also a subject of this analysis and here we see that in the case of the
most expensive scenario the increase would be roughly $5,500 with the least
95 AI-R 418 111981
expensive scenario of $286,500 all sworn officers it would be approximately
$1,300 and again the percentage increase associated with those would be a
3.4% increase versus a .8% increase. So you can see in the case of these
three principle uses downtown that the largest increase would roughly repre-
sent a 4% increase. okay, now say we were, I don't have this to illustrate,
but say we were to take a small retail establishment on the periphery of
downtown that was roughly 10,000 square feet in size assessed at about
$270,000, well for this type of establishment the increase or the increment
in their tax bill would amount to a maximum of $525 versus a minimum assoc-
iated with the 8 sworn officers scenario of approximately $125 to $126 dol-
lars. So that is essentially the formula and four applications of the formula
within the Downtown Tax District. Now if there are any questions that any-
body has....
Mr. Plummer: Why don't you hold your questions. Are there any more presen-
tations? Is that the end of the presentation?
Lt. De Jong: Yes.
Mr. Plummer: I would assume the next procedure, Mr. Gary, is that members
of the public, since this is a public hearing, have the right to ask any ques-
tions or make any comments that they wish. Is there a microphone set up for
the public? The same one that the last speaker used? All right. Are there
any members of the public who have questions first? Let's go through that
process. Any members of the public wishing to ask questions of that which
has just b,en presented? For the third and final time, is there any questions
from the public in reference to the presentation? Hearing none, are there any
questions from members of the Commission? Hearing none, are there andy of the
public who wish to make statements at this time in any way, shape or form?
For the record, if you will identify yourself and who you represent.
Mr. Emilio Calleja: My name is Emilio Calleja, I'm the Executive Director of
the Downtown Miami Business Association. Commissioners, we have taken this
item under study for quite a while now, in fact, we have worked with Dean
De Jong and the Police Department for the past four months. We have studied
this matter extensively since it affects us primarily and back on March llth
we had a special board meeting to deal with just this issue and I would like
to briefly read what our board passed as a statement resolution addressing
this. It states: "A few years downtown Miami faced a serious problem with
increased crime and inadequate police protection. In response to this con-
cern, proposals for a Special Police Service Assessment District surfaced as
a means to add police officers to the downtown area. Since this point in time,
the overall level of criminal activity has increased city-wide to the point
where the City Commission in recognition of the problem allocated additional
funds for increased manpower. The Miami Police Department is now recruiting
and training additional officers which will be added to the City and downtown.
Rather than add additional special funds for downtown police service, the
DMBA is supportive of the City Commission's actions to increase manpower and
budget and we trust that as manpower increases additional allocations to down-
town will be sufficient to meet our needs if sufficiently and adequately de-
ployed." Briefly, what we're saying is this: Again, after considerable study
and consideration of the matter we did have a big problem about a year ago,
a year and a half ago. The City Commission responded at the end of last year
by adding roughly 260 policemen to the force and since then the City has been
attempting to hire these people, most of them are on, we hear that by the end
of this year at the beginning of 82 we will be up to full force. What we are
saying is we want to wait and see what full force is like, we haven't felt
full force downtown for years, we've been undermanned and under employed, once
we get those policemen on board and we can assess and judge the value of their
service, and if we need more we will then take this under consideration. We
feel it is a good study, it is fair, we're willing to pay for moer police, we
just want to know at the time when the police have been fully incremented if
it is needed. That is all we're saying.
Mr. Plummer: Thank you, sir. Anyone wishing to make a statement for the
record? Is there anyone else wishing to make a statement for the record?
Third and final time, is there anyone else?
Mr. Herb Spahn, Vice Presidegt of Burdines. I guess the biggest
question that we're concerned with is as far as the taxing district is con-
cerned we've been to many meetings where the Chief has explained quite well
that his resources have to be put where the problems are. We don't see how
this tax can be anything but discriminatory because he still must put his
resources where the problems are and the fact that we're paying for them I
`U APR 2` 8 1L.)EI,1
t
f
can't see them not being deployed to where his needs are and that question
has not been answered.
Mr. Plummer: All right, Mr. Gary, can you answer the question or Lt. De Jong?
Mr. Gary: I'd like Lt. De Jong to respond.
Mr. Plummer: Into the microphone, please.
Lt. De Jong: Essentially, the answer to that is this: As I showed the proj-
ected strength of the Special Taxing District in Januar_•• of 1082. this is
approximately what downtown would receive as part of its base service and
the rest of the police officers of uniformed resources would be distributed
around the City on in equitable basis. In other words part of what is paid
for in the general ad vaicrem taxes and the other City revenues, this is
part of downtown's share when we look at theitems of Part I crimes and calls
for service. Any officers over and above that which are paid for by a special
tax in a special area are for that area that pays only. Now, at the same time,
we have to say that if we have, God forbid, a riot, there may be a situation
and the Chief of Police has to have certain discretion to be able to pull these
people out if there is some kind of a major problem. But as part of the day
to day police type services the officers paid for with the special tax or
special assessment would be dedicated to the downtown area only.
Mr. Plummer: All right, let me ask a question in simple language. What you're
looking at here January 1 of 82, the normal compliment if this did not pass
would be about 42 officers, is that correct?
Lt. De Jong: Daily, yes, sir.
Mr. Plummer: Without this special tax district.
Lt. De Jong: That's correct.
Mr. Plummer: If, in fact, the plan with 33, are the merchants looking at approx-
imately 75 officers on a normal day?
Lt. De Jong: No, sir. Depending on how we make the decision to distribute
them, if they wanted them seven days a week with relief factor and in addi-
tion to the 42, and if you say we added 32 more there would be approximately
15 additional officers a day or about 57. That is if you consider the relief
factor. Now, if you wanted those 33 officers for 4 days for 10 hours a day
then all 33 could be there at once but if they were distributed over a week
you have to remember the relief factor.
Mr. Plummer: Yes, I understand. In other words those 33 would be just for
the downtown area under normal conditions.
Lt. De Jong: That's correct.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: What I understand you're saying is that a normal working
day we would have assigned approximately 42 officers downtown.
Lt. De Jong: That's correct.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: How many officers would we have assigned on a normal work
day for the rest of the City of Miami?
Mr. Plummer: Well, your answer is 320 uniformed.
Lt. De Jong: No, sir, that was an example and that's not a fact.
Mr. Plummer: I stand corrected.
Lt. De Jong: 1980, when I can speak as to actual figures, there were approx-
imately.... Well all right, let's talk about 1981. Approximately 150 police
officers in the City as a whole so you can figure in terms of police officers
you have to tak 9 off of that because the 9 are the PSA's or civilian types
so we're talking actually....
l
Mr. Plummer: You're speaking of patrol only.
Lt. De Jong: That's correct, Patrol A, B, C and SPU or Speical Police Units
which are the foot beats and these type of things. We take 9 away from that,
that means 32.... 07
if
Mr. Carollo: Approximately one-third of our officers on any given work day
are assigned to the downtown area.
Lt. De Jong: That figure is out to approximately 20%, Commissioner, 23%.
That's over 24 hours.
Mr. Carollo: You're including 9 PSA's....
Mr. Spahn: Sir, I'd like to say one more thing. Just so we can understand
what our problem is with these figures, last year when the crime was really
at its heaviest there were only 24 per day for the downtown area. we're
now told or we're probably at the point that we're going to be up to 42 or
33, whichever number you take without the PSA's so there has been an improve-
ment, we haven't had a chance to measure it and neither has the Police Depart-
ment measured the effectiveness. We think this meeting is somewhat premature
for that reason. You have budgeted 814 positions, you have 634 on hand, you
have 30 on training and you have 150 planned between now and October 1st.
With normal attrition I would assume you'll lose maybe 50 in that period of
time.
Mr. Plummer: No, sir, there's no attrition, the 814 spoke to attrition.
Mr. Spahn: Okay, in that case you have a possibility of being on plan October
1st and not until then and they now say maybe the first of the year. So we
think this is a little premature until we have a chance to measure what has
been done and we would like to hold any further action until we get a chance
for proper measurement.
Mayor Ferre: Let me once again explain the premise of what this thing is. We
are now in a budget of $36,000,000, the Police budget out of $120,000,000.
Now that's in the vicinity of close to 30%. In addition to that, we earmarked
$2,000,000 as a safety measure if we needed it and we have needed it and that
$2,000,000 I'm sure we've spent, most of it. we've already earmarked two mil-
lion three, million and a half or whatever. So I think... hopeful friendly
conclusion where we'll do the right and just thing and everybody would be happy,
but that, of course, is aoino to cost money. In addition to that, it is the
commitment of this Commission, the majority of this Commission has now stated
that it is our intention to go up to 1,000 policemen. Now, to go up from 814
to 1,000, that's an additional 200 policemen. You're talking about five to
six million dollars. All right, let's say seven million dollars. Plummer has
corrected me. So I guess what I'm saying is this, if by the time we're through,
if we do all these things that we say we're going to do, including find the
money and cut where cuts are necessary, you're talking about $47,000,000. Now,
I submit to you that that is more than all the tax payers in the City of Miami
paid last year to the City of Miami. In other words, that is more than the
ad valorem taxes, every cent of ad valorem taxes which was, what... No, I'm
talking about last year, last budget year.
Mr. Gary: (INAUDIBLE)
Mayor Ferre: My statement is this: $47,000,000 is more than what we paid
than... than what we collected last year for ad valorem taxes. Now, obviously,
ad valorem taxes unfortunately, are going to go up again. So you're talking
about... Mr. Gary is saying $63,000,000 but that's an estimate. We have
not adopted the budget yet. a that's assuming that we can do this within
the parameters of State law, even though the Trim Bill is not going to affect
us this year. Now, that's something that we need to get into in the next
few minutes, when we get to the 5:00 O'Clock portion of this discussion. But
I think the point of all of this is if we go to increase taxes, as Mr.. Gary
says, if we get up to $63,000,000 then perhaps we might have enough money to
cover the need. Now, when we get up to 1,000 policemen which is the highest
the City has ever had, we will be going up to where we were which is 1.8
policemen, some people say 1.6 policemen 1,000 policemen, we're now beyond
two. When you get up to 1,000 you're getting up there beyond three. Now,
three policemen per thousand, we're still below the major cities in America
that have 3.7, 3.8, 3.9. Atlanta, for example, is one of them. Philadelphia,
Boston, New York, Baltimore, Buffalo, Cincinnatti, you name it. And they
all have more policemen per capita than the City of Miami. The question then
is, we can't solve the criminal justice problem alone, we've got to do out
fair share. Perhaps I can dr4amatize, and somebody asked me, "well, put it
to me in real simple terms". The drama of where we are in Miami with crime,
and I can't do it any better than tell you that the Department of Justice
statistics, out of every 100 crimes perpetrated in America 50 are not reported.
Of the 50 that are reported 25 of them never get to court because a witness
doesn't show up or the police record isn't right Only 25 go to
f!(Q7 AP1, 2 8 soi
court. Of the 25 that co to court 15 are plea bargained, only 12 ae before
a judge and a Jury and of the 10 that go before a judge and a jury half of
them drop out before for technical reasons, when you get down to convictions
there are two per hundred and there is one person that goes to jail. That
means that of every hundred crimes committed in A.^erica one person aces to
jail. Now that's the problem. That's the real crux of the problem. Now
the City of Miami can't solve that. That requires a lot of rethinking and
retooling and it is time for us to get on with this retooling job in America
but we in the City certainly are aoina to do our part by adding more police-
men because there is no cuestion that that adds a sense of security and I
think that in itself is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Now the question is
this: Will we have sufficient policemen if we get to these levels to take
care of the very special needs of the downtown conz,,; nit., of the Coconut
Grove community, of t-ie Allapattah business com-unity, of the Edison Center,
or the Garment District, the Decorator's Row, they all want special treatment,
they all want two or three extra policemen. And when you talk to them. and
say look, we can't afford it, well we'll pay for it. Now, there are two ways
of doing it. We Can do it On a voluntary basis and we :.lust commend the Cuban
merchants in west Flacler Street who have for:aed themselves into loose assoc-
iations and cone out and hired from the private sector guards and by God,
as I understand it since they have done that the crime rate has cone down in
those core areas. Now, if we approach these particular areas such as Allapattah
and Coconut Grove and downtown in this way, and I think we'll have a much
better way Or chance of impacting to reduce crime. There's no question that
the presence of a policeman walking the beat - a;,d that's something that event-
ually we've act tocet into discussing, the physical visible preSenCe Of a
man weari na a badge wit, a aun on '-is Side is a deterrent and that
's where
we're at any: believe me the majority Of the hc:^.eowners of this com.7,unit%
who are basically, it's a very poor c0r-c-,-nity, if you look at the average
income of t ':13.:.i it is a :C �..�nit of a:'inC
he City Ci o f a very low per capita
income as cC pare: to the average in : lori: a an. the av erace natic hall' . '-1e
avera:zA him o —' er cannot an s old not h_ are to pa} for that. So the .ues-
tion is with all dole respects to Eurdines an--
an.c all of
the
stores in the o-wntown area, .-f .'ou want t nat assurance it seems to me that
y0'.: ought to, _ :'re 7oinc to have to bite 'he b':llet. Lastly, let me say
.. that I real_ don't :ink t..a_ none; as far as b'.:rdines Or most of theses
Stores are ready _:.E iSE',:e - and I'm sayin is heca:se I wanes to T'a!:e S'..re
that p'.._ t is in the recGr.:. I 4zn' _ wan_ anyho Sal well y kncw,
those fat Cat O'..Sires=men .are .._ _ willing tc sCen : money. i-at' E not t: e
^i ;,. at all beo;.,.EE I wa n_ to : oint this o'.:.. to ..he merchants. .ae :.'.:ik
of this is Going to be ;ai.. z, large offices and property Owners in the
hotels not by the merchants because they do not o;,:, the majority of the
property. If you ta,;e into account Eurdines and all of the stores alor
Flagler Street as a percentage of the total assessment of the downtown area
I _',:a_antee you it's not the .matority. In Other words it's not more than
52; . So the big bull; of that is going to be paid by large buildings and
large commercial office buildings and banks and hotels and other structures
of the sort. And- if you look at the Eurdines cost, if we go to 16 sworn of-
ficers which is basically where we would be heading in the beginning, this
is additional, you're talking about S4,E34 a year - that's Howard Johnsons'.
Now Eurdines it would cost S%,145. So obviously for a company - I just read
in Sunday's Herald that Dadelan6 alone sold over S1CC,000,OOC. $-,OCC to
make downtown a safer and a better place for shoppers to come to is a very
low investment and the return of that, good God, it has c_ot to be a hundred
times, so I'm pretty sure honey is not the big concern. Anybody else on
t+e ComzFission want to ask questions or make a statement?
Mr. Mayor, 1 think since the public has had their opportunit,
I would assume fcr the edification cf the public and the Com-mission, '?r.
Cary, where do we cc from here?
Mr. Gary: I think It is aprropriate at t his tine for !'r. :?C !-:a' u5 t0 al✓e
VCu _:ne steps that we should follow to proceed wit:; the t. x-na distr_ ct .
Mr. Plu:%,Tier: I t a:'E to ask the . estlon, we,%,e ::^.aQ two �_EaiErE 3r._ as
understand it they both sai:. that It 2S eit her :remat'.:re Or It is c '.c_cLl:'C
statement so I guess really what you're acing to he aiving us is the tl:ne
frame if we were to ao with it.
Mr. Zoe McManus: ':fiat's correct. I think the proced.:re wo .l : h-e to Isle
a rz:port with the Pla nnin� Direct or of Dn E Co'.,nt _ana petition the Clerk
me "ounty with a petition t0 the Board Of Co-nty CO^-:^ission.ers to estab-
lisn the taxing district and that wO::id be im7lemen.te d then through the
Board Or County Commissioners.
APR 2 8 i-ai
0
Mayor Ferre: In other words our next step is to pass a resolution request-
ing that Metro have a public hearing on this... Is it a public hearing
process or what? I'm sure they'd have a public hearing.
Mr. McManus: I believe the Board of County Commissioners then would have a
public hearing for the purpose of ascertaining the support for the district.
Mayor Ferre: Well, my statement to you and the merchants is that we've got
a long long long way to go before this ever becomes a reality and I think we
ought to get going in the process and I'm sure by the time public hearings
are scheduled and the Metro Commission decides - that's one man speaking, I
don't know if anybody else feels the same way.
Mr. Plummer: Mr. Mayor, I have no problem with that and I would assume
that that action would be scheduled at our next Commission Meeting.
Mr. Gary: Will do.
Mayor Ferre: All right, then I want to thank all of the merchants and the
citizens who took time to be here and we will now conclude this public hear-
ing workshop on the Special Taxing District for police in the downtown area.
Mr. Gary, I think it might be important also that you inform the people who
have come to the City, Allapattah, and Coconut Grove particularly who are
very anxious to get some kind of a taxing district for extra police protec-
tion in those areas. And we're about to begin this process and if they
really have an interest....
Thereupon, the City Commission adjourned this portion of the meeting on the
Special Taxing District.
ATTEST: RALPH G. ONGIE
CITY CLERK
Mi%TTY H IRA I
ASSISTANT CITY CLERK
5
MAURICE A. FERRE
MAYOR
10 APR 2s 11039