Fresno politicians on all sides trip over themselves to heap praise on police. Why? | Opinion

Fresno politicians sure love the police.

To be precise, the Fresno City Council loves the Fresno Police Department and specifically how Chief Paco Balderrama runs things.

Conservative, moderate, liberal — political ideologies don’t seem to matter. When it comes to the city’s police department, our elected leaders practically trip over themselves to express support and lavish praise.

There was a moment during Tuesday’s budget hearing on the police department when that reality couldn’t have been more clear. After Councilmember Garry Bredefeld got through complimenting Balderrama and the city’s commitment to public safety, which he claimed “gets attacked by left-wing people and lunatics,” it was Council Vice President Annalisa Perea’s turn at the microphone.

“The left supports you, too,” Perea immediately told Balderrama.

Opinion

I’ll let others debate whether Perea is really on the political left or somewhere slightly left of center. Regardless, the blatant sucking up is a little much.

How about asking some pointed questions instead?

Let’s get two things square right away: One, I believe Balderrama has done good work in his two-and-a-half years on the job. The days of Fresno PD being unable to recruit new police officers and ineffective ones “gaming” the workers’ compensation system are over — thanks in no small part to Balderrama’s efforts.

Two, Fresno has ample crime and needs a strong, effective police force. This is not a call to “defund the police.” That’s silly talk.

However, certain fiscal realities should not be ignored by those elected to serve the public interest. In Mayor Jerry Dyer’s proposed 2024 budget, 49% of the city’s $457.3 million general fund is appropriated to the Fresno PD. That’s nearly 50 cents of every dollar the city generates through property taxes, sales taxes, service charges, business licenses and the like.

No other major city in California comes close to approaching that percentage. Yet there isn’t even the briefest public discussion among council members during the budget hearings as to why that is.

The proposed Fresno PD budget of $261.6 million represents an increase of $25.5 million from last year. Most of that will fund 13 new police officers and 13 new civilian hires, bringing the total number of sworn officers to 900 and civilian positions to 397. Compared to 2021, that’s 62 additional sworn officers and 99 civilians.

“There was a time that if you told us we’d have 900 officers, I’d have laughed you out of the room,” Councilmember Nelson Esparza told Balderrama. “Now I think we’re going to get there.”

Those 1,297 city employees are also earning higher salaries thanks to recent efforts by Dyer and the council to make Fresno’s police officers and emergency dispatchers the best paid in the central San Joaquin Valley.

In addition to his success with recruiting, Balderrama deserves credit for reshaping his department to better match the community it serves. Of the 117 new officers hired in 2022, 75% were ethnic minorities and 21% were women.

“A lot of our law enforcement personnel across the country don’t feel valued,” Balderamma said. “They don’t feel supported. But here in Fresno, they do. This council, this mayor, this city manager, they have a lot to do with that.”

I’m happy Fresno police officers feel valued. And for what they deal with on a regular basis, they deserve to be the Valley’s highest paid. No arguments.

Still, it is fair to question what impact a larger, better compensated police force actually has on the crime rate and response times. Because that’s not entirely clear.

Even though Dyer and Balderrama both cited statistics showing a drop in violent crime compared to a year ago, their figures don’t match each other’s. Nor do they match statistics listed in police department presentations.

When the mayor and police chief can’t get their facts straight, or offer stats that leave out certain crimes like Dyer evidently did, it makes what they’re telling us harder to trust.

The other fuzzy math involves the end goal. Is Fresno going to keep adding police officers, to the detriment of every other department, until every whiff of crime is stamped out? As if that were even possible.

Now that the city has reached 900 police officers, certain council members (most vocally Mike Karbassi) have already begun the push for 1,000. Will enough ever be enough? Sure doesn’t sound that way.

Meanwhile, Balderrama wasn’t asked a single question about why most of the 73 recommendations made two years ago by the Fresno Commission on Police Reform have been quietly shelved.

And to think local conservative Republicans, during the last mayoral election, fretted that a Democratic supermajority on the city council would result in an avalanche of “woke” policies.

Nothing could be further from the truth. When it comes to giving carte blanche to the police, our elected officials are on the same page.

Which helps explain why the city council is set to vote Thursday on naming the police training center after Dyer (the 18-year police chief) despite legal requirements enacted only two years ago for renaming city buildings.

That’s the way it goes in California’s fifth-largest city. What the police want, the police get. While the supposedly liberal city council simply nods along, few questions asked.