Protest by Police in Cypress : Crime: They cite rising crime and the need for more officers and pay in a march outside City Council meeting.

About 150 police officers, their families and city residents picketed outside a City Council meeting Monday night, protesting the city manager’s recent 15% pay raise and demanding that public safety be made a top priority.

In the city’s first-ever picketing by police, members of the Cypress Public Safety Employees Assn. said they want city officials to act in “good faith” in contract negotiations and grant an unspecified pay increase.

Officers have worked without a contract for the last year and haven’t received a pay hike for two years. Besides a pay hike, officers want the city to hire at least eight more officers. The city now has 53 sworn officers.

The union president, Matt Robinson, said crime is increasing in Cypress and the Police Department is so understaffed that outside police officers are called in to help patrol the streets.

He said only seven officers have been hired in the last 17 years and Cypress spends less money on public safety per capita than any other city in Orange County.

“We’re concerned about the total disregard that the City Council has shown this department,” he said. “And we’re letting the public know because we feel powerless.”

Robinson said City Manager Darrell Essex’s pay raise proves the city has money.

Essex recently signed a contract that will boost his salary 5% a year for three years.

Because contract negotiations began just last week, Essex declined to comment on the picketing Monday. He did say that the city is acting in good faith.

And, countering statements that city officials have mismanaged finances and failed to adequately staff the department, Essex said, “I think we’re very cost-effective. Our whole city is staffed frugally. We’re not overstaffed and we’re probably at the low end of the whole county in terms of staffing. That, to me, is good management.”

Lee Buzzard, the association’s chief negotiator, said, “Our concern about the city manager’s raise is as much symbolic as it is substantive.

“The crime rate is increasing and we’re grossly understaffed,” he said.

More than 10,000 flyers were mailed and 3,000 were hand-delivered last weekend to businesses and homes asking people to protest the city manager’s raise and show support for the Police Department.

Numerous residents responded by calling City Hall on Monday to voice their support for the officers, while others joined in the picketing last night and entered the council meeting, seeking to speak.

“I believe in this cause,” said Jerie Hirschbiel, a resident who marched with police. “You look around at other cities where crime has taken over and I don’t want to see that happen here.”

The officers “feel they’re overworked and underpaid,” Mayor Gail H. Kerry said. “The council understands that but I don’t see cities getting any more money this year. . . . These are tough times. Nobody likes it but that’s how it is.”

Robinson said he hopes residents will pressure city officials for more police.

“The council will react to what the registered voters say,” he said. “What we say doesn’t make a difference so we want the people to help.”

Buzzard said the next contract meeting will take place Nov. 23 and if an agreement isn’t reached, “we’re going to come back even more angry.”