Sheriff’s Substation Is Proposed in Moorpark : Law enforcement: Councilman is calling for a downtown site. City has the lowest crime rate in county.

Although Moorpark is the safest city in one of the safest counties in the country, City Councilman Pat Hunter says it needs a bigger police presence.

Hunter is proposing that Moorpark spend about $30,000 to locate a Ventura County Sheriff’s Department substation downtown in a bank building at High Street and Moorpark Avenue that has been abandoned since 1987.

“It’s not only important that people are safe, but that they feel safe,” said Hunter, a deputy for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. “It’s good for business and the community.”

Hunter is also calling for more funds from county coffers to cover the cost of increasing sheriff’s patrols in the city.

In a strongly worded letter to Supervisor Vicky Howard, Hunter said the county’s decision to allocate the lion’s share of Proposition 172 money to operate the new county jail near Santa Paula offered no benefit to Moorpark residents.

Leaders of the county’s 10 cities already had banned together to lobby for an increased share in the estimated $26 million in money from Proposition 172, approved by the county’s voters last November.

“When voters in Moorpark voted on 172 they did so with the understanding that with the new tax they would see a very direct benefit, including enhanced patrols,” Hunter said in an interview. “As it is, the county is actually raising the cost we must pay for our existing service. So if we don’t want to see a reduction in the number of patrols we’ll have to pay more.”

Hunter said money for law enforcement should be allocated on a per capita basis, leaving cities the opportunity to set their own priorities for policing.

“People here are very concerned about the amount of commercial trucking coming through the town,” Hunter said. Patrols to crack down on truckers who violate local traffic laws might be more appropriate in Moorpark than targeting violent crime, he said.

“If we want to spend money on that we should be able to,” he said.

Sheriff’s Sgt. Keith Parks, who helps manage the Sheriff’s Department’s 20-member force in Moorpark, said beefing up patrols and staffing a substation would do more for the community’s peace of mind than it would toward reducing the already low crime rate.

In 1993, there were about 19.2 serious crimes per 1,000 residents in Moorpark, compared to a countywide average of 38.3 crimes per 1,000 residents, Sheriff’s Department statistics show.

“The way I understand it, the substation is really not being designed to reduce crime,” Parks said. “It’s to provide a place for one-on-one contact with the community. This is not like Oxnard or Ventura locating storefronts in high-crime zones.”

However, Hunter said the goal will always be to reduce crime.

“The reason we have the lowest crime rate in the county is that we’ve made crime prevention a priority,” he said. “The level of public safety is directly related to the number of police on the street. If that’s how the people here want to spend their money, we should be allowed to do that.”

Hunter has the support of downtown merchants and business leaders who see a downtown substation and more patrols as a way to enhance Moorpark’s image as a safe place to work and shop.

“It’s a great idea,” said Francis Okyere, a local businessman and former president of the Chamber of Commerce. “It’s not a high-crime area, but better to act now than to wait until crime becomes a problem. If you wait until the crime rate jumps, more patrols will be too late, and it will become a much more costly problem to correct.”