Keep Up Policing Commitment

The Santa Ana Police Department’s plan to close five of seven substations understandably has upset a number of residents and business owners. But shutting the police outposts in scattered neighborhoods will not necessarily mean an end to community policing, in which police do not stay in the station house or just patrol by car, reacting to calls for help, but establish a steady presence on the streets through foot patrols and extra efforts to know the residents.

If Santa Ana police fulfill their pledge to be out and about, emerging from patrol cars to see and be seen, they can allay the worries over the closing of the substations. They should continue to be an effective presence in various neighborhoods. The partnerships they have established as part of the community policing program, including use of the substations, are too important to write off.

Police Department officials said the planned November opening of a new $100-million police complex will make the substations obsolete. They also said the cost of the sites, including more than $200,000 annually for rent and utilities, is a burden.

Two substations will remain open. One is in downtown Santa Ana and shares space with other city agencies and a merchants group, which helps cover costs.

That is a good, innovative way to maximize city services; if the city can emulate that kind of pooling of resources elsewhere and thereby keep several more substations open, it should do so.

The second substation that will remain open is on Minnie Street, center of a neighborhood plagued by overcrowding, drugs and crime. That outpost opened last summer; a state grant pays for one police officer; the city pays for a second. An apartment building owner donated an apartment for police use. It is a good example of the type of community support that is vital in police work.

Last year Santa Ana’s City Council approved spending $1.7 million to match federal funds for the Community Oriented Policing program. The pooled funds will put 15 additional police officers on the streets for three years. In the final six months of last year, after the extra police started patrolling, police reported an impressive reduction in felonies in the city. That commitment to innovative programs to cut crime must continue after the five substations are shut down.