‘Safe-City’ Rankings Prove Potent Selling Tool
When the time came for Esther J. Good to move her growing high-tech company to roomier digs, she knew exactly what she didn’t want.
No more cars swiped from the company parking lot in broad daylight. No more meth lab explosions around the block. No more employees trapped in the building while waiting out police manhunts.
The 60 employees of Tech Support & Service Inc. had experienced all that in Chatsworth. So they moved to a city consistently ranked one of the nation’s safest: Thousand Oaks.
“We’ve had a baby rattlesnake or two outside our building here,” joked Good, the company’s controller. “Other than that, we’ve had no problems whatsoever. . . . No one is afraid to go to their cars after dark.”
The safe-city status, calculated by comparing FBI crime statistics to city populations, has provided a distinct advantage to both Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley in luring new residents, businesses and employees.
In the most recent rankings, Simi Valley ranked safest for cities of at least 100,000 people, with Thousand Oaks close on its heels.
Turns out, a sterling reference from the FBI isn’t just good for community morale. It’s good for business in these two cities, which have captured the No. 1 spot six of the last eight years.
And city officials, Realtors, brokers, police officers and school officials aren’t above a little bragging. They have started to promote their safest-city status in a slew of ways.
Neither Realtors nor city leaders actually calculate the economic benefit of the safest-city rankings, but anecdotal evidence suggests that it is a potent economic force.
Given the premium people place on feeling safe, it’s only natural to publicize a strong police department and low crime rate, said Simi Valley City Councilman Paul Miller, a former police chief.
Without safety, he said, “businesses can’t conduct business, schools can’t teach children and even mothers going to the store with their kids can’t buy groceries if they have to watch for bullets whizzing through the air.”
While neither city trumpets its successes with billboards or prime-time television ads, the safety sales pitch is still there.
Thousand Oaks touts its safest-city honors on the first page of a glossy, full-color city brochure offered to prospective businesses and residents.
Despite the city’s obvious pride in its open space, oak trees and successful schools, the FBI ranking gets higher billing than the Trail City Hall of Fame, Tree City USA and academic achievement accolades in that brochure.
And even though Good had lived in Thousand Oaks for a decade before moving her business here, the city official helping her scope sites made sure to remind her of the city’s rankings.
“We tell everyone,” said Stacy Minasian, a senior management analyst who handles economic development for Thousand Oaks. “It’s one piece of the pie that makes us a place where corporations and families want to locate. It’s not a stand-alone, but part of the whole fabric of Thousand Oaks--along with our open space, public facilities, theaters, homes and retail shopping.”
Simi Valley’s safest-city rankings pop up on Web sites and police recruitment literature. Advertisements in “Site Selection” magazine with the theme “Come for business, stay for lifestyle” proudly list Simi Valley’s safety status.
“We don’t like to date it,” said Simi Valley Assistant City Manager Don Penman, who works closely with businesses. “Some years we’re 1 and some years we’re 2, so we always put ‘one of the safest cities in America,’ or something to that effect.”
Flushed with the thrill of the most recent rankings, Simi Valley City Councilwoman Barbara Williamson has even proposed emblazoning patrol cars with a safest-city motto, a la Los Angeles’ “To protect and serve.”
A company that installed Simi Valley City Hall’s security system is considering the catchy slogan, “We keep the safest city safe.”
Almost any real estate agent in the two cities can tell you the value of the FBI’s ranking. It translates into homes and lots unloaded.
Take Pat Fredericks and the Midwestern couple.
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A past president of the Conejo Valley Assn. of Realtors, Fredericks showed a Wisconsin family homes in the San Fernando and Conejo valleys about three years ago. When the family learned of Thousand Oaks’ safety accolades, they picked a house in Newbury Park.
“I think that if people moving to this area have school-age children, their first question is about schools,” she said. “If you don’t have children, in that instance, the safety factor makes the difference. The safety of the Thousand Oaks-Simi Valley area ranks very, very high in the home-buying decision-making process. It’s one of those things that we as Realtors, without exception, talk about.”
While the rankings are generally known among residents of Southern California, they seem to most impress crime-wary San Fernando Valley expatriates and newcomers from rural areas, added Theresa Berenger, the president of the Simi Valley-Moorpark Assn. of Realtors.
“People come in from the Midwest and East, and [safety] is very important to them, because they’ve heard all these horror stories from L.A.,” she said. “They only get the awful stories.”
Similarly, the safety rankings help businesses lure new employees, as executives at GTE, Amgen, Countrywide Insurance and Bugle Boy--all based in eastern Ventura County--can attest.
Not only did Good’s company have no trouble finding 40 new employees after relocating to Thousand Oaks, she said, but 10 of her previous employees opted to move from the San Fernando Valley to eastern Ventura County with the company.
Which is not to suggest the rankings only bring good news. The notoriety has a downside too.
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If you toot your horn too much, you could attract too many newcomers, warned Williamson.
“Simi Valley is a beautiful community and, when you know there’s no crime, why wouldn’t you want to move here?” she asked. “At the same time, I wouldn’t want to be overrun by 300,000 people. Let’s face it, the more people you have, the more likely crime is, statistically.”
In fact, the size of the two cities, each close to 100,000, serves them well. Smaller cities that are very safe, such as Ojai and Moorpark, are not included in the FBI statistics.
Some graduates fresh from the Police Academy, though, shun Simi Valley because working there gets--well--dull, Police Chief Randy Adams said.
“As far as a recruiting standpoint is concerned, it can work both ways,” he said. “It can be an attraction to officers who work in urban areas where all they do is respond to call-for-service after call-for-service after call-for-service and feel they’re just putting a Band-Aid on the problems. . . . Now I’m sure some younger officers wouldn’t want to come here to work because they like being really busy.”
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Because Thousand Oaks contracts with the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department for police services, there is less of a stigma in the Conejo Valley, said Cmdr. Kathy Kemp.
But both cities suffer when the rare homicide happens--as occurred in both cities this year. Suddenly, everyone turns to each other and asks: How could this happen in the safest city?
“We had that happen with Monica Lynne Leech,” Kemp said, referring to the teller who was killed execution-style in a bank heist in April. “But I’d rather suffer with them being shocked and unhappy than hear them say, ‘Oh, we had another homicide last night, how ‘bout that?’
“No matter how safe you are, you aren’t immune from violence.”
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Safe Sister Cities
Over the last eight years, Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley have jockeyed for position in the safest-city rankings, based on annual FBI crime reports for cities with a population of at least 100,000.
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Year Safety rankings 1997* 1--Simi Valley 2--Thousand Oaks 1996 1--Simi Valley 2--Thousand Oaks 1995 1--Thousand Oaks 3--Simi Valley 1994 2--Thousand Oaks 3--Simi Valley 1993 1--Simi Valley 3--Thousand Oaks 1992 2--Thousand Oaks 4--Simi Valley 1991 1--Thousand Oaks 2--Simi Valley 1990** 1--Thousand Oaks 1989** 1--Thousand Oaks
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* The 1997 figures only reflect the first six months of the year. Final figures will not be available until next summer.
** There are no comparable rankings for Simi Valley in 1990 and 1989, even though the city’s population was just above 100,000.
Source: FBI Uniform Crime Report
