Spending Priority in Thousand Oaks

Re “Troubled Complex Won’t Get Officer,” May 18.

The Thousand Oaks City Council voted against having a full-time police officer at the Conejo Creek complex where a young man was killed on April 28.

According to news reports, an earlier experiment of assigning an officer to the area was successful in reducing crime. If this is correct, it is difficult to comprehend how the majority of the council decided this was too costly. Yet this same City Council voted to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to plant trees and shrubs on a postage-stamp-size lot on Thousand Oaks Boulevard.

I wonder if the April 28 shooting had happened in North Ranch if the same sophistry and anecdotal logic would have been employed. In Conejo Creek, many of the residents are nonvoting, non-connected people--so who cares about them?

The lacuna in the logic of the majority vote was and is public perception. Indeed, the City Council sent a loud message that public safety really isn’t very important. Feigning concern about public coffers is disingenuous at best. I hope their improvidence does not have pernicious consequences later.

JOE WELLS

Thousand Oaks