by Glenn Tschimpke
Staff Writer
City Council wants to increase police patrols in an area of Jacksonville that may not statistically need it, but could bring untold indirect benefits.
The Council passed a resolution Tuesday encouraging police presence downtown, either on foot, horseback or bicycle.
“It’s a perception thing,” said Council member Jim Overton. “Do we have a crime wave downtown? No, there’s relatively low crime.”
The legislation is one of a number of bills borne from the year-long Historic Preservation and Downtown Revitalization Task Force, which studied various ways to shake downtown from its stagnation into a bustling core center while keeping its historic heritage. As large-scale residential living returns to downtown, one deciding factor for possible residents is safety.
“The downtown core city has a perception problem from the general public as an unsafe place to walk around after hours,” said Fitzhugh Powell, downtown businessman and member of the task force.
Last October, Downtown Vision, Inc. began its Downtown Ambassador program. Twelve brightly-dressed, roving friendly faces comb downtown in two shifts ready to offer visitor information, parking assistance or dining advice. Their presence also gives workers and visitors a perception of safety, especially after hours.
“Our ambassadors are an extra set of eyes and ears,” said Terry Lorince, executive director of DVI.
Lorince has stressed the importance of downtown safety since she began working for DVI in 2000.
“It’s a catch 22. There are a lot of projects in the pipeline for downtown,” she said pointing to various residential and municipal construction projects in the area. “We know the crime rate has been going down for the past five years. We need to do what it takes to make people come down here.”
Lorince would like to see added police patrols near potentially dangerous areas such as parking lots and garages.
With a resolution, the Council can only urge and encourage the Sheriff’s Office to step up patrols downtown. JSO spokesperson Harry Reagan said the force has already taken steps to improve the perception of safety downtown.
“A great deal of effort has gone into increasing police presence downtown in the last five years,” said Reagan.
Assistant Chief Ed Johnson, Zone 1 Substation commander, explained that downtown is well-staffed, but could always use more.
“We have six horses and they’re usually patrolling downtown, we have four walking beat units, we usually have an officer staffed at the Landing and we have six bike units,” said Johnson.
Despite the request for more presence, Johnson indicated that downtown is safer than people may perceive.
“We don’t have a lot of service calls downtown that justify 100 officers downtown,” he said. “Downtown Jacksonville is no more risky than any other part of town. That’s my perspective. We have the occasional bank being robbed, but those are crimes of opportunity.”