by Anthony DeMatteo
Staff Writer
Sheriff John Rutherford met with members of the Northeast Florida Builders’ Association (NEFBA) at the Police Memorial Building Wednesday to discuss a plan to fight construction theft in Jacksonville.
After the meeting, Rutherford said JSO and NEFBA developed a “three-pronged” approach to fighting what Rutherford said is a significant portion of theft in Duval County.
Rutherford said the plan concentrates on education, creating incentives for builders to report theft at construction sites and prevention.
“This is going to be a very productive partnership for builders and for us to stop some of this construction theft,” said Rutherford.
He said a conference to introduce the initiative is scheduled for March 21 at 8:15 a.m. at NEFBA’s Century 21 Drive headquarters.
Rutherford said while construction theft accounts for a significant percentage of JSO theft statistics, much of it is not reported, partly because of how often it occurs.
He said education will include informing contractors of the importance of recording serial numbers of items at their work sites. The effort will also include incentives for those who report construction theft and pole cameras that will be installed near construction sites in an effort to cut down on the crime.
“Some of the people don’t understand how important those tracking numbers are in our investigating the crimes,” said Rutherford.
According to estimates from the Construction Industry Crime Prevention Program, annual losses from construction theft near $1 billion.
Along with refrigerators, air-conditioning units and stoves, CICPP also cites theft of large equipment including forklifts and generators.
Local home builder Ryan Edwards, who owns Ryan Edwards Construction, said he had problems with theft at construction projects on the Northside last year.
“It was terrible,” said Edwards. “They’d take anything. They’d steal the AC wires for the copper in them and, I guess, go sell it for salvage. We dealt with a lot of that.”
Edwards said after many incidents of theft, it became routine to call JSO for the incident report number he needed to file an insurance claim, then move on to other things.
NEFBA Executive Director and City Council Vice President Daniel Davis, also attended Wednesday’s private meeting. Davis said he thinks the initiative will help two problems facing the community.
“I think it’s going to help prevent crime in Northeast Florida and reduce the cost of housing,” he said. “Nine out of 10 times, the builder has to take the hit when items are stolen. Obviously, that cost is passed on to the buyer.”