Taxing District....YOUR MONEY AT WORK?
The Fort Worth Citizens for Responsible Government attended all of the public meetings on the Crime Control and Prevention District and have come away from those meetings with some fairly clear understandings about how your city and this Board was intend to function. We can say with some confidence that we are making a small difference in the process because it's apparent the CCPD Board is beginning to listen to our interpretation of the law that governs how the Crime Control and Prevention District is "supposed" to function...which of course is Chapter 311 of the Tax Code.
While we recognize an attempt by the board to be more involved in the process
of budget oversight, as a result of the last two meetings of the CCPD Board,
we have also recognized that the CCPD Board is much too closely aligned with
the Fort Worth Police Department for any reasonable comfort level on our part.
So closely aligned, as a matter of fact, that after the Police Department
finishes with their requests for funding, no money remains for any other
groups to request funding from the district regardless of how much a new
program might control or reduce crime in our neighborhoods.
The last meeting of the CCPD Board was on Thursday, September 24th and did not produce the results that we feel are in the best interests of the citizens. Once again the Police Department was the only group in the room that was constantly at the podium stating and restating their case for all of the money on the table, leaving nothing for individual programs that could and would reduce crime by a significant and quantifiable amount.
We have made any number of presentations to the CCPD Board about how they might improve, and they are beginning to listen. However, we will in the very near future make some additional recommendations. Will the Board have the courage to make some very important changes in the way they approach funding? Only time will tell, but if the last few months are an indication of the good things we can expect from the CCPD we are truly in trouble.
As a citizen of Fort Worth you need to make your thoughts known. One would think that $600 million dollars poured into any crime fighting effort would produce a little more crime reduction than we have seen over the past 14 years.......but this program has not reduced crime in our city by the promised amount (10% for every year the CCPD is in existence.
PERHAPS WE SHOULD BE EXPECTING, AND DEMANDING MORE FROM OUR ELECTED OFFICIALS.
LET US KNOW WHAT YOU THINK AT fwcrg@fwcrg.org
Respectfully submitted,
Norman Bermes
Chair
