Friday, Jan. 26, 2001 | 11:26 a.m.
Retired resident Diane Booker aired the lone voice of dissent Thursday in council chambers packed with supporters of a tax initiative that would likely put more than 200 new public safety officers on Henderson streets over the next seven years.
It was an unexpected departure from just 10 weeks ago when voters rejected by a narrow margin a public safety bond issue that would have taxed homeowners $84 annually per $100,000 of assessed values.
"I thought it would be a contentious meeting," Henderson Police Chief Michael Mayberry said afterward. "But it really wasn't. Once people got the facts they were OK."
The City Council stopped short of officially endorsing the tax initiative for a second time. But members voted 4-0 to keep their options open as time and legal deadlines leading up to the June ballot pass by. Councilwoman Amanda Cyphers was absent from the special meeting.
Without the initiative to raise funds, the city could forfeit a $2.25 federal grant announced Monday that would help pay the salaries of 30 new police officers over three years. The city would have to come up with $3.9 million over that same period. Of that total, they would need to raise $836,000 in 2001.
Booker spoke out early in a meeting where the council heard more than 90 minutes of testimony from residents and public safety officials. About 200 people attended, with several mothers standing in the aisles toting newborns on their hips. Many others wore Henderson Police Association T-shirts.
"I'm not for this, not because we don't need it. We do need it. But you, as a City Council, you approved Anthem, you approved Seven Hills. You approved Sun City MacDonald Ranch," Booker said. "You made sure they had sewer and water, for all of those developments. Why not public safety?"
Booker, a senior citizen who said she lives on a fixed income, asked the City Council to "cut the fat" from the budget and find the funding for public safety elsewhere.
Most people who stood to speak, however, referred to the same growth Booker spoke of as reason to support a tax initiative.
"It's a small price to pay for the safety of our families," Peggy Jo Treese, a mother of four sons, said.
Two other residents spoke of a recent break-in that left a homeowner waiting for police for 50 minutes on the front lawn thinking the intruder was still inside.
Mayberry, in an impassioned speech, acknowledged that response times for the police department have slowed dramatically over the 25 years he has worked in Henderson.
In past years, he said, police responded to thefts in about six minutes on average, but by 2000, police needed an average of 41 minutes for the same call.
Their response time for life-threatening calls has more than doubled to between six and seven minutes, he said.
"It is unacceptable to me to not have proactive policing in our neighborhoods because our officers are running from call to call to call," Mayberry said. "It is unacceptable to me that in the city I love a citizen may be in a life-threatening situation and we come too late to save them."
Public safety planners suggest a ratio of 1.5 police officers per 1,000 people, Mayberry said. Henderson has less than 1 officer per 1,000, he said. The department would need an additional 80 officers for adequate staffing, he said.
Councilman Jack Clark, who is running for re-election this spring, said asking voters for more money in an election cycle is never a wise political move. But he supports the initiative.
"Yeah, we do have a safe community. But we want it to be safe in 10 years, too," he said.
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