The Eastern New Mexico News - Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities

Clovis residents have been informed there are not enough police officers on staff and this shortage could result in an escalated crime rate.

At a recent city commission meeting, Commissioner Kevin Duncan suggested property taxes be increased to help pay for raises for existing officers and to hire new recruits.

I am in favor of doing whatever we need to do in order to get more officers on the city’s payroll and on the streets. I’m not, however, inclined to go along with Duncan’s plan in its present state.

On the surface, Duncan’s plan sounds like a good idea. Upon further examination, I feel like his suggestion may leave residents between a rock and a hard place.

He is suggesting property taxes be raised to the maximum level in order to raise an additional $800,000 a year. Duncan is then suggesting this money be split among city workers, firefighters, current police officers and new hires.

It seems to me that doubling our property taxes should raise more than $800,000 a year, but it also seems a moot point if we are going to spread that money among so many entities. Will we really gain any ground if everyone in town gets a raise?

For years we have heard the fire department is understaffed because of salary concerns. Many people get their training and certification here, but then move to cities that pay firefighters/EMT’s more money than we pay in Clovis.

Let’s give firefighters and police officers the credit they are long overdue.

Instead of sharing the wealth, let’s give the people who put their lives on the line every day the raises they deserve. Let’s make police and firefighter salaries competitive with the rest of the state so we can lure more employees to Clovis.

If the plan to raise property taxes to the maximum level meant firefighters and police officers would get raises, I wouldn’t hesitate to vote in favor of the increase. However, if we are going to include city workers in the plan, the no box on my ballot is looking better and better.

Gwyn Del Toro

Clovis

More police payroll

is worth the cost

I work in Friona, but I’m establishing a home west of Clovis.

I am in full support of the petition seeking better police pay and increased police staffing for Clovis. There is hardly a city anywhere that does not need to pay its law enforcement better and support them better in what we want them to do.

I have been watching Clovis’ commercial growth and am pleased by it. In our society, we are usually willing to spend money to encourage commercial growth because it brings in more money. But we are generally very reticent to put money into things of social worth such as law enforcement, libraries and sometimes schools.

In the long run, the social-worth dollar is our most important investment. For if our social environment degenerates, no one will be willing to invest commercial dollars in our cities and our treasuries will be constantly drained by our social problems such as lawlessness. In addressing social problems the time to act is always now. An ounce of prevention is always worth a pound of cure.

This costs money, I know. Oliver Wendel Holmes said “Taxes are the price of civilization.” To improve the civility of our community will always cost us money and effort. But it is worth it.

Rev. Alvin Petty

Clovis

Spend events center money on police

Pay raises for city police and other city employees is a subject that has been brought before the city commission for years, but never seems to happen.

My daughter is a police officer in Clovis and has been for six years. She was the resource officer for the junior highs, but because of the shortage of officers she had to go back onto the streets on patrol.

My oldest son is a supervisor and federal agent and his pay is 10 times more than my daughter’s, but he doesn’t have to put up with a mayor with a one-track mind — you know, civic center over pay raises.

This community is not ready for a civic center. If the mayor and the contractors want one so bad, let them pay for it and pay for the maintenance out of their pockets.

The county’s events center is good enough for this community. We don’t need two.

We have to ask ourselves what’s more important — our safety or a building that will be hardly used?

What we want is decent pay for our city employees, pay they can live on and raise a family on. Crime is terrible here in Clovis and it’s getting worse by the day. The criminals know that our police department is undermanned so they are taking advantage of the situation and taking over the community.

It’s time we do something to back up our police department and get them at full strength, and it’s time we run all the criminals out of Clovis. It’s time we all work together and show our police department and our city employees that we care.

Duane Jacklin

Clovis