As crime worsens, Arlington pours money into public safety

Published 11:00 pm Monday, July 9, 2007

ARLINGTON – Arlington residents were scared.

They packed a City Council meeting in March complaining that they didn’t feel as safe as they used to. Homes were being broken into. Businesses were being robbed. Drugs seemed rampant.

The council listened.

In late June – after reviewing statistics that showed a jump in crime – the council acted.

In a rare move, the council voted unanimously to change the town’s budget mid-year and spend $298,817 over the next two years revamping the police department.

Under the plan the council adopted, the police department will hire its first police dog and the equivalent of three full-time employees, including one officer. The dog is expected to sniff out drugs, not chase after criminals.

The plan also calls for new software to help officers track evidence and the expansion of several volunteer programs.

“This is not a fix-all,” said Lt. Ed Erlandson. “What we’re looking at is all the different pieces coming together.”

Dennis Estle, 65, is glad that the police department is expanding. Several of the vehicles he keeps at his rural Arlington home have been broken into, and he fears the problem will only get worse until there are more officers patrolling the streets.

He thinks the city has spent too much money trying to look nice and not enough keeping its residents safe.

“You can make (downtown) as pretty as you want to, but if we’re still not being taken care of away from town, it’s just putting lipstick on a pig,” he said. “We need to feel safe in our own homes.”

Since 2000, the number of crimes the Arlington Police Department responds to and writes reports on each year has jumped 41 percent, to 4,267 in 2006, according to statistics kept by SnoPac, north Snohomish County’s regional dispatch center. The number of incidents the agency responded to in that time rose 7 percent, to 22,938 in 2006.

The bulk of the city’s crimes involve property and drugs. The number of rapes and felony assaults in Arlington actually dropped from 2000 to 2006, according to Uniform Crime Report statistics provided by the police department. And no one has been murdered in Arlington since the 1960s, Erlandson said.

Thefts, however, jumped by 55 percent from 558 in 2000 to 863 in 2006. Auto thefts increased almost tripled from 77 to 202.

Population growth is probably responsible for much of the town’s increase in reports of crime, Erlandson said.

Arlington has grown from 11,927 residents in 2000 to 16,720 in 2007, according to estimates from the state Office of Financial Management.In Erlandson’s 25 years as an Arlington police officer, he has watched the department grow from seven officers to 27, in response to a growing populace and rising crime.

“Back then, from a new police officer standpoint, you had to go look for things to do,” he recalled. “It’s not like that anymore. The officers come on duty and a lot of times there’s calls waiting for them. A lot of times officers have to prioritize calls. It’s not exactly ideal customer service.”

He’s hoping that changes with the new staff members.

Keith Graves, too, has noticed the changes. He’s lived in rural Arlington for 46 years and remembers a time when he would leave for weeks-long saddle mule trips without worrying about the safety of his wife and their home. Now he locks his barn and his cars every time he leaves.

“I’m out here isolated,” he said. “Heck, I can’t leave my place without thinking, ‘Somebody’s going to come.’ I come home and expect something to be gone.”

However, Graves, 69, doesn’t think hiring new police officers is really going to help the problem. He says laws need to change to give police officers more power and to keep criminals locked up for rehabilitation longer.

“The neighbors that I’ve talked to are in complete frustration because they don’t see anything getting done,” he said. “They don’t even bother calling the police at certain points because they don’t see anything happening. …

“You’re only going to solve it when the town of Arlington and other towns like it, big and small, get some help from Olympia.”

Assistant City Administrator Kristin Banfield said the new plan should help by enabling officers to do their jobs more efficiently.

The plan calls for a new officer to patrol central Arlington, near the municipal airport. It also calls for a police support officer and a part-time property and evidence technician. In 2008, another part-time employee will be hired to transcribe police reports, according to the plan.

The money for the changes is scheduled to come from a variety of sources, including lease payments for a building some city departments were scheduled to move into, but haven’t yet. Airport funds and increased sales tax revenue in 2008 is also expected to help, Banfield said.

Reporter Kaitlin Manry: 425-339-3292 or kmanry@heraldnet.com.