By KEITH GRANT
Long Beach Police have been taken off of steady neighborhood tours and returned to rotating shifts, a move some residents fear will kill the popular Community Policing Program. The action appears to have resulted from a breakdown in negotiations between the City and the Police Benevolent Association. The PBA has been trying to make steady tours a part of its new contract.
The move was made by City Manager Bruce Nyman, effective Jan. 1, when the latest extension of the steady-tour agreement expired. Nyman would not discuss the reasons for the policy change, but Police Commissioner Ken Cohen said that PBA projections that steady tours would save the City money did not necessarily play out.
The City Manager insisted the shift change will not affect community policing. When John White of the West End Neighbors expressed concern at Tuesday's City Council meeting, Nyman responded: "Community policing has not and will not be affected. It continues today, it will continue next year, and will regardless of what tours are involved."
Not so, said Marlene Bachan of the North Park Neighborhood Civic Association, suggesting that community policing worked because of the familiarity bred by steady tours through the same neighborhoods.
"[Steady tours] worked much better for the neighborhoods," Bachan said. "It has given the police the opportunity to work one-on-one with civic groups, which has made a great, great difference in Long Beach."
Bachan believes the three-year use of steady tours created a comfort level for both police and residents, representing what community policing is all about.
"People in the neighborhoods know the police, and [the police] knew everyone in the neighborhood," she said. "They'd come to our meetings and they knew people's names."
Bachan added, "If something's working, I don't know why they'd change it. I'm very disappointed." PBA president Sgt. Richard Bart could not be reached for comment, but has stated that reverting to rotating tours "would be one of the worst things for the community."
Police Commissioner Cohen insisted that residents would not experience any drop in policing, as the force was simply returning to its patrol system of three years ago.
"We policed this way for 20 years," he said. "We know how to handle it. The community is not losing police service at all. There will be no diminishing of police service whatsoever."
Cohen said the police were back on three eight-hour shifts a day, instead of the steady-tour system of 10-hour, overlapping shifts. Steady tours enabled officers to patrol the same neighborhoods for extended periods, which was widely popular among many civic leaders. Cohen, though, said that such familiarity would not be lost under the return to the old tours, where officers are regularly rotated among the city's four different patrol areas.
"The same people will be policing the same areas," he said. Noting that the department has been hiring only Long Beach residents for the past decade, officers, he feels, are familiar with all neighborhoods within the city.
"The town is not that big," Cohen said. "If you live in the East End, you know what the problems are in the West End."
The commissioner added that Lt. Jack Radin, an instigator of community policing, will remain as a liaison to all Long Beach civic groups.
Since its contract expired June 20, the PBA has sought to make the steady tours a part of its new deal. Since January 1998, the steady-tour system was renewed by the City every six months. After the PBA contract expired, steady tours twice were extended for three months, ending with Nyman announcing the New Year's Day return to rotating shifts.
Several sources with knowledge of the negotiations but who asked for anonymity said the change came after a breakdown in the latest contract talks, and that steady tours could conceivably be renewed when a new contract is agreed to. The PBA has said that over the two years, steady-tour results have been positive, creating a trusting relationship between the community and the police force. Association president Bart has said he believed officers truly understood the workings of the community they patrolled, an improvement over what the PBA has called the "antiquated policing policy" of rotating shifts.
