(Editor's note: This is just one part of a series of stories about local candidates in the upcoming June 2 primary, municipal and school board election. Find more coverage here.)
Simplified: This year, Sioux Falls saw a five-year low in violent crime per capita. Meanwhile, the city's public safety budget has increased 75% over the last decade as the city's added about four dozen officers in that same time period. Sioux Falls Simplified chatted with all five mayoral candidates about how they plan to approach funding the city's growing public safety needs.
Here's what we asked:
How would you approach balancing the public safety needs of the community with the budget realities facing the city – e.g. sales tax revenues coming up short?
Here's how candidates answered (in reverse alphabetical order):
David Zokaites said if the city wants to talk about crime, it has to figure out what causes crime, and from his perspective, what causes most crimes is alcohol-related problems.
- He called for a public safety campaign to inform the public about the dangers of alcohol, as well as an approach that sends people arrested on alcohol-related crime to treatment centers rather than jail.
"The reason we don't do that is because there's too much money in alcohol sales," Zokaites said.
Jamie Smith said public safety is the number one job of any mayor, and that while Sioux Falls has done a nice job on this front, we can always do better. He also praised Police Chief Jon Thum and said he'd like to go further in being proactive with crime.
"A lot of the worst crime in our city – we’ve identified who is doing this and maybe the networks that are going on," Smith said. "But how do we get in there and help do things before bad things happen?"
Greg Jamison said public safety is the number one priority in his campaign because "nothing else matters" if people don't feel safe. He said in any budget challenge, public safety has to be put first, and he hopes to generate broader community support for the police department, as well.
"Anybody who wears a bulletproof vest to go to work to protect the people who live here deserves the respect of this community and the pay and all the benefits that are required to keep those people here," Jamison said.
Christine Erickson said public safety is "the basic function of government." She noted that she supported law enforcement's overtime budget as a councilor, as well as projects to upgrade police technology.
"I want to keep doing that – giving them the resources they need to modernize and keep our community safe," Erickson said. "If you don't feel safe, you won't maybe expand your family, your business. It's really the cornerstone of making sure our community is alive and well."
Joe Batcheller said the issue isn't so much a budget constraint as it is a cultural constraint when it comes to the police department – noting that being an officer today is "not as popular as it used to be," and the department is seeing higher turnover and hiring challenges.
- He also advocated for more community resource-type roles that maybe aren't a "full-on" police officer.
"I look at supporting staff as being key to allowing police officers to be able to focus on what their core duties are," Batcheller said. "There are also some opportunities to invest in technology to automate some of the tasks."
