If you read the latest campaign mailers sent out by the Public Safety Officers Association (PSOA), you might think that Sunnyvale Crime in the years around 2002 through 2004 suffered an amazing increase due to some supposedly poor decisions by our elected officials.

For example, one literature piece claims that crime in Sunnyvale increased after cuts were made to the Public Safety Budget in the year before 2003. This is absolutely false. First, there were no cuts made to the Sunnyvale Public Safety Budget in 2002. In fact, in 2003 the City Council actually increased Public Safety spending by nearly $600,000 above the initial budget in this year (see item 1D. of the February 25, 2003 City Council meeting minutes and Item 2. of the March 18, 2003 meeting minutes). Since the existing public records seemed to disagree with what the police union was saying, we asked the City for an official response. Not suprisngly, the City Attorney confirms our side of the story and it appears that the union bosses have come down with a serious case of amnesia or researchus incorrectus.

Moreover, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) crime statistics actually show violent crime decreased in Sunnyvale in the subsequent years 2003 and 2004 in direct contrast to the messages from PSOA. See the City memo references above as well.

If you don't beleive us, here are the crime rates for Sunnyvale as published by the FBI

The San Jose Mercury News in their October 18th editorial wholeheartedly agree with these conclusions and stated that they simply don't buy the anti-public safety messages that this union is attempting to portray.

Even though we pay our officers on average over $170,000 per year, it just goes to show that you can't trust everything you hear in an election, even from a police officer!

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