Alarmist Reaction

Today's edition of the Osceola News Gazette continues the sales pitch to the residents of the City of Kissimmee on why they should get down on one knee and thank city government for the opportunity to pay them even more money. To shake your dollars from your already shrinking wallet they are now using alarmist tactics to scare the public into giving up their hard earned cash more readily. As in their editorial, we will use the same analogy of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf".

First we will take a quick look at the numbers that were presented in their editorial on this "crisis" of false alarm calls from automatic alarm systems. The periodical notes that the Kissimmee Police Department responded to almost 4,000 automated calls of which only around 1,000 were real emergencies. Which means, in essence, less than 3,000 calls in a 12 month period were false alarms. Since the Osceola News Gazette is using nice round numbers, when you divide these numbers down to come up with daily number of false alarms, you are looking at 9 non-emergency false alarms per day give or take a few calls for math accuracy. While the WayneWho staff agrees with KPD, the City Commission, and their mouth piece, the Gazette that these amounts of false alarms are unacceptable, we do not believe that creating a 'Security Tax' will fix the problem, and will probably create other problems instead.

First, where did this idea of creating a tax to force the collection of data come from? It came from the company that has been hired to collect false alarm fees for alarms that have had too many false alarms. This ideas was presented and accepted with no real discussion. There has been no obvious attempt by city government to handle this issue in any other way. It is easier to sit back and scream in a panic demanding the citizens charge card be swiped again. Wolf... Wolf...

As one of our commenters posted yesterday, "Aren't the police on duty anyway?" We feel that this is a very valid question that of course no one seems to want to address in their list of scary numbers. Are we to believe that officers are not responding to calls to real emergencies because of false alarms? Has staffing at the police and fire departments dropped to a level where this is a problem? We know that standing by a building with a blazing alarm for twenty-minutes sucks, but is this creating problems in emergency response times? Will this new 'Security Tax' aid in a reduction in crime? Maybe the Police Chief should present that information instead of looking upset at the podium because the public might want this issue debated.

Another point about the new 'Security Tax' or fee as some want to call it, is that we listened to all the arguments about the new Fire Fee being what we needed to finally fund our Fire Department without being tied to the ebb and flow of government income. But here we are again, asking for another fee to fix another problem that was either overlooked or ignored. Wolf... Wolf...

The scary part is that elected officials are supposed to help provide a vision for our community that represents the will of the people, and they do not. Today's elected officials represent a vision of our community that campaign contributors want to see and a vision of how big and strong government should be. The WayneWho staff would not be so opposed to this new fee if other avenues, which would require some vision, would have been tried first. Maybe someone can come up with other ideas that will achieve the same goal of reducing the number of false alarms. The Mayor stated that was really our goal and not revenue collection, so maybe we should give it a try.

Why not set up a space on the cities website that allows security alarm owners to register and maintain contact information at no charge. The city could even print out registration forms with links to the website registration system that could be given out to the security alarm companies doing business in this county. The city could also use 'Access Osceola' and all the groups the city pays to be a member of to get the word out there that we are doing a 'No False Call' registration drive to promote safer communities and a better working relationship with KPD. This could even be opened up as an opportunity for neighborhood watch groups to help register their neighbors and let them become part of the solution. Maybe working from the point of community pride, instead of the idea that 'We have to tax you morons so we can handle all of this for you!' would work out better than expected. If not, then institute the tax, but at least government would not have bitten at the first fluffy thing it thought was a sheep to feed its belly. Wolf.. Wolf..