This past Sunday night...

I was reminded again how important a decision it was to go with the Sheriff's department and dissolve our own police force. I was out at a local establishment watching the Packers/Bears football game. That's still o.k. to do that in Lake Worth, isn't it? Anyway, after being there a while, a patron went out into the parking lot to get something out her car, when she immediately came back in and yelled that someone had just broken into a certain car in the parking lot. I was initially relieved that the description of the car was not mine. Apparently, she had caught the guy in the act and he ran away. At that point, the owner of the vehicle and others in their group ran out and chased the guy (not recommended) while the bartender called 911.

In minutes, the Sheriff arrived in force (dogs, cars and chopper) and within 45 minutes, they actually caught the perpetrator and he was in the back of one of the cars.

Apparently, this had happened two nights before - both times cars were cleaned out of any valuable contents. Moral to the story: Do not leave anything visible inside your car.

It made me wonder how this might have transpired differently if our own police department was still in place. It's important to note that the increase in cost of our Sheriff's department contract is less this year than the annual increases for the city's police department from 06-07 on. This fact was stated by Administrative Services Director Bates at the 9/10 Commission meeting. Commissioner Jennings was going on about how expensive Sheriff was compared to our police department - in reality, we'd be paying more and getting less. I guess she is very o.k. with the getting less part but it's the lack of control, I think, that bothers her the most.