Letter to the Editor: Don't Lay Off Police and Firefighters

The following letter was submitted by local Bill Neighbors. To submit your own, send an email to watsonville@patch.com.

It is budget time again for Watsonville and it appears there could be layoffs In the police and fire departments.

I don’t know what the solution is but I do know that laying off police officers and firemen is not the answer. We tried that a few years ago and look what happened. We have a very reliable police and fire department that work very hard every day to ensure our safety.

Our police officers work well together and know who the bad guys are. They do a great job solving the crimes that happen in Watsonville. We cannot afford to lose police officer or firemen.

Santa Cruz and Capitola passed a safety tax last year. They now are recruiting police officers. Santa Cruz is paying up to $25,000.00 for a lateral moves. It is imperative that we do not lose one police or fire personnel. It appears that both departments are running very short now and to make more cuts would be very harmful to our community.

It is absolutely critical that we keep our city safe, to accomplish this we must have accurate police and fire personnel. We cannot afford to go backwards. If we lay off police or fire personnel, that is exactly what we would be doing.

What do you think of the police and fire departments' current staffing? Do you agree with Mr. Neighbors? Tell us in the comments!