East Point Mayor Earnestine Pittman and her city council allies got an earful Monday from residents and police officers about plans to cut public-safety.
Residents asked the mayor and the council's voting majority aligned with her not to cut the police department to make up for a projected $8 million shortfall in the next city budget. Pittman fidgeted in her chair as police Capt. Audrey Harrelson called those making the cut "ignorant" to a standing ovation from the crowd.
"Cut what needs to be cut, not what you want to cut," said Harrelson, the evening watch commander who said the department's cars and equipment were in shoddy condition. "To say there is no crime problem in this city or that there are too many police is a clear demonstration of ignorance."
The council made its proposed budget known to the public Monday and will have to adopt it before July 1, the south Fulton County city's next fiscal year. Acting City Manager Nina Hickson had proposed four budget scenarios -- three of which were balanced. But the council chose the fourth scenario, in part to address serious underfunding of its pension fund, which necessitates deeps cuts in staff.
City officials say that the cuts require cuts in the 135-position police force because public safety makes up the biggest personnel cost in the city and personnel is the greatest cost.
Pittman contends that crime is not serious in East Point. "The (crime numbers) are not astronomical or horrendous," Pittman told the crowd at the budget committee meeting Monday. "Every time somebody's house is broken into it is astronomical and horrendous to that person whose house is broken into but we live in a very safe city."
Residents begged to differ. One long-time resident, Wanda Johnson, said it was "embarrassing" that her grandchildren joked she lived in "the hood." Another, a single woman who moved to East Point, said she was weighing the benefits buying a gun.
"There have been five bullets that riddled my house," Johnson said. "Please do not cut our police. We need them very badly."
Chief Woodrow Blue presented figures that he said showed that burglaries were increasing in the city of 33,000 residents.
The city in 2010, which are the most complete figures, showed East Point had 1,228 burglaries -- dwarfing the 592 in neighboring but much smaller College Park, the 718 in Sandy Springs and 723 in Marietta. It had a much higher rate of auto theft too, with 461 compared to 297 in College Park, 192 in Sandy Springs and 166 in Marietta for that year, according to data reported to the federal Justice Department.
"Thank you Chief Blue, I know the citizens feel safer already," Pittman said after the chief's presentation.
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