ARLINGTON Dennis Estle is one of a number of Arlington residents who has experienced what some have deemed the flipside of the citys recent growth.
Estle was one of the Kona Crest subdivision residents who suffered from vehicle prowls and broken windows Jan. 20, and he wants more patrols in the neighborhoods.
Estle spoke to the Arlington City Council at its Feb. 5 meeting, on behalf of the Kona Crest Homeowners Association, to report the nine vehicle prowls and five broken windows in their neighborhood Jan. 20, before requesting a greater police presence to address an escalating crime rate.
This is obviously a fast-growing community, said Estle, a 10-year resident of both Arlington and Kona Crest, who has suffered three vehicle prowls, a theft from his garage and a broken window in one of his vehicles. Witness the recent bond issue proposal, to expand the schools that have been built in the last three years.
Estles complaint is not with the police performance of duties, but rather, with the number of officers available to carry out those duties in the area.
The police have been so good to us, Estle said. Theyve never made us feel as though we were bothering them because they want us to report these incidents. Were just frustrated that theres not enough of them to cover these situations.
During one of the police officers visits to his residence, Estle was informed that only two officers were available to cover his neighborhood, which Estle believes has forced police to be reactive rather than proactive.
While Estle welcomes suggestions on how he and his neighbors can make their community safer, he cited the number of precautions theyve already taken, from drawing up phone lists of their neighbors to notifying one another of their travel plans so they can watch each others houses while theyre away.
The Kona Crest neighborhood has even installed many locking mailboxes and is considering plans to install a gate that would prevent people from outside of the neighborhood from accessing their common area.
At this point, these are mostly considered nuisance crimes, Estle said. But if people become aware that they can commit crimes in this area with impunity, it wont be long before the level of crime gets stepped up.
Arlington Police Lt. Terry Quintrall praised the Kona Crest residents, and other neighborhoods like them, for lowering the possibility of such crimes of opportunity occurring in their areas, but admitted that no measures can eliminate such crimes entirely.
When theres growth in the citys population, a growth in crime is often likely to happen, Quintrall said. Its more noticeable when the resources for combating that crime dont expand at the same rate, but that occurs everywhere.
Quintrall compared the task of using resources to combat crime to that of a truck carrying a trailer as it ascends a hill, by likening the polices resources to the truck, the trailer to their services and the hill to crime.
If the hill gets steep enough, then in order to make it up the side, we either need more resources, or we need to lighten the load, by decreasing some of our non-essential services, Quintrall said. You do what you can with what you have, and were always looking for unique ways of tackling that problem. We cant be everywhere at once, so thats why we rely on others to be our eyes and ears when were not there.
Quintrall would like to see more neighborhoods emulate the methods adopted by the residents of Kona Crest, who are prompt and attentive in reporting their incidents to the police. He likewise urged vehicle owners to lock and remove their valuables from their vehicles, since criminals tend to target unlocked vehicles with visible valuables by a huge margin.
While Quintrall empathized with the residents of Kona Crest for their losses, he noted that their crime statistics remain similar to many other neighborhoods, indicating no set pattern in such crimes.