Kenneth Frederick starts out his letter (Globe, Aug. 31) by telling everyone that he (made) a rolling stop at an intersection with a police car right there in plain sight.
Then, he proceeds to spout off about what a large police force and city staff Duquesne has.
The facts are that Duquesne has only five full-time police officers, one city clerk, one court clerk and one clerk who spends her time split up helping the other two. I’d like to see Mr. Frederick come up with a schedule to provide 24-hour, 7-day-a-week police protection with any fewer than five officers. They are overworked and underpaid as it is!
Revenues from the court fines for everything from traffic tickets and code violations to felonies only amounted to $237,517 for last year. A far cry from the $2 million, $3 million, suggested by Mr. Frederick. For the same year, expenses for the police department and court combined were more than $408,606. Almost anybody who has the facts can plainly see that the traffic tickets don’t even come close to paying for the police protection provided to the residents of Duquesne.
Many years ago, the good people of Duquesne chose to abolish the punitive notion of “property tax” and begin charging their first 1-cent sales tax to provide for city services. Last year, sales tax only amounted to $368,123, and even combined with the court revenue is still far from the outrageous figures suggested by Mr. Frederick.
The police officers of Duquesne were very happy when the construction barricades finally came down. They could get back to neighborhood patrols and criminal investigations that had to be put on hold to provide a safe work zone for the construction workers at the new roundabout.
Many of the tickets that were written during this time period were for driving into the actual work site and “cutting corners” through parking lots of private businesses in the area. At the same time this was taking place, Joplin police were having the same problems with officers in a work site at Seventh Street and Maiden Lane.
I personally know most of the fine police officers in Duquesne because as past mayor I hired most of them. I am very proud we have them to protect our community and enforce our laws.
Rick Sweet
Joplin
