Readers: Savannah government leaders ignoring or making excuses for community problems
Disappointed in Savannah criminal justice system leaders
On Sept. 20, the Downtown Neighborhood Association (DNA) held a membership meeting and invited the Interim chief of police, Lennie Gunther, Chatham County Sheriff John Wilcher, and Chatham County District Attorney Shalena Cook Jones to discuss rising crime rates and how each of them planned to address the issue.
This meeting was the result of residents complaining about the lack of police response and issues around misdemeanor arrests. According to the residents, they were told that officers are directed to not make misdemeanor arrests because the sheriff will not process them at the jail, and that the DA will not prosecute misdemeanor charges.
To say that we were disappointed in the discussion would be an understatement.
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Each of the agencies talked about understaffing and the difficulty in recruiting and retaining staff. Crime doesn’t stop. As taxpayers is it unreasonable to expect each of these agencies to do their job?
Residents' conclusion? Criminal justice in this city comes down to cost. It costs too much to arrest, house and prosecute offenders who commit crime so the public safety agencies just leave them in the community. To our officials, it is more cost effective to not arrest criminals and just ignore the incidentn.
Not once did any of the presenters’ state that the needs of the community were included in the decision about arresting, housing or prosecuting a perpetrator. By no means is this solely a police department problem. It involves the entire criminal justice system in the city and county.
With crime increasing in the downtown community and drugs being used, and sold, openly in many squares, residents want and expect our appointed and elected officials to care about these problems as much as we do. So far that isn’t apparent.
David B. McDonald, president
Savannah Downtown Neighborhood Association
Savannah council needs to check its priorities
I am writing to express my disbelief with what Savannah City Council finds important to focus on versus what is important to the citizenry. At a time when we just had a daytime drive-by shooting on West Jones Street, shootings in and around City Market, increasing homelessness, some of the lowest performing public schools, the highest recidivism rate in the country, significant 911 service issues, and understaffed police and sheriff’s departments, council feels its time and energies are better spent worrying about renaming a square.
If council doesn't get the big issues fixed, and soon, Savannah's biggest issues will be decreasing property values, population and commercial activity. This will lead to ever-declining revenues.
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If the mayor and aldermen keep worrying about the irrelevant instead of taking care of the important, the city won’t have the revenue to even buy a sign for the renamed square. What will happen to our golden goose - tourism - if we start making the national news for crime incidents or homeless problems? Just call your counterparts in San Francisco, Portland and Seattle and ask. Do you really want us going backwards to the Savannah before it’s renaissance?
Council should reconsider its priorities and fix the city so we can continue to grow and be the pearl of the South. Let’s be the shining city on the hill people want to be proud of, not a swamp to avoid.
Michael Dyke, Savannah
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Letters to the editor address crime, square renaming, priorities
