Troy Still Deserves Better

I was struck by the Mayor's statement regarding "falsehoods" used by me in the recent campaign related to crime in the City of Troy. The Mayor is entitled to his own opinion but not entitled to his own facts. The City of Troy had a 25% increase in violent crime from 2004 to 2006. That information is verifiable and comes from NYS Division of Criminal Justice Services, the same source Mr. Tutunjian now uses to trumpet decreased crime in Troy. What Mr. Tutunjian fails to point out is, despite these gains, Troy has still underperformed compared to other cities. In fact, Troy had the lowest decrease in crime of all the cities during the reporting period and the Mayor still has not addressed the fact that Troy's violent crime rate increased during his term at the same time that many of these other communities had double digit reductions. Therefore we can conclude that although a small reduction in crime has resulted from implementing some of the recommendations I suggested during the campaign (like more use of COMSTAT, Target patrols, etc.), those improvements still lag far behind the reduction of crime in other upstate New York cities. There is much more that can and should be done and I implore the City Council and press to remain dilligent in reviewing the administration's efforts, especially since this is not an election year for the Mayor. We can't be satisfied with small improvements. Priorities remain bringing our police force to full strength, settling the PBA contract and requiring that license plate reading equipment be used by all patrols to identify felons and/or stolen cars in our community? A final challenge...are the targeted crime patrols operating now or is Mr. Tutunjian waiting for more money from the state to cover the cost? Troy still deserves better.