Laurie Lucas
The Press-Enterprise
MORENO VALLEY, Calif. — Starting next week, three more officers will be patrolling Moreno Valley to help control the city’s growing gang problem.
The City Council unanimously approved the positions Tuesday to stem increasing eruptions of violence.
“Our goal is to be the safest city in Riverside County, whatever it takes to aggressively go after these guys,” Councilman William Batey II said.
The cost for the extra protection is almost $600,000 that will be taken from a $1 million surplus in the Police Department’s budget. The funds will pay for one new officer and convert two unfilled motorcycle positions to patrolmen on the gang prevention unit.
Gangs no longer stick to one turf, but freely infiltrate the city’s parks, fast-food parking lots, apartment complexes and malls, Lt. Bill Tyler said. In the past three months, shootings, carjackings and robberies have spiked, he said.
Three more officers cracking down on gangs will expand the patrol from three to seven days a week, through June 2011.
Pete Bleckert was among several residents who complained of hearing frequent gunshots in their neighborhoods.
The city also is looking into funding another ranger and one part-time ranger to keep the parks safer.
In other business, the council:
Approved the final parcel map merging 11 lots into one property from the construction of the 1.8 million-square-foot Skechers USA warehouse on 200 acres. Since work began in June, the developer, Highland Fairview Properties, LLC, has poured more than 1 million-square-feet of concrete and employed 700 workers at the site.
Adopted an amended city noise ordinance to allow the firing of blanks from horseback, but only at formally permitted practices, exhibitions or competitions at the Moreno Valley Equestrian Center.
Heard public comments for and against a proposed $15 annual fee hike demanded by the utility company to keep 8,500 residential streetlights ablaze.
That works out to an additional $1.33 per month that would be included on parcel owners’ 2010-11 property tax bill.
A public hearing is set for Sept. 14, the date mail ballots are due.
This is the second time Moreno Valley voters have been asked to consider the rate increase. In June 2009, 6,000 of 40,000 property owners returned ballots. Those who did rejected the proposed rate hike by a ratio of more than 2-to-1. So far, 8,000 property owners this year have returned ballots, said Marshall Eyerman, the city’s special districts program manager.
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