How Best To Fight Yakima County Crime-Does It Take A Village?
I was never a fan of the "it takes a village" approach as touted by former First Lady Hillary Clinton. (or much of anything else she ever said for that matter)
But as a capable, self-reliant person I'm here to say It doesn't always "take a village" to succeed in life -- but maybe it does take more for most the effective crime-fighting and crime prevention when manpower is limited, resources are low, and the crime rate is high.
Good Guys Team Up, Pool Resources
The Yakima Valley Conference of Governments has a proposal to take on county-wide crime by creating a Regional Crime Resource Center in the Yakima Valley.
Communications, testing, tracking, record keeping, coordination, equipment usage, and more could all be made more efficient with some centralized computers, advanced software, and equipment.
. YVCOG officials like program coordinator Vicki Baker say the objective is to work together, across jurisdictional boundaries in support of each other, with shared information and resources.
What's The Pricetag & Who Pays?
Right now, the more than a dozen cities and jurisdictions in the County are talking about the proposal and wondering how such a system might work and how it would be paid for.
Baker says the sustaining costs would likely be shared through the YCOG formula based on an equality of population formula. Initial start-up costs could be significant but Baker says federal dollars given to the County in the form of ARPA dollars could be used for such a project.
ARPA is the American Rescue Plan Act which provides money from the federal government for Coronavirus relief. Yakima County is set to receive $48 million and some of it could be used for regional crime-fighting.
County Prosecutor Joe Brusic says a regional crime center would be of great help in prosecuting crime across the county. Both he and YCOG's Vicki Baker appeared on the Morning News to talk about the plan.
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