How Should Novato Address a 'Crime Problem' That May Not Exist?

Novato has played a starring role in Bay Area media coverage the past week because of the disappearance of a 74-year-old man and the found in a hole in his backyard. No one is certain yet if the body in the bottom of that pit is or isn't Dale Smith, but eyes are trained on his wife, 55 year-old Evelyn, who kept mum about her husband's disappearance for months, and later gave police a story that didn’t pan out.

Only a few days earlier, the spotlight shone on Novato residents’ efforts to . Street gangs are a key issue in Novato right now. Their presence is never far away from the city’s attempts to grapple with affordable housing and growth issues. While instances of tagging have remained fairly constant (231 in 2010, 210 in 2009 and 226 in 2008), police say the percentage of gang-related tags has risen.

Sensational tales are irresistible for the media because they’re what people want to hear. A guy disappears and then a body shows up in his backyard? Far more compelling than the minutes from the latest Planning Commission meeting. It’s a fact that crime news gets incrementally more readers/listeners/watchers than good news. People consume bad news voraciously. What that says about our society is the topic of a separate discussion.

In Novato, certainly people are talking about gangs and mysterious disappearances. These recent high-profile crimes may have put Novato at a precipice. How city leadership deals with what seems, anecdotally, to be an increase in crime will define it into the future.

This must be killing local Realtors. No way are “crime and gang problems” good for business. Right now, their English counterparts are concerned about the impact the new Home Office Crime Maps website will have on property values, while others worry that outlining problem areas will artificially drive up prices in areas free of crime. For homebuyers, “local crime rate” is almost always in the top three of their concerns, along with “quality of schools” and “ease of commute.”

But let’s not get carried away. Novato isn’t Detroit — not yet, and in all likelihood, never. On Monday, Novato Police Chief Joseph Kreins offered essentially to hit the reset button and provide some perspective on how things really are.

City-data.com, which compiles comprehensive profiles of U.S. communities, calculates an index that factors in a compilation of crimes against property and people per 100,000 residents. The average American city had an overall crime index of 319.2 in 2009. For that year, Novato’s was 160.3 – ever so slightly more than half of the national average.

As far as the perception that crime is on the rise, bear in mind that Novato’s index has fallen by 20 percent since 2006 and 2007 and that 2008 and 2009 were the city’s safest years dating back to 2000. Almost all violent crime – assaults and rapes – was significantly down. Robberies in 2009 were half as common as in 2006.

Homicide, the most heinous of crimes, is a rarity in Novato. The city has had six in the past decade.

Novato matches up well with its neighbors when it comes to crime stats. San Rafael, the largest city in Marin County with about 56,000 inhabitants, had a 2009 index of 267.0, more than 100 points higher than Novato.

True, those are 2009 statistics, but note that through October 2010 Novato was reporting a 10 percent reduction in total felonies and misdemeanors from 2009.

And it was doing so with a cash-strapped police force of fewer than 60 sworn officers out in the field. Novato’s figure of 1.11 law enforcement officers per 1,000 residents (2.13 per square city mile) is significantly lower than that of its neighbors. San Rafael and Petaluma each have a little more than 1.30 officers per 1,000 residents.

Crime-wise, Novato matches up well with Petaluma and San Anselmo, two towns hardly ever mentioned as having “crime problems.” Those towns recorded city-data crime indices of 161.6 and 149.5, respectively, in 2009, very close to Novato’s number.

That Novato has actually become safer, even with a growing public perception of it being increasingly dangerous, makes the city’s next steps even more crucial.

It wouldn’t be wrong for the community to acknowledge its relative safety, if only to address it as something worth preserving. It also wouldn’t be wrong for Novato to take a long and realistic look at its “crime/gang problem.”

If these are, indeed, the opening salvos of a downhill process that ends with Novato becoming Vallejo West, then yes, something needs to be done. That something will be inextricably tied into the steps it takes to address growth and affordable housing.

 Be wary, Novato, but also remember: In the grand scheme of things, it could be much worse.