Public safety: build on what works

Menifee has placed in the top twenty of SafeWise’s annual California safety rankings three years running, 17th this year among the 169 California cities ranked, based on 2024 FBI crime data, and we have had our own police department since July 2020. Three straight top-twenty finishes are a real accomplishment for residents and the Menifee Police Department. The way to protect that record is to understand what is working, where demand is changing, and where law enforcement needs support.

After I raised the visibility issue through a council member, Menifee Police included response times in its public quarterly update. The department reported its most urgent calls essentially on target, with Priority 2 and Priority 3 response times well ahead of their goals. That is good news. The department deserves credit both for the results and for making the information easier to see.

Response time alone never tells the whole story. The department’s annual review also gives residents officer counts and 9-1-1 call volumes. Keeping those measures together with context about call volume, geography, staffing, vacancies, traffic, and resources will help residents and the council recognize progress and make informed budget and deployment decisions without turning one number into a political scorecard.

Menifee Police has credited its Flock cameras with more than 120 arrests. That is a concrete public-safety result. The department also publishes its camera procedure and usage portal, reports a 30-day retention period, and requires at least two program audits each year. Publishing the audit results, any corrective actions, and a clear summary of outside-agency access would help residents see both the value and the safeguards.

The decisions I will support:

• Continue useful public-safety reporting. Keep response trends visible and pair them with operational context so residents and the council can understand performance, recognize progress, and address new needs together.
• Use data to support law enforcement planning. Pair officer-to-population context with calls by priority, time, and location, shift coverage, vacancies, response goals, and projected growth so staffing, deployment, and budget decisions respond to actual need.
• Fire and emergency medical coverage that grows with the northeast. Fire and EMS are contracted to CAL FIRE and Riverside County Fire, so the city should request and publish those response times and use them in station and resource planning.

Back the officers keeping Menifee safe and use clear workload data to keep public-safety resources ahead of growth.