SAVE OUR SAVANNAH

Thank you for the tremendous response to the Save Our Savannah (SOS) membership drive. We are very excited about the number of citizens who have decided that they want to be part of the solution to stop crime in Savannah. The Mayor’s Public Safety Task Force said it best, “The community will get the level of policing it demands�. If you are interested in crime reduction please send an email to Martin Sullivan and join with us to work with the community to reduce crime now!

Prior to the Merger of the Savannah Police Department and Chatham County Police Department, the Crime statistics nationwide consistently showed Savannah to be one of the 10 worse cities for violent crime and homicide. The merger enlarged the Savannah population, by statistically reducing the per-resident incidence, but certainly did not reduce crime! Although we are not embarrassed by those reports any longer, that does not really change the facts about crime in Savannah.

A lot of comments have been made about crime declining based on the statistics that track crime. It is important to realize that these statistics are only a measure of police activity, and not necessarily a measure of the actual crime rate in a community. The more accurate measures are emergency services responses, emergency room treatment for violent crimes and insurance company statistics for reimbursement for property loss.

The most accurate measure is the confidence of the citizens in their personal safety and the safety of their homes. That is why we are here – we do not feel safe. The first step in the process is to admit that we do have a crime problem in Savannah and that it will take the involvement of the whole community, as well as the Police Department and Political Entities, to establish and initiate an effective solution.

The second step is to have the entire community, government and citizens, working towards the goal of zero tolerance for crime. Save Our Savannah is dedicated to the unification of all crime fighting efforts by the city, county and all citizens. Our membership is currently over three hundred strong and we pledge our support to the Chairman and the Mayor to work with them in any way we can.

The good news is that, after speaking with various experts over the last two weeks, it is evident that we can reduce crime dramatically in Savannah. One of the most important items is the hiring of the most qualified police chief in the country. That hire will help determine how serious Savannah is about crime reduction. We need the whole city to unite and choose the best chief in the USA. How and when is this going to happen?

We are currently working on a Board of Directors for Save Our Savannah. Rebecca Smith has volunteered to be our public contact person. She can be reached by email at rebecca@saveoursavannah.com. (Please remember that Rebecca is a volunteer and the volume may create delays in response of up to two days.) Our goal is to organize the Board of Directors by the end of the month. If you know of any qualified individuals and would like to nominate them please do so by email.

We will try to update all members a minimum of once a week. Please ask your friends and business associates to send us an email so that we can expand our membership in order to have a more powerful voice against crime. Your vote does count.

Martin Sullivan

P.S.: Please note that this article, and the ones that will follow, are a compilation of ideas received from many of you and are by no means my thoughts alone.

We encourage you to contribute your opinion via the web site comments section in order to help us further focus our future goals and efforts against crime in Savannah.

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