Questions for the Mayor

Dear Mayor,

In June my daughter's car was vandalized in her driveway, in July her boyfriend's truck was broken into in the parking lot of a restaurant, and on Sunday night (October 25, 2009) her home was burglarized. I have questions: Why are there mean people? Why do some people think they can take other's property? How could someone kick in my daughter's back door, enter her home, go into her rooms, and take her things?

Knowing I will never get the answers to these questions I have other questions to ask. What are you doing to make our city safe? What are you doing to increase the size of the police force? What are you doing to increase the pay scale for police officers so that more qualified and capable people apply? What are you doing to enable the young police officer, who answered my daughter's 911 call, to catch the criminals? Are there funds to actually do anything with the fingerprint evidence he collected or with the serial numbers from my daughter's electronic equipment? And, if by chance, the horrible person/people who broke into my daughter's home are caught, what are you doing to ensure they will be locked up and punished for their crime? Is there room in the jail for them? Is there a true deterrent or will they just get a slap on the hand before going out to do it again?

My daughter is twenty-three years old, trying to finish school and suddenly looking at a $1,100 insurance deductible to replace a door and door frame, a computer, Internet equipment, power cords, chargers and miscellaneous personal (and sentimental) items. How will she overcome this financial loss? She has lost sleep and lost faith and lost her sense of security. How will she get these things back?

I may never know why there are mean people, but I want to know what you are going to do about crime in our town.

Sincerely,

A devastated young woman's mother