[Bird]

Was up around Canyon Lake today looking at properties and came down 35 - both Shertz and Selma popo's were on the interstate having a field day.


Bird

[TheBocSez]

Im not going to get into the "they have nothing better to do" and "little cities make all thier money off tickets" debate. Been done a million times and the average citizen will never believe otherwise.

All I can say is this, I am not a Selma officer but I am an officer with one of the smaller metrocom cities. Im not Selma PD's biggest fan, but I have friends that work for SPD. I can tell you that the amount of time they spend on the highway and writing tickets has dropped tremendously since I started around here in 1995. They have also started working a rotating 12hr shift which means you will see more patrols on the road.

The state benefits as much if not more from ticket written than a municipality does. The state gets about 100.00 of the fine in court cost, so its not a huge revenue generator for the city.

The reason they can afford such nice equipment is simple. Its a small city with ALOT of commercial business for its size, and little residential. They make a lota money off of sales and property taxes from the business. IMO Residental is more of a drain on a citys economy. You get somewhere in the are of .25 - .60 cents tax per 100.00 value of the home, but in return you dedicate a lot of resources to them. Business on the other hand pays property taxes as well as sales tax so its a double benefit. Most of their issues are handled by inhouse management or security so its less of a drain on city resources.

Finally, Selma PD is a smaller PD manpower wise. Less employees, lots of tax revenue equals better pay and equipement. Selma is one of the highest paid departments around here and actually starts out much higher than SAPD and BCSO at base salary.

[Firstlady]

I think that is a great ending to this story.