Having been in this valley since 1980 I have seen gangs go from being an issue to a problem to where they are today. The gang problem will never disappear due to the generations that have esablished themselves. It is good to see that LPD is continuing the effort to control them, and not ignore the problem as they did from 1980 to about 1995. The concentrated effort will have some effect if parents are brought in the loop early.
Dave

I would like to add that it is the current City Council that made those budget cuts. When you go to vote next month think about who you are voting for and whether or not the current Mayor and Vice Mayor have made police and fire a priority in our community.

I was at the community forum concerning gangs and I was impressed with the presentation. I am voting no to reinstating the task force on gangs because I believe Steve Sweeney's approach of training the entire force in gang activities is a better solution.

I vote for reinstatement of the gang task force. I went to the gang presentation about 4 years ago where it was stated there was almost 400 gang members and now there are 30-40. Something seems odd. Less enforcement equals less gang members unlikely. How you choose to report it to the public is another story. I do believe we have a good police department that could be made even better with more resources.

I don't want us spending more money on gangs unless our police chief believes we really need to. I believe, as he says, that there are many ways to restructure an organization to meet the mission. I also know that when we had a gang task force, there was collateral damage. Kids of color in town who were not affiliated with gangs were harassed by the gang task force officers. It was demeaning and out of line - and really hard to explain to young men why the color of their skin seemed to make them a target for the local cops. If the gang task force is reinstated, those issues must be addressed.

"In 2009, the police department employed 95 officers. The department today has 83 officers.
Sweeney said the department had to re-prioritize in response to the staffing reductions."

Yeah RE-prioritize by putting Traffic stops and parking tickets above gangs and gang
violence. Way to go Mr Police Chief Sweeney! Lets make sure we keep writing those tickets and hiding on corners to make sure we come to a complete stop!!

Kamena and Gary has allowed this to happen: In 2009, the police department employed 95 officers. The department today has 83 officers by grossly overpaying certain city employees including the fire dept staff. Did you know that 50% of the fire dept employees make over $200,000 a year !!! and a full 96% of them make over $100,000 a year. Look it up yourself at http://www.contracostatimes.com/salaries

Livermore citizen - Respectfully, I would suggest that Mr. Duenas meant Vice Mayor Marchand, not Former Chief Gary. Mayoral candidate Hickman has indicated that she wants to bring the police force back to it's original number ... Vote Hickman, Burger, and Turner! I would suggest backing the city services (such as police) with the general fund, not special interests like the theater that Marchand, Kamena, and Gary want to back with the general fund.

No, actually I did mean Gary - in the sense that while he was fire chief, he advocated the higher pay for the firefighters, including himself. He gets a yearly retirement salary of $161,000 - His firemen are paid so well, they do not leave, and he ensures they have a budget. On the other hand, Kamena and yes, I will now include Marchand, have allowed the ranks of the police dept to be depleted, with no money to rehire. the money is / was there. If we are supposed to have 100 cops, and only have 80 - what did they do with the money for those 20? it simply did not disappear, did it?

While I do agree the gangs in livermore must not be tollerated but must be eliminated
if gangs fail to understand their criminal activity cannot be tollerated..
The LPD and LVFD are the finest crews this city any city in this nation could have.
Their pay is the market driven, costs of doing the business this city could ill afford loosing one person since the requirements bar is set to the highest to become a member at all.
Our LPD ,LVFDP/CMT'S are the cream of the crop nations finest that can be,forces which livermore is blessed to honor with their training and expertise in education
al training from the highest trained pool ,most of which are previous lawrence national lab police security and fire/CMT trained all, any city in the world would be lucky to have such fine highly trained professionals

Any gang problem is serious.I was born and raised in hayward and I moved as soon as I could to get away from this crap.in the five years I have been in Livermore I've seen things get worse.city hall the police and the citizens are turning their heads hoping that it will go away or pretend it's not there.that's what Hayward did and look at it now it's out of control and they can't stop it.the police and citizens need to get tuff with these lowlifes before it gets out of had.I'm tired of the budget cut excuse,I'm a city employee in the east bay as well and every ones getting cut .

Seems to me that if someone has to ask the question "How serious is the gang problem in Livermore?" then it must be serious enough to bear further investigation and take the necessary steps to stop gang activity in its tracks. If new faces are popping up in gangs all the time and it's "almost impossible to keep track of who's who" then how would the police department "get on top of it if they needed to?" Mr. Grajeda...it sounds like you need to before it's too late.

If you think the situation is bad now, wait until the Regional Theater bonds are sold and the city has to meet the payments when LVPAC cannot. Those bond payments will be about $6 million a year for 34 years! Vote for Hickman, Turner and Berger and bring some sanity to the city council.

The salient point here is keeping a gang heirarchy from developing that would provide for strong leadership. That would be a game changer and as how it has not occured says an equal amount for the PD as well as the disorganized nature of adolescent boys in general. It is not unlike a military campaign or the War on Terror where we have seen the operational leaders are targeted and the organization loses most of it's lethality. You will never be able to stop thugs and the general lawlessness that teenagers are often responsible for, but you can stop them from becoming seriously organized and that can be done at the patrol level. Again traffic stops are the way some of the 20th centuries biggest mass murderers have been caught from Son of Sam to Timothy Mcveigh.

I really hope that there is a serious increase in removing the tags gangs paint. The house across the street from me was tagged on the sidewalk on both sides of their house (previous gang activity by the husband). It was a tag to make them move or join their gang. It took 3 phone calls and a threat of going to a city council meeting, and contacting every news group I could if someone didn't come and remove them. Immediately after that call they came and painted over it. That gave me a clear impression that gang activity wasn't important in Livermore unless someone was attacked or died. I hope we can make a damaging dent in this growing problem.

It is interesting there are "40 nortenos and surenos " in Livermore. There are 40 no votes for the return the task force.