A temporary half-cent sales tax increase, approved by voters in 2016, is now helping residents of Chula Vista get up-to-the-minute information on crime related statistics in the city.
The increase, which will last until 2027 thanks to the passing of Measure P, has since been used to upgrade the Chula Vista Police Department’s computer-aided dispatch system.
The system allows the Police Department to automatically upgrade newly released online dashboards, which can be found on the Police Department section of Chula Vista’s official website and used to browse crime information.
Police Chief Roxanna Kennedy said in a news release the department had citizens and the city’s Smart City Strategic Action Plan in mind when it released the new interactive option.
“One of our smart city goals is to be more transparent and engage with the community using technology,” she said. “With these online dashboards, we’re taking information that we already collect and making it easier for the community to see it.”
The Smart City Strategic Action Plan was adopted by the City Council in 2017 and claims to have a goal of improving community-related issues through the use of technology.
Prior to the dashboards being released online, citizens would have to attend City Council meetings or sift through federal or regional databases to find up-to-date crime statistics.
Now residents will have access to crime data and trends while browsing online through the top crimes for the calendar year, including categories such as crime types, top calls for service types and crime types by case count.
The release is also in conjunction with the department’s participation in the White House’s Open Data Initiative, which aims to make more data available for public consumption.
The department claims on its website, which also has data available related to department demographics of sworn personnel, citizen complaints and officer involved shooting incidents, to be one of the first law enforcement agencies to participate in the program.
Joseph Walker, a supervising public safety analyst with the CVPD, said in a news release that while it is important for citizens to have access to this information, they should be careful to keep the bigger picture in mind.
“We want people to remember that the information in the dashboards is just one way of evaluating crime,” he said. “It’s important to avoid making assumptions or drawing conclusions using one data point.”
In addition to the general crime statistics, there are dashboards dedicated to what the police department calls “special studies.” These special studies currently include traffic collisions and transient activity.
More special study dashboards are currently under development, according to a city of Chula Vista news release, and will focus on other specific community related interests.
