Dear Confused, Red Phone is aware of the comments, good and bad, thoughtful and insensitive, and are asking ourselves some of the same questions you have posed. Frankly, it's a dilemma. To monitor them all, all the time, would be a Herculean task, but yet we are keeping tabs and have intervened with some of the most egregious. If you see a specific comment that you feel poses a realistic threat - not just something counter to your opinion - click "flag" at the end of each comment and we'll take a look at it.

Fire personnel help police as well

"I'm calling in response to the article about different opinions on police. I feel if police are that busy, and I'm sure they are (there's a lot of crime in this city) why don't they get fire department personnel out there for enforcement or writing up names of people breaking the law? The fire rate has gone down, there's no fires, they're just sitting around the fire department polishing the truck or waiting for a call. They could be out riding around checking out areas where these high rates of incidents are occurring."

Dear Resourceful, Red Phone became curious too when reading your question. So, Dale Foster, fire chief, and Denise Turner, police chief, were both contacted. Chief Dale Foster said the fire department does help the police and other departments regularly.

"Contrary to the notion that fire personnel sit around waiting for calls, they are in fact out in the community attending to fire prevention efforts, responding to calls for service and report illegal activities to the police or other problems encountered or otherwise identified," said Foster.

New police station really needed?

"How necessary was it that the City of Gilroy build a new police department? Now that the city is in the red, we are looking at several layoffs, including police officers. We could have saved some jobs by not building that monstrosity."

Dear Wondering, Red Phone understands that people are now looking at things more closely, considering the state the city is in, to figure out if projects were necessary and worth the money. Jim Gillio, spokesman for the Gilroy Police Department, said it was necessary to have a new police station.

In a response from Gillio, he said "The short answer is that yes the new facility was necessary. The Police Department had already outgrown the "Old" police facility. The state average for square footage per employee in a police facility is 273 square feet. During the planning stages when this needs assessment was presented to Council (2001) the PD was averaging 171 square feet per employee. At the time we were expanding police services to keep up with the boom in growth. The current police facility has been built to accommodate police staff for 20 years and beyond. The City of Gilroy's projected population for 2023 is 69,018 residents. This would require 195 total employees at the police department (sworn and non-sworn) for a total of 47,781 square feet of space. This is an average of 245 square feet per employee (well below the state average of 273 square feet.

"Also our 'old' jail was outdated and not big enough to accommodate Gilroy's needs. At the Old PD we also had a severe lack of evidence storage. Many items of evidence were stored in containers. This may not seem like a 'big' issue, but it truly is. We need to ensure the integrity of evidence for the court process, this includes ensuring that the evidence is free from water, mold, excessive heat, and that this evidence is secure. Parking at the 'old' police site was also insufficient for our current needs, not to mention the next 20 years.

"I would invite your caller to contact me at 408-846-0347 if he or she has any further questions or would like a tour of the new facility to see that the Police Department was in need of this facility and this space is being used to better serve the citizens of our community."

Street light should be fixed

"The intersection at Santa Teresa and Mantelli needs some fixes. Eastbound Mantelli needs the right lane changed to right turn only. As much traffic turns right than goes through. The light also needs to be retimed. It spends a lot of time with green on Santa Teresa with no traffic even in the wee hours of the morning."

Dear Stuck at Light, Red Phone understands it is quite frustrating to be stuck in traffic. Don Dey, city transportation engineer, was contacted. He said he sent some staff out last week to check if there was a problem and they found the detection system was operating with some problems. The system has now been fixed and everything should be working better now.