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the most important things we do is to recognize our employees for a wide range of activities they are involved in that make our community better. The intent of the leader board was to recognize the peak performance in patrol. As scheduled... the leader board was reviewed in January and a decision was made to discontinue it at that time because it was determined that it did not accomplish the desired intention of providing positive recognition for hard work. n Chief Bolanos described other recognition awards including the "Duece Star" for drunk driving arrests awarded by The Avoid the 23 Campaign, and the 10851 pin for recovering stolen vehicles awarded by the CHP. He said with the 10851 the officer is awarded additional points if there is a crook in the car. He said the Redwood City performance measures system was the same concept, trying to recognize people for doing good work. Chief Bolanos said much had been made in the media of a pizza party. He said, "That was one Sergeant who with his own money took his officers out for working hard, and bought them a pizza. It was not part of any reward system, I didn't pay for it out of my money nor the City's money.... somehow that was made to seem like a bad thing." Chief Bolanos said, "I intend to continue to collaborate with the POA on non-monetary methods of recognizing patrol officers who go out there on a daily basis and work hard to keep our community safe." He said, "community policing is not soft on crime, rather it is aggressive towards quality of life types of issues, identified as problems by the community, working in partnerships. From a law enforcement perspective solving problems sometimes involves making arrests and writing citations. The most fundamental tenet of the community policing philosophy is the involvement of the community in the establishment of Police Department priorities. In Redwood City our Number I priority that has been established by the community is traffic. We are trying to address that priority. "Research conducted by the National Transportation Safety Institute and confirmed by additional research.... has indicated a clear correlation between the issuance of traffic citations and the frequency of injury and fatal accidents. The Office of Traffic Safety in Sacramento recommends that police departments statewide set as a goal, one moving or hazardous citation per patrol officer per 8-hour shift, if a police department wants to positively impact injury and fatal accident rates in the community. The goal for motorcycle officers is one citation per hour. It is my duty to lead the department so that it reflects the priorities of myself, the Council and the community. By the actions we have taken, traffic citations have increased from an average of 6.6 hazardous citations per officer per month to 15.8 average, and for the first time, approaching the OTS recommendation. Chief Bolanos explained that is expecting an officer to write one citation per ten-hour shift. He asked how many people at the meeting would be able to witness one violation worthy of a citation in a ten-hour period in Redwood City. He said the fact that only one citation was being written in 2.5 shifts convinced him the community's priorities were not being met and traffic enforcement needed to be increased. Chief Bolanos said for the first REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING MINUTE BOOK NO. 56 FEBRUARY 2, 1998 MINUTES Page No. 222 PAGE 7