On an early Saturday morning late this September, a frantic UW-Madison student called the Madison-area 911 to report that an unidentified man had followed her and her friends into her apartment building, LaCiel, 515 University Ave., and pursued them into the building elevator.
\It was really scary'very surreal,"" said the victim, who wished to remain anonymous.
Instead of receiving the immediate attention she was looking for, the woman and her friends waited for more than an hour and 15 minutes before any police officers arrived on the scene. According to Madison Police Department Public Information Officer Larry Kamholz, the delay was due to a stabbing that occurred that night on State Street, which caused the majority of police attention to focus on that incident.
The explanation did not sit well with the woman, who was forced to call 911 a second time before any police action took place.
""If two or three things are going to happen at the same time, I think they should still be covered,"" she said. ""I just don't feel safe.""
""Situations similar to this one are not uncommon,"" said Jim Patti, director of the MPD's 911 service. According to Patti, on an average day the service receives around 1,600 calls, with 650 of those being dispatched to the police.
""In a community the size of Madison, the officers have to prioritize these calls, and there are going to be times when there will not be enough police officers for all the calls we take,"" Patti said. ""But in a community like this, that's not unusual.""
The number of police officers working for the city of Madison will come under debate tonight at the City Council budget meeting. The issue at stake is whether seven additional police officers should be added to the force, instead of Mayor Sue Bauman's proposal of adding two new officers and removing two officers from desk jobs to put them out on the streets.
Ald. Steve Holtzman, District 19, is one of the leaders in the fight to procure the new positions.
""We currently have a good staff, but we need to recognize that our city is growing. Public safety is something that I feel should not be put on par with other areas of the budget,"" Holtzman said.
Patti, too, said he thought the addition of more officers would be beneficial.
""I always feel strongly about public safety, and I feel generally the addition of more staff would increase that safety,"" he said.
But opponents of the proposal to add officers cite monetary reasons as the deciding factors in whether more positions should be created.
""My heart is in support of adding police officers to the department, but on the other side we need to realize the fiscal implications of adding five officers,"" said City Council President Gary Poulson, District 20.
Like Bauman, Poulson suggested that the budget be used to free up police officers to do the jobs they were meant to do. By reassigning some positions currently held by officers to civilians, these ""new"" officers could be added to patrol the city.
In a memo to Council members last Thursday, Bauman argued the addition of five new officers would not only force budget constraints, but is also unneeded.
According to Bauman, the proposed executive budget would provide for 377 commissioned officers, creating an officer to civilian ratio of 1.79 officers for every 1,000 residents of Madison. This number would fall very close to the 1.8 mark recommended by the federal government.
""I am committed to hiring two to three officers a year in order to ensure that we are able to maintain needed police protection for our community,"" Bauman said. ""Hiring seven additional officers ... will provide for more than 1.8 officers per thousand residents. As yet, there has been no finding that such is appropriate for Madison.""
But for citizens like the LaCiel resident, added police protection would be more than appropriate.
""I really don't feel safe,"" she said. ""It changed me; up until then I had always thought you call 911, the police would come and everything would be all right, but now with the experience that I've had, I don't feel safe.\
