New Cerritos Residential Burglary Team will be deployed to stem increase in home burglaries

By Brian Hews
Cerritos placed public safety at the top of their list in 2012-2013, spending over $12 million, employing 67 sworn deputies, 18 support staff, and 48 Community Safety personnel.
Residential burglaries in the city rose 17%, 283 vs. 217 from 2011 numbers.
At last week’s state of the city, Mayor Barrows placed blame on the state’s AB 109 realignment, which relieved crowding in the state’s prisons by sending those convicted of less serious crimes to county jails.
In response to this trend, the city will increase its safety budget to $13.65 million, which is $276 per resident in Cerritos.
The city will also deploy a Residential Burglary Team, which will consist of experienced patrol deputies, detectives and supervisors who are solely charged with residential burglaries.
According to the website neighborhoodscout.com, Cerritos is safer than only 18% of the cities in the U.S. with 7.61 burglaries per thousand residents, compared to 7.02 nationwide.
Theft in Cerritos is 26% higher than the nationwide average, 19.77 per thousand versus 24.8 in Cerritos. Only violent crime is lower than the nationwide average.
The city’s business environment is in better shape than public safety, with overall retail sales in the city projected to increase 11.2%. City Manager Art Gallucci said the increase in sales is projected to bring in over $2 million in additional sales tax revenue to the city.

Official seal of City of Cerritos (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Auto Square sales are estimated to increase 18.2% over the 49,000 cars sold in 2012. The resulting 58,000 cars sold would shatter the previous all-time sales record set in 2003 of 54,000.
But a closer inspection indicates that the projection could be an extremely optimistic estimate of 2013 auto sales.
According to data, 18,340 cars or 3,900 per month have been sold from Jan 1 to May 19 of this year. Reaching the projected 58,000 cars, sales would have to jump 40,000 additional cars over the last seven months, or 5,700 per month. That is a 46% increase over the current 3,900 average.
If the auto square sells 58,000 cars, that would generate over $11.8 million in tax revenue. If the square maintains the 3,900 per month, that would generate $9.5 million, $2.3 million less revenue.
In other business news, Gallucci pointed out other Cerritos businesses who invested in expanding and improving their facilities.

Walmart in the Cerritos Towne Center celebrated the grand opening of a 25,000-square-feet expansion.

A Sleep Number store recently opened on South and Gridley, and construction of a new two-story office building on Gridley Road is almost complete.

Gallucci talked about the city budget, which has been reduced by about $15 million from fiscal year 2008-2009 to 2012-2013. The savings were achieved by not filling about 47 open city positions, among other cost-saving measures, he said.