News

With school starting next week, now seemed like a good time to re-introduce one of our most important officers: our School Resource Officer (SRO), and to remind everyone how important it is to keep our kids busy after school. Officer Vince Morse is our SRO. He and his police dog, Bugsy, work hard to keep local... (Read more →)

The Man Who Loved Elvis

Larry Long grew up and lived his entire life in Ukiah. He was a gifted athlete who graduated from Ukiah High School, worked at Masonite, and married his high school sweetheart at 17. But Larry drank alcohol. His marriage lasted less than a year, and he was run over by a drunk driver in 1973. The accident left... (Read more →)

Quality of Life and Marijuana

Last week, the Denver Post reported that officials at local homeless shelters believe Colorado’s recent legalization of marijuana has contributed to an increase in people living on the streets. Kendall Rames, the deputy director of Urban Peak, a non-profit that provides services, said, “Of the new kids we’re... (Read more →)

Camping In Cars

It looks like Ukiah is not the only city struggling with that fine line between helping the homeless and making sure that transients do not degrade our sense of safety and community. In late June, the Federal Ninth Circuit Court (which is responsible for guiding how laws and local ordinances are enforced in... (Read more →)

Armed Robbery – Business Safety

We all like to think that Ukiah is a safe community – a community where crimes like armed robbery do not occur. But the fact is, during the last few years crime in Ukiah has been increasing, especially serious felony crime. Just last week, a robber entered our Ukiah Wal-Mart, displayed a firearm, and demanded... (Read more →)

Who’s that puppy dog in the car belong to?

Charles Shultz, the famous Peanuts cartoonist, once said, “Happiness is a warm puppy.” A warm, fuzzy, lick-your-face-forever kind of puppy. Happiness is NOT Snoopy (or any dog) left in a hot car! Our dispatchers say that during these hot summer days, our 911 Call Center receives as many as five calls a day about... (Read more →)

Panhandling or Robbery

Each summer, our community experiences a significant increase in transient-related complaints, and this summer is proving no different. During the summer, we respond to an upsurge in calls for assistance and complaints surrounding quality of life issues like aggressive panhandling, public urination and defecation,... (Read more →)

Ukiah’s Quality of Life

Each month, the Ukiah Police Department (UPD) submits information about local felonies and serious misdemeanor crimes to the Department of Justice (DOJ) in a report called the Crime Index Report . This allows the DOJ to track national crime trends. Last week, we submitted our May statistics, which included 93 felony... (Read more →)

Ukiah Reads

During the last few weeks, I introduced our police department’s recent, in-depth performance review and our newly adopted performance measurements. If you’d like to know more about our performance and how we plan to measure it going forward, read our entire report at ... (Read more →)

Measuring Crime in Ukiah

You may have read that the Ukiah City Council and the Ukiah Police Department (UPD) recently conducted an in-depth department review, and adopted new measurements for UPD’s performance. These performance measurements were organized into five major goal areas: • Reducing Crime and the... (Read more →)

Our New Report Card

Last Wednesday night, the Ukiah City Council and the Ukiah Police Department (UPD) held a strategic planning workshop to discuss the results of a recent department review, and to adopt measurements for future performance in the form of an annual report card. Before I tell you about our findings, I think it’s... (Read more →)

The Right Stuff

This Saturday, June 7, the Ukiah Airport will celebrate Airport Day. Airport Day is a wonderful event, where you can get an up-close view of all types of airplanes, enjoy great food, and see some fantastic flying demonstrations. Ukiah Airport Day starts at 9:00 am, and at 11:00 am, a large Coast Guard C130 military... (Read more →)