Hot Dog Dust; New Cop(s) In Town; Girls, Girls, Girls…

Hello and g’morning Gentle Readers, we’ve made it to Sunday!

This despite the hard work and ideology of some who would like to see us turn back the clock to 1862 but for now, many of us appear to be marshaling resources, shaking off the tethers of tyranny and pushing forward.

Wow. Tethers of Tyranny. We liked that one.

Anyway, life has proven a challenge in this country when you look at the Big Picture but no less unforgiving in the 24/680 when you narrow your focus just a bit. You don’t like us to shift our looking glass beyond our immediate borders so we’ll just say most people appear to be doing what Americans do and that is: rise up; square their shoulders, and say “nope, not here and not now.”

That approach is kinda baked into our DNA. It may be less apparent now than we realized in, say, 1944 but it’s happening still, despite some evident and deep-seated problems.

For our part we’ve been engaged in Journalistic Walkabouts this week, gathering intel in a series of posh bistros and boîtes, surrounded by veneered hardwood and stylishly soft lighting and the occasional very chunky single malt and we’re listening to the buzz. And Buzz says: something’s going on.

We’d say there appears to be a New Sheriff in town but we’ve had to amend that to read: there are a lot of new sheriff’s in town as the locals appear to have requested backup and there seems to be a lot more Feets on the Street.

Now, it’s no secret we’ve been getting hit pretty hard on a couple of fronts and the powers that be don’t earn the big bucks ignoring problems so we’d have to wager some personnel has been requested to help with the revolving door issue of retail theft and, perhaps, deal with some recent issues that have been showing up in the clubs.

Our undercover operatives (trained investigators good at sniffing out cut-rate beer flights and Happy Hour cocktail wieners) have been moving through this shadowy world of twelve dollar cocktails and six-inch stripper heels in search of answers. Clubs that had once boasted long lines of scantily clad women and men in tight shirts and cowboy hats appear to have suffered a loss in attendance, and while the music is still bumping there appear to be police in attendance along with the line dancers.

We’re waiting to see where this apparent shift takes us but for now it’s leading to more downtown enforcement and empty parking spaces in front of clubs which may have once been considered prime candidates for a Code 3 police response. Perhaps some commenters will buttress – or shoot down – our observations, but that’s what we’re seeing.

Not everyone is getting reinforcements, however, and at least one local law enforcement agency is reading the recommended budgetary tea leaves and not liking what it sees.

Down in San Ramon, Chief Denton Carlson is gearing up for a citywide review of the Fiscal Year 2024/25 Preliminary Budget and Budget Balancing Strategy session in a couple of days and there are some proposed cuts to his department he would no doubt prefer not to have to make.

Suggestions for trimming personnel and gear are on paper and ready for discussion at a special meeting of the City Council on April 23. Like most of its neighbors, San Ramon hasn’t been spared from the recent run of burglaries and other types of lawbreaking experienced in the county and its department is probably not keen on giving up the tools it believes it needs to combat those issues.

The council is expected to receive a report listing proposed cuts by department and give direction to staff regarding “budget balancing strategies and which budget cuts, if any, to restore.”

Suggested cuts for the police department “will significantly impact internal employee workload, retention, morale, leadership development, and departmental succession planning,” according to an attached assessment.

And, of course, Chief Carlson and his administration don’t want that to happen.

Along with a developing Numbers Game we also saw our share of the zany on our streets this past week, taking calls and emails from both ends of the Extremist Spectrum as usual, and then dealing with the Daily Carnival out there on our mean streets.

There was the gentleman spotted in Orinda wearing a woman’s gown and crown and we weren’t aware of any costume parties or beauty pageants in the area so we were on the lookout for him. Another gent apparently expressed concern that a corner hot dog vendor was contaminating a neighboring business with “hot dog dust” and that’s a spectacularly inventive way to get a vendor to move along. Along with all that has been the continuing drama between Mars and Venus, with the results of some operatically themed break-ups making their way onto our radar.

We happen to be male and we understand all males are not without fault but why, oh why, do the ladies take out their frustration with us on our most prized possessions – e.g. our guitars, cars, our best friends – when things go wrong? That last one can get particularly nasty and apparently did this week, leading to more than one fistfight, after a jilted party reached out to their ex’s best pal for “solace.”

Men and women, men and women – we know. We’re made up differently and handle things in different ways. Just don’t even think of messing with our beloved Gibson Custom. That’s off limits.