DBA adds second patrol in downtown Bakersfield
Aug. 11—A second patrol has been added to downtown Bakersfield's experiment of having businesses share the cost of providing private security in defined areas.
More than two dozen businesses along F Street this week began pitching in about $200 per month, with each signup lowering the cost, for hourly security stops at every parking lot on both sides of the thoroughfare between 24th street and CityServe's Bakersfield hub just south of Golden State Avenue.
Also new with the program's formal kickoff this week is that contributing businesses in the area have the option of calling and getting an armed, patrol vehicle response within 10 minutes from O & A Security Services.
Organizers said Thursday the ability to get a prompt response has helped make a success of the parallel but smaller walking patrol in the area's bar district around Eye Street during the last five months.
A focus of the new patrol has been parking lots behind F Street storefronts, said board member Bob Bell with the organization that helped coordinate the program, Bakersfield Downtown Business Association.
"Those are the dead zones that we're really concerned about," said Bell, owner of commercial property at F and 28th streets. He added that this week's "second-phase" security patrol expands a more limited program on F Street whose costs he shouldered along with the help of two other businesses in the area, consignment store In Your Wildest Dreams and restaurant KC Steakhouse.
The security cost-sharing program has emerged as a potential answer to years-old calls for better security for downtown businesses.
Unable to get more police attention even as they have struggled with theft, vandalism and homelessness, businesses gathered under the Bakersfield DBA considered setting up a property- or business-based improvement district that, if approved by a majority, would have charged everyone for services like security.
After the idea of a formal tax was taken off the table, individual businesses have gradually come together to pay for patrols, which Bell said has worked out well five months into a six-month pilot program centered along Eye Street and Chester Avenue between Wall Street Alley and 21st Street.
"This model's a little gentler deal" in comparison with the former tax proposal, Bell said.
"The cool thing is ... we can form 10, 15 districts and get the services each district needs," he added. "It's a great start."
DBA President and CEO Melanie Farmer said the 20 or so businesses contributing to the foot patrols in the bar district are "very, very happy" with that program's preliminary results. She was unable to provide numbers showing its performance.
If also goes well for the second phase of the program, along F Street, Farmer said, then there's hope a third patrol will be added just east of Chester Avenue that will include K and 17th streets. She emphasized all the programs are considered pilot programs subject to review.
"This is just an extra, added thing to help the businesses and then helps the patrons that come down so they have a safe, secure area," Farmer said.
Bakersfield Police Lt. Matt Gregory, an impact unit supervisor working with community groups like the DBA, said he is aware of positive business responses to the patrol between Eye and Chester.
He noted the agency coordinates with O & A downtown, and that its security personnel are "our eyes and ears for the police out there."
In parts of F Street that are heavily occupied by people living on the streets, Gregory said, the department works with local partners like Flood Ministries. No perfect solution yet exists for all the area's challenges, he added, emphasizing the department looks to partner with the DBA and businesses to achieve "impact that lasts."
