BUENA PARK
The year 2017 was a good year for North Orange County because the“ North Orange County Public Safety Task Force” was formed.
What is the North Orange County Public Safety Task Force? Purely stated, the Task Force is a pilot program which, without a doubt, has proven to be a highly monumental creation that demonstrates the epitome of excellence. It is comprised of Police Chiefs and public safety leaders from ten law enforcement agencies in the cities of Anaheim, Brea, Buena Park, Cypress, Fullerton, La Habra, La Palma, Placentia, Stanton and Yorba Linda who have been given a unique opportunity to administer 20 million dollars of additional funding towards uncovering innovative ways of collaboration to develop creative approaches in problem solving from a regional perspective. With this extra source of support, the Police Chiefs are committed to engaging and serving thousands of individuals who live on our streets, or are perhaps clinging to a life of corruption through criminal activity. In essence, it is the public safety issues that have plagued the quality of life in our communities for many years now.
The additional funding, negotiated into California’ s state budget by Senator Josh Newman, is now making the hopes and dreams come true in the lives of at-risk youth, homeless individuals and those persons who are struggling to re-enter society after having been incarcerated.
Under the leadership of Buena Park’ s Police Chief, Corey Sianez, the Task Force is finding solutions to these public safety issues that have no city boundaries. From a regional approach, the group is tackling the challenge of restoring and establishing safer and healthier communities within the ten North Orange County cities in Senator Newman’ s district.
Making this additional funding available has helped to mitigate these societal issues and is being made possible via the Task Force working with nearly 40 community-based organizations from across North Orange County – organizations like CityNet, Big Brothers Big Sisters, the Boys and Girls
Club, and the Sunburst Academy, just to name a few. With partnerships such as these, the Task Force has taken problem solving to a regional level and is succeeding!
One example is an attempt to establish a“ Bigs with Badges” program, which is an offshoot of Big Brothers Big Sisters. This program enables our law enforcement personnel to mentor and be a role model to vulnerable children that will lead them down a path of success. Bigs with Badges is something that is unprecedented and has never been accomplished on the West Coast. This is no longer the case as it has been placed in the hands of the Task Force who is helping to bridge the gap between law enforcement and children, which is so important in today’ s distrusting climate. Bigs with Badges teaches children that police officers are available to help them through life’ s complexities.
Another example is the partnership with the Sunburst Academy, which operates out of the Los Alami-
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