Public Safety in the City of Paramount
Posted by Buddy Jackson
on Jul 17, 2012
President Greg Buckner with Maria Meraz, Public Safety Director for the City of Paramount. Maria grew up in South Central Los Angeles and graduated from Centenial High in 1987. She went on to earn a Bachelor's of Science degree in Biochemistry at CSULB. Her plans to attend medical school were side-tracked with marriage in 1992 and two children shortly thereafter.
In the summer of 1994, Maria applied for the position of Community Service Officer along with 70 other candidates. She didn't get that position, but was offered part-time employment as a parking enforcement officer and her job was to follow the street sweeper from 4am to 11am and issue citations to vehicles obstructing the sweeper's path. A year later she was hired by the City as a full-time Community Service Officer. Since then she has risen through the ranks to become Public Safety Director. Maria oversees 28 Sheriff's Deputies, 19 full-time non-sworn City employees and 6 part-time employees. Maria now has five children and when she's not at work, she enjoys cooking, yoga and learning new things.
Policing strategy is to focus on crime prevention and to work with other neighboring cities. Part 1 crimes are down 22% from 2007 to 2011. Current crime trends are; street robberies (gold jewelry), burglary of homes tented for fumigation, narcotic violations and cyber-crime (ID theft). Code enforcement consists of five enforcement officers and the City Prosecutor. Support services include; parking administration, animal control, graffiti and communication. Maria wants the City to continue to live up to its' name and be "Paramount in Importance".
The biggest challenges the City is facing are; dealing with the prisoners released as a result of AB109 (10,000 statewide), court restructuring that puts additional burden on Probation Officers and the loss of redevelopment funds.
To learn more click on the following link - www.paramountcity.com/ps.publicsafety.cfm?ID=7