A message from your Blackhawk Police Chief

By Lieutenant Jeff Schultz, Chief of Police, Blackhawk Police Services

Witha turn of the calendar, we say goodbye to 2022 and welcome in 2023, with hopes this year will provide a safe and prosperous year for the community of Blackhawk.

Throughout the past year we continued to navigate through the Covid -19 pandemic, where our daily lives were most likely altered in one way or another. However, throughout the year we experienced the lifting of many restrictions, and in many cases, saw a bit more normalcy return to society and the Blackhawk community. As we push onward, I am optimistic we will continue to see things improve, and though it is unlikely society will function exactly how it did prior to this pandemic, the thought of returning to a time pre pandemic is something all are eagerly awaiting.

This past year brought a few changes to your Blackhawk District Police team. After nearly 10 years of dedicated service to Blackhawk, Deputy Anthony Maldonado retired. Deputy Maldonado left some big shoes to fill with his absence, but like we see very often within the Sheriff’s Office, the departure of one makes way for an opportunity for another. Deputy David Sandy jumped at this opportunity and became the newest Blackhawk Deputy.

The year also brought the retirement of Chief Tricia England after three years as Chief. I replaced Chief England nearly one year ago, and I am very grateful and honored to be your Chief. I thank Blackhawk for welcoming me as Chief and look forward to continuing my service within this great community.

With these changes come new personnel, however staffing remains the same. We start 2023 fully staffed with 3 deputies and a Chief. Staffing remaining the same is good news, however there are challenges moving forward when discussing staffing levels and the overall budget. 2022 brought significant inflation causing nearly every common expense to increase. Our fiscal year runs from July 1 through June 30. During the past fiscal year, we felt pain at the pumps, as gas prices rose to unprecedented highs, causing our monthly fleet expense to rise. These increases along with other factors caused the Blackhawk Police District to close the 2021/2022 fiscal year $58,822 over budget, requiring the district to pull from its reserve funds. Unfortunately, we see no relief in these inflationary pressures in the new fiscal year, and projections suggest we will be over budget once again, causing another withdrawal from reserve funds to balance the budget.

Although financial struggles are undoubtedly in the future for the coming years, as your Chief I am committed to this community and will do everything in my power to assure it receives the best service possible with the resources we have.

To view a line item report of revenue and expenditures please refer to January’s issue of the “Blackhawk Beat” distributed by your homeowners associations.

With a close to 2022 we can now compare crime statistics and calls for service with the preceding year. Crime statistics were mostly similar across the board, with significant differences in just a few categories. There was an 6% increase in total amount of calls for the year, which was expected as we continued to pull out of the pandemic.

Much of the increase can be attributed to more “Traffic Enforcement” which rose by 129 incidents, and “Security Check/Patrol Requests” which saw an increase of 484 calls. Unfortunately, we did not make it through the year without a burglary and ended the year with 3 residential burglaries, (2 in January and 1 in November). Though I’m sure this will raise concern with many, what the community needs to know is that this number is extremely low compared to the areas surrounding Blackhawk. While 0 is always the best number to see in this statistic, achieving this goal is extremely rare, even for a community like Blackhawk. In the latter half of 2022, the Sheriff’s Office saw a dramatic rise in home burglaries in most immediate areas surrounding Blackhawk, such as Alamo, Danville, Diablo, and unincorporated Walnut Creek. During this time, it was not uncommon to have multiple burglaries reported just over a weekend, or 2–3-day period. The fact Blackhawk experienced 1 burglary in this same period speaks to the safety and security of the community. I believe these infrequent incidents are due to the dedicated service provided by not only your Blackhawk police force, but by the Sheriff’s Office Valley Station Deputies, as well as the Blackhawk Homeowners Association privacy staff.

I will end with traffic accidents, where we had a slight reduction in crashes. The fortunate news to report is, many of these accidents were slow speed, non-injury, solo vehicle crashes that resulted in property damage only. As a reminder, please be courteous and respectful while operating a vehicle to both, other drivers, and pedestrians. Drive safe, obey speed limits, and avoid any distracted driving.

From all of us here at the Blackhawk Police, we wish you a safe and healthy 2023!