The not-so-mean streets
Looking for crime in Rohnert Park? Many residents say to look elsewhere -- they feel safe in their neighborhoods, despite rise in thefts
Rohnert Park Department of Public Safety Sgt. Mike Bates gets some help from an area resident as he searches for gang graffiti in the A section of Rohnert Park.
KENT PORTER/ PDPublished: Thursday, February 4, 2010 at 4:10 a.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, February 4, 2010 at 4:10 a.m.
The scene: On the edge of Rohnert Park's A Section, on Alma Avenue,
in Michael Stewart's driveway.
Here, in the city's southwest corner, on a street like many others in the older sections of this iconic slice of Sonoma County suburbia, crime is not on Stewart's mind.
"I'm privileged, I don't worry about it too much," said Stewart, 58, as he emptied water from a waterlogged car cover onto his driveway. He's lived on Alma Avenue since 1994.
A few blocks deeper into A Section, Daniel Rodriguez stood on Allen Avenue, where he's lived for 16 uneventful years, and said, "All around here in this neighborhood, nothing ever happened."
Look elsewhere, he said, to find crime in this city. Like Adrian Drive, which "I hear is a little more violent," he said.
And so it goes in Rohnert Park, a city of seven square miles and 43,000 residents where property crime has risen since last year but violent crime is at its lowest level ever.
Overall, Rohnert Park's crime is down dramatically from 2005, according to police statistics, and it's a city where many residents in the higher crime neighborhoods say that, whatever the statistics, they feel safer than their neighbors in the neighborhood next door.
The Rohnert Park Public Safety Department divides the city into 31 "enforcement zones" that generally correspond to neighborhoods named for letters or significant landmarks, like the Pacific Theaters, for example, or big apartment complexes.
So what about Adrian Drive?
Adrian is a long road that curves through A Section into B Section. On the way to it, on Southwest Boulevard, is a small strip mall called Manor Center that includes a liquor store and a check-cashing and payroll advance store.
In the liquor store last week, a young clerk made a circle in the air with his finger when asked where the crime happens in Rohnert Park. He meant, "here," in A Section. He lives in H Section (at the city's north end), which is safe, he said.
But next door, in the payroll advance store, Crystal Ray, 37, who was waiting for a loan, said, "B Section. I used to live there. Crime-filled."
Over in B Section along Bernice Avenue, 58-year-old Margie Matzen was walking her 14-year-old mutt, SP, in the rain. They can't stop, she said, or else SP will fall.
"I have not experienced that," she said of crime in B section. "We have lived here for over 35 years in the same house."
B Section led the city in burglary reports in 2009, as it has since 2007. It also led in reported aggravated assaults in 2009 and in 2008, and it came in third of the city zones for stolen car reports.
"I know the neighborhood has . . ." Matzen paused, reaching for the right word, ". . . deteriorated over the last few years. There's a lot of rentals and sometimes things aren't kept up the way they're supposed to."
Nevertheless, the former school office assistant said, "I'll still take a walk at nighttime if I want to -- I don't have any qualms about that."
On Adrian Drive, the stretch that runs through A Section, there is a one-story house with a fallen potted palm in its yard and scorch marks on a beam above the front door.
"Honestly, you can see the diminished police force in the number of patrols on the street," said Martin DeWitt, drinking an energy drink on his front walk. "It's too bad, because this used to be a real safe town."
There is a strong neighborhood group that tries to keep an eye on things, but stuff still happens, said DeWitt, 46.
"I would say it's definitely gotten worse in the past two years," he said, pointing at the scorched beam. "I'm a Raiders fan and I fly a Raiders flag out here -- it's been set on fire three times in the last two years."
Still, he said, A Section, where he's lived since 1969 and where he's seen crime go up and down over the years, remains pretty safe.
The statistics show that A Section was second among the neighborhoods for reported aggravated assaults, with 12 in 2009; in 2007 it led the city and in 2006 it was second. Last year it was also second in the city for reported robberies.
The place to worry about, DeWitt said, is C Section, Circle Drive, south of Copeland Creek.
Over on Circle Drive, Krt Maness, 34, stands in his garage, sheltered from a driving rain, amid a fine collection of carpentry equipment.
"Growing up in C Section was always a little iffy," he said. "But nothing like A or B."
A self-employed draftsman, Maness bought his house on Circle Drive two years ago and is expecting a baby soon.
"This street is so quiet," he said. "I feel very secure in this neighborhood." The worst that ever happened was a college party got a little rowdy and someone drew on his car with a soap bar. "No big deal."
It was on Adrian, where his girlfriend lived before, that he had some problems, he said. Someone broke into his car.
In 2009, police statistics show, C Section showed up in the top five zones in four crime categories: Aggravated assault, kidnapping, robbery and rape.
There were eight reported aggravated assaults (a category in which the neighborhood has made the top-five list three of the past four years) out of 169 citywide, two robberies, one rape and one kidnapping.
Maness' opinion: "L is bad," he said. "Probably worse even than A or B. It's really turned to crap."
L Section is a few minutes away, south of East Cotati Avenue. In 2009, it appeared on the list of top five crime reporting neighborhoods for one crime, a rape.
In 2008, L Section made it on the list twice: for four car thefts, which put it fourth out of the city's 31 crime-reporting zones, and for two reported robberies, fourth again out of the 31 zones.
Near Ladybug Park, on a corner of Lancaster Avenue, L Section's main thoroughfare, 29-year-old college student Jeff Goebel sat near a winter-beaten flowerbed outside his house.
"I see them every day," he said of the Rohnert Park police.
Crime in Rohnert Park, to Goebel, who moved here from Occidental a year ago, is something that happens elsewhere.
"I've read in the paper about people being shot in Rohnert Park, but I haven't seen anything like that since I've been here," he said. "I've heard that there's some gangs or whatever, but I don't know where."
Crime has happened to Bill Clements, 72, who lives nearby in L Section -- 20 years ago, when his house was robbed by some people posing as cleaners.
Since then, not a thing, said the retired telephone company repairman, sitting at his kitchen table with a cold beer. He has a problem with the justice system: People don't get put away for long enough.
But in here, in L Section, "It's pretty safe. This is a good neighborhood," Clements said. Referring to the supermarket a few blocks away on East Cotati Avenue, he said, "I wouldn't have any problem walking up to Oliver's and back at nighttime."
Then he pointed north, to Santa Rosa.
"South Park," he said, "there's a lot going on there."
You can reach Staff Writer Jeremy Hay at 521-5212 or jeremy.hay@pressdemocrat.com.
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