HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — The area around Lesem Ramos' neighborhood, Terrace Park, is growing rapidly.
"When I moved here 20 years ago, it was very different," he said of the neighborhood, which isn't far from Busch Gardens. "It was a lot more quiet."
As it grows and as more people move to Tampa, Ramos hopes the number of police officers and firefighters offered by the city will too.
"I do think that there is a desperate need for a lot more...policing and a lot more fire protection out here," he said.
That concern echoed across Tampa was why leaders from Tampa Police Department (TPD) and Tampa Fire Rescue were called to City Hall on Thursday.
Tampa City Council members hoped each department would bring a public safety "master plan" with it.
Both showed up with presentations about how their respective departments are meeting the community's needs, but neither presented a concrete public safety master plan.
"I don't think this was what we're looking for — not what I was looking for," Councilman Orlando Gudes told TPD's deputy chief after his presentation. "I guess I was hungry for a little bit more. And to me — I don't want to use the word fluff — but to me, this is fluff."
Councilman Bill Carlson also expressed frustration.
"What the election a couple weeks ago showed us that the public wants transparency, the public wants sightlines into what's happening, they want to see what's on the horizon — what the plan is," he said. "This is a situation where city council has been asking for three years for something, the public has been asking for it, the union's been asking for it, and we don't have it yet."
In 2020, Councilman Luis Viera originally asked Tampa Fire Rescue to prepare a master plan. TPD was asked for a plan more recently.
As Viera envisions, a plan would identify any lengthy response times and other shortcomings; the ratio of officers to citizens; the departments' equipment needs; and additional officers, firefighters, and substations.
To Viera, the plan is vital to the city's future since it would not only address how the city's population growth over time will exacerbate such deficits, but it would also give the council a better idea of how much money it should allocate in the future budgets to fill those holes.
"We need to know how much we're behind by before we have that honest conversation," Viera explained. "We have made great progress, but I want to see where else we have to make progress in one big document."
Deputy Chief Calvin Johnson said TPD will need more time to prepare such a document. Still, he said his department is filling vacancies and continuously reviewing how best to use its available workforce.
Tampa Fire Chief Barbara Tripp admitted that her department "has been working ineffectively for many, many years," but she said she is making strides at turning the department around.
While she said she isn't opposed to preparing a master plan, she said specific numbers in such a plan might be hard to nail down due to unpredictable factors, such as the availability of new equipment.
"I don't care if you sit here and say, 'Okay, I want you to order 17 vehicles.' You're not going to get them. You're not going to get them for at least a few years," Tripp said.
However, the union president representing city firefighters issued a warning supporting a master plan's creation.
"If we fail to plan, we're planning to fail," said Nick Stocco, the President of Tampa Firefighters Local 754.
Stocco pointed out that Tampa Fire Rescue prepared master plans in the past, and Hillsborough County Fire Rescue has.
He believes that better planning would help the department decrease its response times by allocating resources to areas that have experienced recent growth, such as downtown.
"I enjoy Water Street. I'm sure you all have, also. It's done. Yet no resources have been added to that area," he warned.
Ultimately, the council agreed that the plans are needed and unanimously voted to have both Fire Rescue and TPD return with updates on their progress toward creating their master plans. Tampa Fire Rescue is due back in June. TPD was asked to return in August.
Back at Terrace Park, Ramos hopes both departments will deliver those plans.
"If you had something a little more concrete that's going to be able to kind of protect and serve, as they're put there to do, I think it would definitely help," he said.
