AT THE EDGE of the Sierra Vista Housing Authority in south Stockton on Tuesday, residents paused to watch as city officials cut through an azure blue ribbon, marking the city’s first substation in nearly two decades.
Among the onlookers were longtime residents Jaime Hernandez and Raul Espinoza Serrano, the pair watching from a distance next door as strobe lights of patrol cars barricading the street flashed.
Sierra Vista, Hernandez said, is “tranquilo” — calm — at least compared with when he first moved in 36 years ago, often waking some mornings to shattered car windows and swiped car tires.
Hernandez, 79, said a gun had been pulled on him in the past, the perpetrator snatching his wallet that had held $700 in cash.
“N’hombre, it was much harder,” said Hernandez in Spanish and who is on his third home in the low income housing neighborhood. “It’s calm now, finally.”
After months of Stockton City Council debate — including concerns about cost and a short-staffed police force — the new Sierra Vista substation is set to fully operate on Jan. 11, where two officers and two aides will tentatively staff the police outpost Tuesday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Stockton Police officials said. Stockton PD had previously assigned a community officer at the county managed housing authority.
“Today’s ribbon cutting represents more than a building,” Police Chief Stanley McFadden told gathered residents in his opening remarks. “It’s about a commitment to being present, to being accessible, and to being responsive.”
Building partnerships with the neighborhood
Top priority, added McFadden, will go to building “sustainable relationships” with Sierra Vista residents.
“This is a shared responsibility,” said McFadden as Mayor Christina Fugazi and Vice Mayor Jason Lee flanked him on either side. “Public safety starts at home, and this is our new home in Sierra Vista.”
The new substation, Lee later told Stocktonia, will serve all of South Stockton and make police services, like help with emergency and non-emergency incidents and citation sign offs, “easier” to access “without having to travel all the way across the city.”
“For too long, South Stockton has felt neglected and often forgotten,” Lee said during the ceremony. “This investment signals a change and a renewed focus on equity, safety and presence.”
“For too long, South Stockton has felt neglected and often forgotten. This investment signals a change and a renewed focus on equity, safety and presence.”
Councilmember Jason Lee
In August, council had approved a second substation in Weston Ranch, where the city’s last substation once stood in 2006 and closed two years later because of financial troubles.
The second substation, slated for the Weston Ranch shopping center, has no announced opening date, police officials said.
The city will later expand its tally of substations, Lee said, including looking “upwards” to North Stockton, where less than a month has passed since mass shooters killed four, including three children, and injured 13 others during a toddler’s birthday party.
The San Joaquin Sheriff’s Office, lead on the shooting investigation since it occurred within a county pocket of Stockton, has yet to make any arrests or release suspect information as of Tuesday.
“Building stronger, safer communities isn’t going to be because we put a police substation,” Lee told Stocktonia. “We need the community to change its culture … one of which doesn’t protect the people that hurt them.”
Fugazi, in her remarks, said she hopes police presence in Sierra Vista could work as “an automatic deterrent” for “somebody who wants to do … bad in our community.”
“That is not an option,” Fugazi said. “Here, in Sierra Vista, all of our children, all of our families deserve a safe home, a safe place to live, a safe place to just walk down the streets.
“I think that should be a God given right for people,” she added.
This story originally appeared in Stocktonia.