The city of Cleveland Thursday unveiled a plan for sweeping changes within the city's safety forces that are aimed at streamlining services, improving response time and cutting costs.
The 53-point plan announced by Mayor Frank Jackson includes drastically cutting and reorganizing safety forces and closing one of the city's five police district headquarters.
NewsChannel5's Joe Pagonakis reported that this plan is the biggest change is safety services that Cleveland has seen in the past 50 years.
The changes include the closure of the 3rd District headquarters on Payne Avenue and the elimination of district jails.
The changes will affect Cleveland police, fire, EMS and jail services.
The city will consolidate the various safety services' radio operations, consolidating them into one command center. All safety vehicles will be tracked by GPS satellite to improve response times and cut costs.
The plan also includes a 30 percent reduction in command staff and the redeployment of about 50 officers.
The mayor said he hopes to save $17 million by closing the district jails. Jackson said he wants to rehire 40 police officers and 17 firefighters in 2007.
Safety force union leaders are skeptical of the plan, however, and said that closing the 3rd district headquarters will have a negative impact on response time.
The entire plan could take up to two years to put in place.
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