Northside residents voice concerns and interact with police during a crime prevention walk

JACKSONVILLE, Florida. – The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, community groups and residents participated in another neighborhood crime prevention walk Saturday morning.

Sheriff TK Waters participated in the walk and met with people from the North Shore neighborhood.

They spent more than an hour walking through the streets and talking to people about their experiences in the neighborhood.

Waters tries to do at least one of these walks a month.

“It was great. Everyone seemed really happy to see us. They were happy we were here. You would hear little things like maybe speeding from some neighbors. I heard something that we definitely need to contact animal control about. Lost dogs that killed a few pets in the neighborhood. We want to make sure we can stop that from happening,” Waters said.

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Residents said they appreciated the opportunity to contact police.

“I feel like it was much more personal. It shows that there is interest in hearing what the neighbors have to say. They are trying to reach out,” one woman said.

Her husband agreed.

“He's down to earth. You can tell they care. Everyone who was here. I was shocked at how many sheriffs showed up and the community itself,” he said.

This special walk took place before the City Council prepares to vote on Mayor Donna Deegan's budget sometime next month.

She presented a budget of $1.9 billion, which also includes a proposal for $630 million for the JSO.

Waters said the money could be used, among other things, to hire 40 additional patrol officers.

MORE | Sheriff Waters says 13% pay raise for police officers is ‘urgently needed’ after police union and city reach tentative agreement

Here's what he said before the final decision must be made by council members.

“Extremely optimistic. I know the mayor's office knows that, and I know the city council knows that. We're not asking for anything we don't need. We're not asking for anything we want or would like to have. We're asking for things we need to continue to move forward for a city of our size and for the number of people that live in the city,” Waters said.

JSO is also in the process of holding a series of town hall meetings across the city to hear how people are feeling and what concerns they have.

There have already been three and there are still three left.

“The two big issues we hear a lot about are violent crime, which is down, which I'm very happy about. But we're not satisfied. And then we hear about traffic. The more I hear about that, the more I use those things to hear the voices of the people who live in the communities to tell me what we can improve and what we can get better at,” Waters said. “I've learned that we need to grow our enforcement unit, our DUI unit and our motorcycle unit to address a lot of these issues. Jacksonville is a huge place. At the same time, we need to remind our police officers who are on the streets that it's their responsibility to coordinate traffic control with traffic enforcement as well.”