Need more patrols in Oak Park

In response to your cover story of April 27, "Oak Park husbandwife feud ends in suicide," I would like to tell the citizens of Oak Park to "wake up." As a citizen of Oak Park, I am very concerned about the lack of coverage provided to the Oak Park area by the Ventura County Sheriff's Department.

This domestic incident occurred in Oak Park on April 17 and it took the deputies 25 minutes to arrive on the scene after receiving the first call. This poor woman was beaten to a pulp while waiting for the deputies to come and rescue her.

The delay in responding to the scene is not the fault of the deputies or the sheriff's department. The county of Ventura has cut back services to the unincorporated areas, and one patrol car now covers an area which includes Lake Sherwood, parts of Newbury Park and Oak Park. If a deputy is on the other side of the Conejo Valley, the response time can be very long. Also, it is a 15-minute drive from the sheriff's station on Olsen Road to Oak Park.

We are very fortunate to have a low crime rate in Oak Park, but this community is growing and we do need a patrol deputy assigned to Oak Park. If there was ever a major disaster or incident in this pocket of the county, we would not get a timely response.

I don't know if the citizens of Oak Park realize that Thousand Oaks is a "contract" city for the sheriff's department and the city pays for fantastic police services. Oak Park gets whatever measly amount the board of supervisors wants to dole out for patrol. There is nothing in the Oak Park budget for any crime prevention services, DARE program, etc.

We need to go to the MAC and board of supervisors to demand better law enforcement coverage in the Oak Park area. We are all interested in quality of life issues and we want to feel safe in our homes and neighborhoods. Shelia Cox Oak Park