Editor,
Monday night our mayor spent an inordinate amount of time at city council refuting crime statistics found on the Internet. Comparison websites using FBI crime statistics reported to it by the ESPD indicate Eureka Springs has an extraordinarily high crime rate.
For example: city-data.com shows our crime rate has been increasing and that only 2.8% of American cities have a higher rate. Areavibes.com reports our crime rate at 184% higher than the national average. By comparison Chicago is 51% higher and New Orleans is 76% higher.
Research and calculation showed me that the data bases are in fact for the city only and not the county and based on our population size of 2075. A quick search online offers many more sites all with similar dismal reports.
I was made aware of the high crime rate by the mayor’s office last March when I looked at the Mayor’s Task Force on Economic Development’s webpage. Their response was to pull the webpage down from the city site but they kept it on nebula.wsimg.com.
Monday I got the official 2017 crime report from ESPD. I noted the city webpages grossly under reported the 2017 crime data. Rather than 0 rapes, there were three. Instead of two thefts, there were 112. There were many more discrepancies.
If you wish to view the nebula webpage and compare it to copies of the ESPD crime report, visit my facebook page. The mayor pushed his opinion last night. Get the facts and make your own decision.
Eric Knowles