Zero tolerance funding questions

How much would you be willing to pay to keep the streets safe?  That's the question some Rochester residents are asking. Mayor Bob Duffy is asking city council for additional one point six million dollars to fund his Zero Tolerance initiative. That comes on the heels of two and a half million the council signed off on two weeks ago.  News 8 asked some residents how long they would be willing to fund the crackdown.

”How do you put a price on a human life?”

That's the question community activist Joan Roby Davison is asking as Mayor Bob Duffy is asking for four million dollars to sustain the city's Zero Tolerance crackdown on crime.

“If it’s your family member, your friend that is protected how do you place a dollar value on that. I can’t place a dollar value in a human life,” says Roby Davison.

Two weeks ago the city council approved 2.5 million dollars in funding for the crackdown. Duffy wants an additional 1.6 million for the initiative.

Here at Headhunters Barbershop, barber Darnell Wallace says he doesn't mind the mayor asking for more, as long as the program works.   

“I don’t mind me paying out of my taxes for a good cause you know. I mean its no problem with that, but how long it continues, I can’t really give you that answer, but like I say, we need it, we need it bad.”

The mayor wants the council to transfer the money out of other lines in the existing city budget.  Some residents like Annique Roberts support the effort but wonder how long taxpayers will back the crackdown.

 “I think that if it proves to be something that works then taxpayers won’t mind paying for it, but if it doesn’t make a difference, a big enough difference for us to put out all this money, then I don’t think we'll want to sustain a program for much longer,” says Roberts.

Coming up tonight at six, a Rochester city councilman has tough questions about the new funding request for Zero Tolerance.