Crestview's March 10 mayoral race is ramping up, and crime is a hot topic.
You see, the Hub City is experiencing an uptick in crime — or it's not, depending on whom you ask.
The Crestview-Fort Walton Beach-Destin metropolitan area ranks No. 8 on 24-Wall Street's "Cities Where Crime is Soaring" list.
The list — which The Huffington Post picked up — shows the metro's violent crime rate spiked 40.2 percent in five years, with 294.8 and 413.2 violent crimes per 100,000 people in 2009 and 2013, respectively. The national violent crime rate in 2013 was just 367.9 per 100,000 people, according to the report.
Joining the Crestview metro on the list are Sioux Falls, S.D., No. 9; Madera-Chowchilla, Calif., 7;San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles, Calif., 6; Gadsden, Ala., 5; Longview, Wash., 4; Columbus, Ind., 3; Medford, Ore., 2; and Bismarck, N.D., 1.
Receiving such national attention added fuel to Crestview City Councilman Tom Gordon's campaign fire.
Gordon, who's running against incumbent David Cadle, alleged in a Monday news release that the mayor "is attempting to cover up" Crestview's perceived high crime rate.
Cadle has said the city's crime rate has dropped since Police Chief Tony Taylor joined the force in September of 2012 and the CPD's staff grew.
“In 2013, Chief Taylor’s first year in office, violent crime decreased 12.2 percent and overall crime decreased 13.1 percent, which is the last full year data are available," a recent news release from Cadle's office stated. "For the first six months of 2014, violent crime was down an additional 6 percent.”
Meanwhile, Taylor isn't saying too much about crime rates because of their implications on the mayoral race, the Northwest Florida Daily News reports.
Personally, I think that's a smart move.
Look, whenever studies on crime rate crop up, journalists report them in good faith, but they also consider that numbers can be interpreted numerous ways.
It's why the first sentence of a Jan. 13 News Bulletin report on this very topic stated, "Is Crestview a hotbed of crime or was data misinterpreted?" as opposed to declaring, outright, "Crestview is a hotbed of crime, according to data from the U.S. Department of Justice's Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics."
Still, I constantly listen to the scanner, and the past few weeks alone have involved a number of breaking news reports in the North Okaloosa area.
Currently, police are investigating a Monday robbery that occurred during lunch near Industrial Drive and the KFC restaurant along North Ferdon Boulevard.
North Okaloosa residents wept for an infant left in critical condition the last week of January after we reported on her child abuse and a man's subsequent arrest.
That same week, a Crestview man was charged with armed burglary and battery of a man after visiting an ex-girlfriend, according to the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office.
And the CPD is investigating a string of Cabana Way area burglaries.
So, I believe anyone looking at those facts would agree that crime isn't where we all want it to be in the northern county.
It will be interesting to see how mayoral candidates Cadle, Gordon, Lanny Edwards and Jeremiah Hubbard will respond to the issue.
I'm particularly interested in hearing more from Edwards and Hubbard; Cadle's and Gordon's camps have been getting out their messaging to the media, so with less than one month to the election, I've been wondering about Edwards and Hubbards' campaign strategies.
But I digress.
Find out what all the candidates have to say during these forums:
•Nonpartisan, 6 p.m. Feb. 16, Warriors Hall, 201 Stillwell Blvd., Crestview. Written questions from the public will be accepted at the door before the event, and submitted to the forum moderator. Contact Mae. R. Coleman, 682-5518, for details.
•North Okaloosa Republican Club, 6:30-8:30 p.m. Feb. 17, American Legion Hall, 898 James Lee Blvd. E., Crestview. A question-and-answer session will follow.
What's your view? Write a letter to the editor or tweet News Bulletin Editor Thomas Boni.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: EDITOR’S DESK: Politics aside, Crestview's crime rate needs improvement