by Frank Lee
operations@thenewsleaders.com
A New York-based financial research firm recently named St. Joseph as the safest city to live in Minnesota last year.
The results of ValuePenguin’s study of crime come as sort of a surprise to St. Joseph Police Chief Joel Klein, but it was not totally unexpected and it was most definitely welcomed news.
“I’m not going to argue with it,” said Klein, who has never heard of ValuePenguin, which examined 2014 FBI crime statistics to determine the safest cities in the “Land of 10,000 Lakes.”
A report released last year by Alarm System Review listed St. Joseph as Minnesota’s second-safest city to live in. It named Plainview as the safest place to live last year in the state.
But according to ValuePenguin’s “2016 Safest Places in Minnesota,” St. Joseph had the lowest rate of violent crime and the second-lowest rate of property crime for any city in its study of 125 cities with more than 5,000 people, which have crime scores that range from 115 to 4,921.
“We have a very good community,” Klein said. “Granted, things happen, and that’s why we are here, but the other thing is when you have cops who are around, looking for things, and people know that, I would hope that helps prevent some crimes from happening.”
ValuePenguin’s average crime score for Minnesota was 1,333. St. Joseph, which came in at No. 1 had an average crime score of 304, which was 77 percent lower that St. Joseph’s peers in the state. After number-one-rated St. Joseph were, in this order, Winona, Minnetrista, West Hennepin and Orono.
“If you are looking for picturesque communities with low crime rates that fit a wide variety of budgets, then Minnesota is for you,” Susan Gulliford of ValuePenguin stated in the study.
“The top five safest places are a mixture of college towns with median incomes below the state’s median and very affordable housing, as well as affluent suburbs and exurbs with high median household incomes and home values.”
Last year, the police department received almost 3,000 calls for service, Klein said. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the population of St. Joseph was 6,534 in 2010, with an estimated population of 6,864 in 2015. The city is home to the College of St. Benedict.
“That number includes everything – be it a car crash, a parking complaint, a dog complaint, theft, burglary – and we do more than our calls for service because if we make a traffic stop where we give a verbal warning, we don’t take an ICR (incident crime report) for that,” Klein said.
Klein made an impassioned and successful plea at the Nov. 14 meeting of the St. Joseph City Council for the city to somehow find more money in the budget to pay for another police officer.
“St. (Joseph) is growing,” Klein said of recent businesses in St. Joseph, like Coborn’s and McDonald’s. “Now we’re looking at Country Manor and Fortitude (senior) housing. Kwik Trip came in, and the public school is growing.”
ValuePenguin’s report stated St. Joseph was “so safe” that its crime score was 162 points lower than the second-ranked city. The median household income was 16-percent lower than the median for Minnesota, and home values were 14-percent lower than the median for the state.
“We’ve got County Road 75 coming through, you’ve got I-94 on the south end of us, you’ve got Waite Park and St. Cloud right next to us, so although we’ve got the small-town feel, we still have the stuff people don’t see because they’re sleeping,” Klein said of crime in St. Joseph.
The raw data report by ValuePenguin included property crimes (burglary, larceny-theft, motor-vehicle theft and arson), and violent crimes (murder/manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault) from law enforcement agencies participating in the FBI Uniform-Crime-Reporting program.
“It’s the stuff we deal with at night,” Klein said. “We still deal with DWIs, domestics, assaults, drugs. Being the cop from years ago, where you just drove around and checked some doors, made a traffic stop once in a while, you took somebody’s dog home, it’s not like that anymore.”
ValuePenguin’s study separated the safest cities in Minnesota into three categories: towns with populations between 5,000 and 10,000 like St. Joseph, midsized cities with populations between 10,000 and 20,000 like Sartell, and larger cities with populations greater than 20,000.
Only two communities, St. Joseph and Minnetrista, made the top five both years in ValuePenguin’s study. Last year’s second-place finisher, Cold Spring, came in at No. 10 overall.
“Everybody wants us to be everything – doctors, lawyers, mechanics – all that stuff,” Klein said of the demands placed upon a police officer. “There are a lot of things people want us to do and expect us to do, and a lot of these cases we deal with, it’s just not an open-and-shut case.”
The safest cities in the mid-size category changed significantly from 2015 to 2016, according to the study. Only South Lake Minnetonka, Stillwater, Centennial Lakes, White Bear Township and Sauk Rapids were in the top 10 for both years. In 2016, no mid-sized places made the top five.
Minneapolis, St. Paul, Waite Park and Bemidji ranked in the bottom five for both 2015 and 2016.
“This college town (of St. Joseph) shows you do not have to be wealthy to have a safe community,” Gulliford stated in the study.
The St. Joseph Police Department has eight full-time officers, which includes Klein; two part-time officers, which include Daniel Pfannenstein and Richard Etshokin, and records specialist Mary Munden. Starting July 1, Pfannenstein becomes the ninth full-time officer for the city, leaving one part-time officer.
“The way St. (Joseph) is, is because of the people who live here and work here,” Klein said of St. Joseph’s safety ranking. “I think that has a lot to do with it – people who are proud of their community.”
For more information about ValuePenguin’s study and a closer look at the entire list of Minnesota cities and towns that were covered, visit https://www.valuepenguin.com/2016/12/2016-safest-places-minnesota.
