The issue of Portland's safety and livability has been the subject of much discourse over the past several months. Observations of increased criminal behavior in the urban core have been met with anger and concern. For those of us living near downtown, many have seen a steep erosion in personal security in recent months. In the past year, my car has been broken into once, and my house burglarized twice. The final straw that may lead us to leave Portland entirely was home video surveillance that on Christmas Eve showed two perpetrators shining a flashlight into my children's rooms. The event shook my family to the core.

Until Portland's leadership and police force fundamentally change their approach to crime and start preventing, investigating and punishing petty crime, the city will continue its descent into urban decay. We must strive to stop crime at any and all levels or there will be no deterrence to the deviancy defining our city. Lack of enforcement of low level crime merely emboldens the criminal element and will further the flight of tax paying citizens out of Portland.

Mayor Ted Wheeler are you listening?

-- Todd Borus, Southwest Portland