By Tamas Mondovics
Community resource deputies, also known as CRDs, continue to serve and protect their assigned communities and care for area residents’ various needs.
Thanks to the recent addition of a new district, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s office has seen some adjustments including the closing of some community substations and reassigning CRDs accordingly.
One of the recently closed substations was located in the heart of Riverview led by 17-year veteran deputy Cliff Fletcher. The station has been serving the community in HCSO’s District 4, since 2000.
Fletcher was selected to now serve as the new District 5, Bloomingdale Community Substation’s CRD, located at 3622 Erindale Dr., in Valrico.
Fletcher has now joined the list of deputies that have served the station in recent years including Deputy James Brodie, a 24-year veteran with the Sheriff’s Office, who took on his new role in place of Deputy Luke Hussey.
A Riverview native, Fletcher will be assisted by HCSO Bloomingdale Community Service Officer (CSO) Sandra Capitano.
As CRD Fletcher intends to continue to focus on serving the Bloomingdale area residents as he has done throughout the county over the last couple of decades. He will handle community complaints, responding to property crime, vehicle burglaries or car-hopping, working with residents through the citizen’s patrol program and fraud reports. CRD Fletcher will also host the station’s monthly community council meetings normally held on the second Thursday of each month.
“We have a pretty good turnout at our monthly meetings as we address many topics and issues pertaining to the community, including crime trends,” Fletcher said.
The first of such issues that greeted Fletcher was a recent spate of graffiti and tagging, a visual blight which is taken very seriously by Hillsborough County Code Enforcement Department’s Anti-Graffiti unit.
“We work closely with law enforcement, who notify us of the graffiti or tagging that needs to be removed either by painting over the objects or by using the pressure washer supplied on the truck,” said County Code Enforcement director Ron Spiller after recent graffiti was found on local businesses up and down the Lithia Pinecrest corridor.
Spiller explained that while the unit quickly responds to removing graffiti or gang tagging from abandoned buildings or public property, the responsibility to remove such blight on privately owned properties or businesses fall on the shoulders of the owners.
Of course, Fletcher is no stranger to such issues and said that he is ready and looking forward to serving the Bloomingdale and surrounding area communities.
For more information or to report tagging or graffiti, residents may call Code Enforcement at 274-6600 or call the Sheriff’s Office at its special number, 1-877-GANGOUT or the local sub station.
The Bloomingdale Community Substation now serving District 5, is reachable by calling 242-5541.
