An open letter to all real estate companies selling in the city of Des Moines, Describing as many positive reasons for buying a home in Des Moines  including: quality of the school system, beautiful views, good roads, wonderful parks, and all the other attractive features of living in Des Moines, are the things that most good agents tell prospective clients in order to encourage them to buy.  When the agent describes the house he probably emphasizes all of the good features as well. If the prospective buyer asks if a home is located in a good neighbor hood, Do you believe the agent has any fiduciary duty to inform the client of any knowledge he might have of the high crime statistics in Des Moines? Were you aware a total of 1056 criminal acts were perpetrated in our city in 2011? There were 2 murders, 7 rapes, 37 robberies, 45 aggravated assaults, 8 arsons,100 auto thefts, 230 burglaries and 627 larcenies. Who knows what those statistics will show for the year 2012! That’s not bad enough, in addition to all that crime our police department is under staffed by more than 20% at last count.  That means: The remaining officers are in greater peril because officers in some cases must be assigned to go on patrol alone to protect you! We’ve already had one of our officers murdered because he had no backup while trying to protect you! Did you or any of your relatives or friend’s suffer as victims of any of the crimes listed here last year?    Will you or any of your relatives or friends be victims this year? What do you think the outcome would be if, a group of criminals attempted to invade your home, and when you called police, all available officers were investigating a fatal accident on International Boulevard? We don’t like to think of something like that happening. But aren’t we reading about or watching the TV news about home invasions, burglaries, or murders every day in our surrounding cities? It only seems logical, that more of that kind of crime may come to Des Moines.   Some of us are concerned, that it may happen in our neighborhood. It’s a known fact, “Areas with a reduced police presence attract criminal activity.” Our City Council doesn’t seem to care. They are too busy trying to revise our history by trying to convince us of their preposterous claim that Des Moines Beach Park is the birth place of Des Moines! They place no importance on hiring police officers to help reduce crime in Des Moines. They apparently didn’t realize that the voters said no to their grandiose plans to spend our money in the beach park that the city had neglected for so many years. Since the resounding defeat of the tax increase, they have gone on their merry way continuing to spend and spend in the park, while the citizens continue to be exposed to the ever increasing crime in our city. PUBLIC SAFETEY is the single most important service, any village, town, city, state or nation can provide to its inhabitants.  It’s what civilization is about. If our council doesn’t understand that simple concept, they are not qualified to govern any kind of organization. Now that you have been made aware of the crime in Des Moines, Do you believe you have any fiduciary responsibility to inform each of your prospective buyers of those crime statistics? If you have any answers, I would really like to hear them. Yours truly, Don Wasson [email protected] [Have an opinion or concern you’d like to share with our Readers? Please send us your Letter to the Editor via email. Include your full name, and, pending our review, we’ll most likely publish it.]]]>

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6 replies on “LETTER: 'An Open Letter to all Real Estate Companies Selling in Des Moines'”

  1. Don, I understanding that you are frustrated with the current state of revenue for the city and that you disagree with what the council has made a priority this year. What I don’t understand is how you think discouraging real estate sales will accomplish you goal of funding more police officers. Right now it seems that the real estate market is turning around, which means every sale is helping bring more money in to the city through higher property taxes, which will make approval to fund new officers a possibility. If you want to fire people up for your cause of the council’s priorities, I suggest to get specific on how the different council members voted and propose a solution for what to cut instead, or what new revenue stream to create.
    Respectfully, Vince Thyng

    1. A sale on a property does not mean higher property tax. You are taxed on the assessed value of your land and buildings. Many property taxes are actually lower right now because assesed values on our properties are down. Selling your property to someone else does not bring in any higher revenue from that said property….duh.

  2. When it comes to security, I am as concerned as my old friend, Don Wasson, but I do not agree that our coucil members are unaware of the consequences of a diminished police force. Also I cannot believe that our council members do not care. They are really strapped with a budget that has a very tight boundary. I also do not agree with the premise that publishing crime statistics would reduce the attractiveness or value of my own home in Des Moines. Crime is everywhere and the criminals do pay attention to a smaller police cadre and work their evil accordingly. We do have a new council and a new mayor; all of them should be given the benefit of the doubt here and an election is coming up next year. They will see that security is a critical issue with many of us citizens who are seniors especially. Don Wasson has merely set off an alarm that is long overdue as I see it. As a senior myself and trained in the use of firearms, I feel that I will prevail in the event of a home invasion but I am concerned for my fellow citizens. Thank you , Don for raising a flag.

    1. I have found that people are going to buy where they want to buy. One little article is not going to sway anyone. If the price is right and they got a pretty little view of the blue they are going to buy. Sorry but this is reality. No realtor in their right mind is going to give a potential buyer the stats on murders, burglaries, rapes, blah blah blah.
      Every city has all of this crime and it is all on public record for the buyer to do their own research.
      Instead the realtor will focus on the wonderful schools, parks, community centers, ect. Buyers do your own homework and educate yourself and decide where you want to live. Realtors are sales people working off commision not life couches/counselors; they are in the business of selling and making a living not steering people from or towards a particular community which is actually “illegal”.

  3. It is likely that a person or persons on the council at the time of the nullification of the Des Moines police blotter. That person would have had to convince our city manager, against his pride, integrity and good judgement to “censor” all articles eminating from the police department. This would cause a lack of inetrest on the part of the police to continue reporting how diligently and dedicated their efforts have always been. So, who on the council at the time had a personal interest in real estate when this all transpired. I will give you two guesses on that one. What should happen here and as soon as elections are upon us, is to rid our council of anyone who is predisposed to place their own selfish interests ahead of comunity betterment. Now, let us reachout and support our police instead of hotels from China.

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