I read the letter from Simi Police Chief Mike Lewis in the Simi Valley Acorn on July 18 and also read the response by a reader on July 25, and I would love to comment.

We have had problems in this city for years, and there has been no enforcement of fireworks. Does Chief Lewis think we are all idiots and cannot hear what is going on in our neighborhoods?

To top things off, the most blatant thing I have seen the police department do was make a big deal out of fireworks enforcement. I thought, "Great, finally they are going to do something." That was not the case.

When my family and I were waiting to watch the fireworks go off at the park, we parked off of Tapo Street by Joanne's parking lot. We set up our chairs and are sitting there just outside one of the parking lot entrance/exits when we hear a motorcycle.

I look up, and it is a police motorcycle. I thought that was great because where we were at 200 yards down, people were setting off fireworks.

The motorcycle police officer looked their way, which was to his left, and we thought, "Great, he sees them." Next thing he does is goes right—the opposite way.

We have spent many years calling in for fireworks, and the Simi Valley Police Department does nothing. In my opinion they want to be considered the safest city and they would like to keep those statistics down, so they do nothing.

If they want to be considered the safest city, work at keeping it the safest city.

We have drunk homeless people living in the parks—right by the playgrounds the children play at in the daytime—who are fighting with each other and are stabbing each other when it could have been avoided.

That is because I called a week before the stabbing incident to report the homeless people living in the park fighting. (The police) need to be proactive before things happen.

My daughter is on a swim team at that park, and there are many kids who wait by themselves to be picked up. Do the police care? No.

I worked for a police department that was proactive. I have never seen such a lazy police department.

We have other situations that we have called on and this police department does not respond well at all. There are other people in this community that have similar stories and feel the same way. We just don't know how to change it. Debbie Holland Simi Valley