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        HAMILTON — Chief Neil Ferdelman listens to his police radio intently, nervously — and constantly.

        He knows that city dispatchers have been fielding Greater Cincinnati's fourth-highest number of 911 calls, yet the police department has too few officers to respond to them all. Since July, an average of 70 calls a week had to wait because no officer was available — and 49 times a week, officers who needed backup had none, according to departmental tallies.

        “I'm the chief of police in the 10th-largest city in Ohio, and I'm personally responding to fight calls because there's just nobody else to send,” Chief Ferdelman said. “It's no fun running a police department when you don't have money. And it's also no fun when we have citizens and officers at risk — and I think that's where we're at.”

        The chief says he'd be saying the same thing even if the department weren't asking voters to approve a 1-mill levy on the Nov. 5 ballot.

        “This isn't a manufactured crisis,” Chief Ferdelman said. “Anyone who thinks so just needs to listen to our scanner... I have not been this frustrated in my 26 years in law enforcement.”

        The levy initially would add $15 a year to the property taxes on a $50,000 home, an amount projected to decrease over the next 10 years. The levy would generate $819,000 a year. That money, coupled with federal grants, would be used almost exclusively to put nine additional police officers on the street, Chief Ferdelman said.

        Based on national averages for cities of Hamilton's size and crime rate, the city would ideally have 30 more officers, but the chief said he will be grateful for the chance to add any new officers.

        “This is a critical need for the community,” he said. “The levy is the only answer that we really have... We've got to fix this — and it can be done for not too much more than a family meal at Frisch's.”

        Police say they know of no organized opposition to the levy. Alice Massey, a 55-year-old lifelong resident of the city, supports it, but is concerned the levy might be a tough sell to residents who already feel over-taxed.

        On the other hand, appreciation for safety forces increased since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and that might boost votes for the police levy as well as the 1-mill fire levy that is appearing alongside it, Ms. Massey noted.

        She has an idea of how busy police are, having called them several times to the well-traveled east side street where she lives near a tavern.

        “I don't think most people realize how short-handed they are, and I'm afraid it's going to take something really extreme to drive that message home,” she said. “If it's a true emergency, they are here within two or three minutes, which I think is spectacular... but for less-serious things, like a neighborhood dispute, it can take you three hours for a policeman to get to your house, and that's aggravating.”

        Last year, Hamilton police responded to 74,267 calls — an average of 635 calls per officer. Under current weekly call loads, the department is on pace to send officers to about 78,000 calls.

        But while the calls have been rising, a city budget crunch forced the police department to shrink. Vacancies went unfilled, dropping the force from 122 two years ago to 117, the same level as 18 years ago.

        To cope, Chief Ferdelman last month said he “drew a line in the sand” to try to maintain 15 officers per shift. He reassigned officers to patrol duty from their jobs as canine, walking beat, training, public affairs, DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) and POP (Problem-Oriented Policing) officers.

        “We're beyond lean,” said Lt. Scott Scrimizzi. “Just look around here — there's no fat to trim.”

        The victim of this year's most-publicized homicide in the city, Miami University professor Sherry Corbett, had written a newsletter article in March about progress in ridding the Dayton Lane Historic Area of blight, drugs and crime — all prevalent when she moved there in June 1977.

        Drug addicts were “staggering and passing out in the middle of the street... Neighbors would chase each other with bats and knives — and those were the women!” Ms. Corbett wrote.

        Kathy Yoder, active on the neighborhood's board, predicts that if the police levy doesn't pass, the area “will go back to the way it was.”

        “I think we need to reconsider our financial priorities,” she said, “and I just think we need more cops — period.”

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