Trading a motorcycle for a patrol car

For the last six years, Petaluma Police Sgt. Ken Savano's name has been synonymous with traffic enforcement in Sonoma County -#8212; whether he likes it or not.

"It's not about me," he repeated several times this week. "It's about the effort as a whole."

Whether he likes to admit it, Savano has pushed harder than arguably anyone for more stringent measures to keep drunk drivers off the streets. He's conducted countless DUI checkpoints throughout the county, he's managed hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant money to build traffic safety programs and he's led the countywide Avoid the 13 anti-drunk driving task force since 2009. But last week, Savano has traded his traffic motorcycle for a police patrol car.

"I miss it already," said Savano, three days into his new assignment as a patrol sergeant. "Of course I miss it."

Before Savano came along, Petaluma didn't have a traffic enforcement division. Though traffic collisions continued to rank in the top five causes of death year after year, the department put limited effort into what Savano affectionately calls the "three Es -#8212; education, enforcement and engineering" of traffic safety. But in 1996, Savano and other officers saw an opportunity for change.

"It's all about educating the public, enforcing those that break the law and engineering our streets as safely as possible -#8212; the three Es," said Savano. "And you can't do the three Es without a dedicated traffic program. Having one shows that the administration, the elected leaders and the community as a whole, is supportive of trying to better traffic safety in this town."

After securing hundreds of thousands of dollars in state and federal grant funding to start the traffic program, Savano left the program in Lt. Tim Lyons' hands in 2002, while he headed back to the streets to lead a patrol team for six years. Under Lyons' watch, the traffic unit continued to grow, adding commercial vehicle enforcement and an officer dedicated to policing local liquor licenses.

And when the sergeant rotation came up in 2008 -#8212; as it does every four to seven years -#8212; Savano came back to traffic, which, by then, had its own office located a few blocks away from the main station.

One of the things Savano tackled upon his return to traffic was leading the county's Avoid the 13 anti-drunk driving task force, named for the 13 law enforcement agencies involved. Unique in its approach, Avoid the 13 holds interagency stings, DUI and license checkpoints, parole operations and extra enforcements -#8212; all in an effort to cut down on drunk driving.

For Petaluma's traffic sergeant, it means endless planning, grant management, report writing and coordination between different cities and jurisdictions -#8212; not exactly the job most officers who crave the fast-paced, community-focused work of patrolling the streets, desire. But Savano swears it's not his meticulous record-keeping or report-writing that has made the program successful.

"When everyone else is celebrating -#8212; Butter - Eggs Day, the Superbowl, Halloween, Thanksgiving, St. Patrick's Day -#8212; the traffic teams are working," he said. "It's not any one person doing it all. It's a joint effort between our officers and the other 13 agencies that participate. It's cities coming together to say 'this is important.'"

While Savano's personal passion for traffic safety helped propel him through the many hours of tedious overtime that come with the traffic sergeant's position, he admitted that it isn't everyone's "favorite assignment" -#8212; including the man taking his place, Petaluma Police Sgt. Jim Stephenson. Or rather, it wasn't Stephenson's favorite until Savano got to him.

"I'm starting to get into the stuff now," said Stephenson, who previously ran the department's street crimes unit. "The guys in the unit have been helping me out and have been really supportive. Thank god or I'd be really lost."

Savano said that Stephenson is a great choice to take over traffic enforcement.

"You don't have to know everything about traffic to do it," said Savano, who can rattle off traffic statistics as if he had studied them moments before discussing them -#8212; like how people who text while driving are twice as likely to get in an accident. "But Jim (Stephenson) is one of the few people I know who has the leadership skills to push any group to success. He's passionate and focused. He's going to do great."

Stephenson said he is ready to soak up the new experience.

"It's going to be more of a challenge for me because of all the grant management," said Stephenson, who started in traffic last week, when Savano was out of town on vacation. "It was crazy with all the reporting that was due and Ken (Savano) out of the office. There's going to be a big learning curve, but I like a new challenge. I've basically been a street cop for 23 years, so this will teach me a lot."

And Stephenson isn't the only one who has a lot to learn. Savano said that much has changed since he last ran a patrol unit.

"It only took a couple days to find myself working a child neglect case where we had to remove the child," said Savano. "The diversity in patrol, going into crisis situations, dealing with property crimes, homelessness, it's a whole new set of issues that traffic doesn't see on a regular basis."

For the 43-year-old Savano, the greatest accomplishments during his tenure in traffic were raising public awareness, seeing a reduction in fatal traffic collisions by 70 percent countywide since 1996 and helping to grow the traffic division in Petaluma. Asked if he has any plans to return to traffic, Savano smiled and said, "I've never run the investigations unit, which is something I'd like to try. We'll just have to see what happens."

(Contact Janelle Wetzstein at janelle.wetzstein@arguscourier.com)

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