AN ALTO AL CRIMEN REPORT TO BOQUETE
This will be long, but it will provide you with information you should know.
Alto al Crimen (AAC) has been serving the Boquete expat community since 2010. It was founded by some public-spirited expats who were aware of the need to address the problem of increasing crime in Boquete at that time and the need to help non-Spanish-speaking people make emergency calls for assistance in case of crimes, fires or medical emergencies.
Most of the community immediately recognized the value of the services that would be offered. Significant numbers of people made large donations to the newly-formed foundation. AAC worked with police, offered workshops in home security, identified and worked with a private detective to augment police investigations and implemented the AAC bilingual emergency Hotline, employing Rodny Moreno as its operator.
With substantial community support AAC was successful, and its services were broadly appreciated. Board of Directors turnover occurred, and I was asked to join the board. Though we had more than adequate funds, at that time I undertook a study of how we were accumulating them. I discovered that a good number of people were making large annual (or more frequent) donations while others who had registered for AAC Hotline service did not donate at all. The actual statistics were a bit shocking. Of the nearly six hundred registrants, 11% were making donations and 89% were not making donations.
We began to implement a plan to encourage ALL people registered for AAC Hotline service to donate, making the point that if everyone donated a relatively small amount, there would be plenty of money to cover AAC operations. As we were working on this approach, tragedy literally struck in the form of the death of Lee Zeltzer, our treasurer. The bank account was set up to require his and one other signature on all checks. We had money in the bank but could not access it. At that point we were very thankful for many of our donors who gave generously so that we could continue to pay Rodny’s contract payments on a cash basis. Around the same time, our president, Caesar Sherrard was experiencing some health problems and was engaged in a number of legal matters so that he felt the need to resign. We began seeking new volunteers as board members and for other volunteer positions.
Then, at a most vulnerable time, we were notified by Rodny Moreno that he intended to resign from his job as AAC Hotline Operator and operate a similar hotline in Boquete as a for-profit business. Fortunately, his contract did not expire right away, so we had some time to work to resolve our new problem.
Before Rodny’s contract expired we had reconstituted the board and found a very well-qualified new operator, Franc Lugo, for the AAC Hotline.
Some of the new Board members, perceiving what they considered to be developing rancor over the existence of two hotlines in Boquete, decided not to continue their active participation, and two of them also happened to move to another part of Panama. A non-board member volunteer needed to leave for several months for family medical reasons. Another one was ironically injured in a home invasion and could not serve. Overall, this was somewhat discouraging.
There was no rancor on the part of AAC. We just needed to return to normal operations and continue, though by then there were only two old geezers to run the show. Over the following months we met with a number of people who expressed interest in volunteering with AAC. All of them were good folks but never got around to becoming active. One of them moved to a country in South America. Regardless of all this, things worked well, and our AAC Hotline was improved with an extra phone number and a tablet computer with an electronic copy of our database that was conveniently portable.
It took us a while to realize the most significant problem to bite us in the butt. Our most generous donors had been donating $100 per year or more, some much more. Rodny’s business, called Rodny Direct (RD), charged $80 per year. People who had been donating more than that could sign up with RD, know that they would receive good service (because Rodny had been providing the same service for several years through AAC) and save some money.
Other donors remained with AAC and continued to donate faithfully, and we have very much appreciated them. But we had a few hundred others who remained with AAC and continued NOT to donate. Each month, to cover payments to Franc Lugo, we needed to tap into pre-existing funds in our account.
We had an opportunity to provide another much-needed service to the Boquete expat community, and that was a very low cost medical discount plan in partnership with Hospital Cooperativo in David. The program has been well received, and each annual fee for the plan has included a donation to AAC. The plan has over 100 members, and others are looking forward to enrolling in the next few weeks.
Overall, however, revenues have not been keeping up with expenses. When we were dealing with problems after Lee Zeltzer’s death I announced that the future of AAC would depend on the people of Boquete, their donations and participation. Repeated calls for volunteers have generally come up empty, though we were grateful to have one volunteer for medical plan enrollments in July. Generally, for many months AAC has been “Two Old Geezers and a Foundation” plus our hotline operator, Franc Lugo. Both of those old geezers are over eighty years old and kind of need to hang it up.
As many of you who have been here for a good while realize, police service has improved, more police vehicles are available and crime has decreased in recent years. We now have both Bomberos ambulance service and a private ambulance service. To some extent, evolutionary changes in Boquete and the efforts of AAC have operated to work us out of a job.
We met over two years ago with the mayor of Boquete and the Minister of Security to implement the Caldera Road checkpoint, and we have a continuing project of working with the mayor and with the Police to provide a “garita,” or guard shack for the police for more efficient operation of the check point. The check point, though considered by a few people as a bother, has reduced property crimes in Boquete significantly. Since it was recently suspended after an unfortunate shooting of two policemen at a checkpoint in Panama Province, we have had a rash of property crimes. We have met with the mayor and are working with the city engineer and architect on the garita project and hope to begin accepting donations when planning and budgeting have been completed. Some of you have already pledged donations, but we do not want to accept funds until we know we have a green light on the project.
As for the AAC Hotline, it is no longer financially viable. It costs six thousand dollars per year plus administrative expenses, and our donations are not enough to sustain it.
We approached Rodny Direct in the hope of making a very fair deal that would be good for Rodny’s business and good for the expats of Boquete. We were at least partially successful. We have 29 members of the medical plan whose memberships and donations are covered until January 2019. Rodny Direct will allow them to sign up for Rodny Direct service for no charge until January 2019. Their medical plan memberships will be unaffected.
The 89 individuals or families enrolled in the medical discount plan whose plans are due for renewal at the end of this month, along with all other people registered with the AAC Hotline service, at their option, may enroll with RD with payment due January 1, 2018.
We are exploring providing the police and the bomberos with translation devices which would allow calling their emergency numbers directly and speaking English to the translation device (slowly and clearly) so that the operator on duty could hear the message in Spanish. In turn, the operator could speak into the device and play it into the phone to respond in English. This is in the exploratory phase, but we will work hard to try to come up with a good, workable system. Meanwhile, keep working on that Spanish! Regardless of how and to whom you make your emergency calls, it is a good idea to tell the operator the number of the closest utility pole to your home.
Tom Counter and I truly believe in our efforts for AAC and for that reason have worked hard on behalf of our community. We plan to facilitate renewals and new enrollments in the Hospital Cooperativo medical discount plan later this year and thereafter will help the hospital to set up a direct renewal and enrollment system. We will announce details of how it will work. We will not leave you hanging. This is our community, and we are all best served if we help each other out. We are going to continue working as AAC on the mentioned projects and would still welcome a volunteer or two and also your donations to help us see them to completion.
Thanks for your understanding and support.
Bob Gregory, President, Alto al Crimen
Replies
Dear Bob,
Murray and I want to sign up with Rodney Direct. Please let me know how, when, where and any info you think we need.
Many thanks,
Barbara
Dear Barbara, please go to my website: https://rodny-direct.wildapricot.org/
Rodny Moreno
http://www.rodnydirect.com/
5 seconds on Google works wonders. The website answers all the questions.
Yes I am in total control of my business. Serving for hundreds of clients. Rodny Moreno
@omarpinzonpanama
Huh?
My concern too! No stats on reduced crime, which I think is still here. One homicide and an armed home robbery in the Boquete area. See El Siglo Oct 31 this year.
Also when the Potrerillos to Palmira road goes through what will that do to the effectiveness of the Caldera checkpoint.
Speaking of the Potreillos to Palmira Ruta Sur road, does anybody know at what stage of the construction it is at? Are they working on the massive bridge crossing that river canyon?
Call Rodney Direct and get some stats.
First, a huge THANK YOU to Bob and Tom and all of the other people over the years that worked very hard to set up and operate an organization, Alto Al Crimen, to provide a much needed service that was vital to the health, safety, and security of the expat community.
The hotline service is important, and many of us left Alto Al Crimen for RodnyDirect because we saw stability in a business model that required paid membership for services rendered. Alto Al Crimen had far too many subscribers who wanted free service. Despite the best intentions of the volunteer managers and directors, the demise of the Alto Al Crimen hotline was inevitable.