CITY FOCUS:Meaningful service

They patrol the city by foot, bike and car keeping Laguna Beach safe. They wear their uniforms and badges proudly and take the duties and responsibilities that come with it seriously.

But they don’t carry guns, and they aren’t the police. They’re the Citizens on Patrol, known as C.O.P.s, private citizens of Laguna Beach who donate their time to volunteering for the Laguna Beach Police Department.

Since their inception in the early 1990s, the Citizens on Patrol have donated thousands of volunteer hours to the police department. Laguna Beach Police Chief Mike Sellers said the department is grateful for their service.

The program’s coordinators Ramona Loucks and Victor Opincar estimate that the work of volunteers was worth $106,218 to the Police Department in 2006. It’s estimated that more that $1.6 million worth of volunteer hours have been donated since the program was started.

The Police Department doesn’t allow volunteers to do anything involving any kind of risk. They can’t carry guns, pull cars over or take anyone into custody, but they are capable of doing many other tasks that ingratiate them to the police.

They can give non-moving violation tickets such as parking in front of a fire hydrant, red zone or in a handicap space without the requisite placard. They also help direct traffic for special events, place the mobile speed radar trailers around town and work in the office components of day-to-day police work.

Finding and reporting graffiti is also a service the volunteers provide. The C.O.P.s are even given the task of calibrating the department’s breathalyzers.

Volunteers doing car patrol are tasked with checking on houses whose owners are out of town. Bob Proudlock, a C.O.P. for more than two years, said the rather unknown service of vacation home checks is a big part of what he does. The home checks routinely land in the hands of the volunteers.

Volunteers check every entrance to a house that signs up. They check for broken windows or unlocked doors. If a house is found open in any way, Proudlock said they call in the police and they enter with guns drawn.

“It’s not an enforcement aspect, but they’re going to do the things we can’t always do,” Sellers said.

Sellers said the biggest service the police volunteers provide is in being a visible presence on Laguna Beach’s streets.

“It’s a crime prevention component that they play,” Sellers said.

Sellers described the Citizens on Patrol as the eyes and ears of Laguna’s police force. He said having them patrol the city allows citizens to talk to them and report suspicious behavior or activity without being intimidated. They work as the police ambassadors to the public.

“Normally they’re not going to call the police, but if they see us cruising by, they’ll wave us down,” Nielsen said.

For the police, the C.O.P.s mean a connection to the city’s residents. Opincar said the volunteers often carry stickers of police badges to give to curious children.

The police also get a workforce willing to perform some of the not-so-glamorous tasks associated with police work. For the volunteers though, it’s all about serving Laguna’s community.

“It’s really meaningful community service. It’s very satisfying to work with the police,” Opincar said.

Nanci Nielson, a hair stylist and police volunteer for almost three years, said she enjoys feeling like she’s giving to a community that has given so much to her.

Proudlock said he enjoys the feeling of camaraderie and an esprit de corps he gets from working with the Police and other volunteers.

There’s an in-depth process to become part of the Citizens on Patrol that sets it apart from other volunteer organizations.

In order to become a C.O.P., a candidate has to graduate from the Laguna Beach Police Department’s Citizen’s Academy. After an inductee attends the academy, they go through two more days of specific training to be a C.O.P.

“They could pick another volunteer group, in this case they picked something a little more challenging,” Opincar said.

Loucks said Laguna is the perfect place for a program like Citizens on Patrol to thrive because the city is brimming with folks willing to donate their time to a good cause.

“It’s a very Laguna-ish thing,” Loucks said.