Santa Clara County officials remain committed to public safety solutions in the Los Altos Hills area, with hopes of bringing more ALPR cameras to parts of the unincorporated areas of the town.
At a neighborhood watch event in Los Altos Hills Sunday, Santa Clara County Sheriff Bob Jonsen said his office is doing analysis on having automated license plate readers in unincorporated areas of the county where they aren’t currently, including parts of Foothill Expressway.
“I want to be able to have multiple cameras come into place, and that’s what we are looking to try and do, is identify funding so we can put multiple cameras in the unincorporated areas,” Jonsen said.
The Sheriff noted that communication between residents was one way of making a difference in helping to reduce burglaries, pointing to a reduction in the last 12 months. Los Altos Hills saw a sharp decrease in residential burglaries in 2024, from 60 in 2023 to just 20. Following the pandemic, Los Altos Hills saw an increase in residential burglaries, going from the low teens and 20s before the pandemic to 51 burglaries in Los Altos Hills in 2022 and 60 burglaries in 2023, prompting the Summerhill neighborhood to hire a private patrol company.
The Sheriff’s Office also arrested multiple people in August believed to be responsible for burglaries in Los Altos Hills and the surrounding areas that was a contributing factor to the 2024 decline.
“Once they see this higher visibility, people being arrested, they are not going to come to this area because there are plenty of other areas they can go to that aren’t as diligent about taking care of their community,” Jonsen said. “I think they are doing a phenomenal job up here.”
Jonsen said the Sheriff’s Office is also exploring drones as an option for public safety. However, he cautioned that the consideration was in the early stages and would not happen soon.
“But, it is a technology that has tremendous value to getting resources over an incident quickly,” Jonsen said.
Santa Clara County District 5 Supervisor Margaret Abe-Koga said the biggest focus at the moment is the upcoming county budget given potential federal government budget cuts, with the hope of keeping the public safety budget as intact as possible.
“Public safety has been and will always be one of my top priorities, coming from a city where police and fire are core services that we provide to the community,” Abe-Koga said.
