Behind the Badge
Just about every morning in Silverado Canyon, a handful of locals start their day with coffee and chit-chat outside the Silverado Canyon Market — which, along with a post office and café, serves as the “downtown” of this rural community of about 2,000 residents in unincorporated Orange County.
But when residents started showing up at the market just after 7 a.m. Friday, Sept. 23, they were greeted by a contingent of deputies from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and a couple of search and rescue vehicles.
The deputies weren’t there to bust anyone, or to venture out looking for hikers who got lost in the wilderness.
Rather, they were there to get to know Silverado residents better and hand out crime prevention materials.
OCSD Dep. Dan Villa talks to Marion Schuller, a resident of Silverado Canyon for eight years and director of Canyon Watch, during the OCSD’s Coffee with a Cop at the Silverado Canyon Market.
Photo by Steven Georges/Behind the Badge OC
A woman drinking chocolate milk walked up to a deputy.
“Hi, I’m Pam.”
“I’m Jeff,” responded OCSD Lt. Jeff Puckett, who runs the patrol division of the OCSD’s North Operations, which covers north Orange County unincorporated areas and the cities of Yorba Linda, Stanton and Villa Park.
With 82 deputies, North Operations is the largest patrol unit in the OCSD.
And, for the first time last week, about a dozen of deputies from the division participated in Coffee with a Cop, the national program that gives residents a chance to ask questions, voice concerns and get to know the peace officers who patrol their neighborhoods.
First stop for the North Operations crew was Silverado Canyon, which, of course, isn’t your typical O.C. neighborhood.
Silverado Canyon residents gather at the Silverado Canyon Market with OCSD deputies.
Photo by Steven Georges/Behind the Badge OC
It’s a place where many people move to escape what they call the “flatlands” of Orange County, and where residents rely on each other in the event of fires, flooding and other dangers that go with the turf when one chooses to live at the foot of the Cleveland National Forest.
It’s a beautiful community where locals joke about “invacuating” in the event of such disasters, not evacuating, and where some residents view any representative of the government — police office or not — warily.
Which made Friday’s get-to-know-you session all the more valuable, deputies and residents said.
“Sometimes if there’s an issue in the canyon, it turns into an ‘us vs. them’ divisive stance, which isn’t productive,” said Marion Schuller, a Silverado resident since 2008 who came up with the idea of having Coffee with a Cop in the canyon.
Schuller reached out to Deanna Spangler and Jeff Hoagland, owners of Silverado Canyon Market, to host the event.
OCSD Lt. Jeff Puckett talks to residents during the OCSD’s Coffee with a Cop at the Silverado Canyon Market.
Photo by Steven Georges/Behind the Badge OC
They were game, and Spangler and Hoagland even provided coffee for free.
Schuller sprung for donuts.
“I thought this would be a good way to somehow bridge that gap,” she said.
Puckett and several of his colleagues listened as a dozen or so residents talked about issues in and around the canyon — mainly, speeders and the recent rash of fatalities on Santiago Canyon Road.
“I just pull over and let the idiot tailgaters pass me,” said Pam, who didn’t want to give her last name.
Puckett said the OCSD and California Highway Patrol, which patrols Santiago Canyon Road, cannot attribute the recent rash of deaths, most involving motorcyclists, to any one factor, such as speeding or driving while under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
Photo by Steven Georges/Behind the Badge OC
He said OCSD deputies are increasing patrols along Santiago Canyon Road in a joint effort with the CHP.
“People are dying, so we’re going to do our part to get this problem fixed,” Puckett said. “The problem is, we need to change the culture (of speeding motorists), which isn’t easy.”
Residents also expressed concern about speeders along Silverado Canyon Road, a winding two-lane street whose speed limit drops to 25 mph from the store to the end of the canyon some two miles to the east, at the Maple Springs trailhead in the Cleveland National Forest.
They also expressed concern about the increasing number of bicyclists who flock to the canyon on weekends to charge up and down the road, which has no shoulder.
Puckett told them his deputies will be on the lookout to make sure everyone is following the rules of the road.
OCSD Lt. Jeff Puckett, center, talks to Silverado Canyon residents during the OCSD’s Coffee with a Cop at the Silverado Canyon Market on Sept 23.
Photo by Steven Georges/Behind the Badge OC
Mike “Big Mike” Silbermann, who moved to Silverado in 2010, keeps a full water truck on his property and told deputies they could use it any time, as well as borrow any of his excavation and grading equipment.
Silbermann, who is 6 feet 10 inches, is a licensed contractor who specializes in stone, rock, pavers, concrete, septic systems, retaining walls and tractor services.
“I like this,” he said of Coffee With a Cop. “It gets the community together to see the faces (of the deputies) so if there is an emergency, it’s easier to acknowledge who’s who.”
Kevin Topp, a Silverado Canyon resident and director of the Silverado Modjeska Recreation & Park District, was among those who showed up Friday.
“I was expecting only a few (deputies),” Topp said. “Wow, this is amazing. I wish more residents would come out.”
Puckett said the Coffee with a Cop event Sept. 23 is part of a broader effort of the OCSD’s North Operations to get to know residents and business owners.
OCSD Dep. Gary Ziebarth, left, and Dep. Devon Kemp talk to Silverado Canyon Market owner Jeff Hoagland.
Photo by Steven Georges/Behind the Badge OC
“We’re going to make a big community policing push, and this is one part of that effort,” Puckett said. “It’s easy to see when you turn on the news that there’s a lot of strife concerning law enforcement. In Orange County, we’ve mostly been immune to that but we’re committed to doing as much community outreach as possible.”
Hoagland said he was pleased with how Coffee with a Cop went.
“Usually when canyon residents see a deputy on patrol most of them think, ‘Oh no, who’s getting arrested?, so it’s nice to get to know the deputies and to know if anything happens here they will be here for us,” Hoagland said.
“Here in the canyon,” he added, “the locals wave to each other, and it should be the same when we see (the deputies).”
