Towns that "aren't busy" usually suffer the worst in regards to manpower issues. The citizens think it's a quiet little burb so they're generally against funding for more cops or the pay that's needed to recruit good guys for the vacancies they've got.
The town I live in is a perfect example. They regularly police a city of 55Kish people with four cops. One wreck one the interstate and half your cops are gone for an hour. If a big rig is involved, it's three cops for two and a half hours. Which leaves one cops to answer calls for 55K people.
The town has doubled in size but in ten years they haven't been able to increase their shift size or get meaningful raises.....because it's so "quiet". And it is quiet, until it isn't.
I'm very serious when I say that you should raise hell about the response time with your city council. IME, it can make a difference.
Government's only efficiency is in inefficiency, and government's only competency is in incompetency.
In government their demand to remedy their inefficiency and incompetency is monotonously higher taxes, more spending, and higher pay; yet the more they cost us and the more they get the worse are the problems. Government entities and employees are rewarded for their failures.
In the private sector our requests for higher budgets, more resources, and higher pay are requested based on our demonstrated efficiency and competency. Private entities and employees are rewarded for our successes.
You should reward that which you want more of, and should expect to get more of that which you reward.
