For Immediate Release

Los Angeles, CA

February 22, 2006

Press Contact:

David Sommers

Phone: (213) 974-1095

Fax: (213) 626-6941

DSommers@lacbos.org

Groundbreaking for Lakewood Sheriff's Station expansion

Today is a great day!

I have to make sure I’m not actually dreaming when I talk about us finally breaking ground on the Lakewood Station.  I actually had no gray hair when we first started working on this project.

But after years of planning, arm-twisting and pulling together the funding, we are actually beginning construction.
We could have never reached this day without the hard work and dedication of many people.
I want to offer my thanks to Sheriff Baca. Captain Dave Fender and your staff. Lakewood Mayor Esquivel, the Council and the City of Lakewood staff. The representatives and council members of the other cities served by this station – Artesia, Paramount, Bellflower, Hawaiian Gardens. Pinner Construction Company.
 

I am honored to be a participant in today’s groundbreaking. Our national democracy is a magnificent thing, supported and sustained at its most basic level by the preservation of law and in maintaining the public peace. These are duties faithfully performed everyday here at the Lakewood Station. As we prepare to break ground on this facility and its renewed mission in the communities it serves, I want us to also reflect upon the lasting memory of the Deputies of this station who have died in the line of duty. With each shovelful or dirt, with each brick we lay; let us honor the members of the Lakewood Station family who have paid the supreme sacrifice to uphold the law in our sometimes dark and dangerous streets. Let this new and expanded Station serve as a constant reminder to us all of the selfless service and protection of our way of life that comes from our Sheriffs Deputies.
 

As President Theodore Roosevelt once noted – “It is the doer of difficult deeds who actually counts in the battle for life, and not the person who looks on and says how the fight should be fought.”
To the deputies and staff members of the Lakewood Station in the audience today – you are the “doer of deeds” that Teddy Roosevelt spoke of. You are out here on the front lines fighting the good fight.
 

I am proud we are giving you a facility that will help you fulfill that role even more and a facility that I hope each of you will be as proud of as I am. Congratulations again to everyone involve in making this day a reality and I look forward to being with you again on the day construction is complete and we cut the ribbon on the new building.

Thanks. God Bless America

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