In contract negotiations, city officials should be looking to cut community-service officers before cutting sworn police officers.

Even if cutting the CSOs would mean still cutting sworn officers, it makes practical sense to lose the less-trained staff first. Furthermore, it makes sense to comb over other city departments for duplicated positions.

As a citizen, would you rather have a sworn officer respond or a community-service officer? Even if it is a small issue such as parking or uncut grass, you want — and perhaps expect — a real cop.

And while the little calls are numerous, fighting crime remains the important mission. That’s why keeping as many sworn officers as possible has to be key.

In turn, more of the sworn police officers need to embrace community policing. It’s 2009, and the paradigm of community policing has been around for about 20 years in the world of law enforcement. It’s old hat and part of the basics in most legitimate departments by now.

We know. We know. Sometimes unions get in the way, too. But no matter what happens as a result of the contract talks, its clear that sworn officers, if they want a better bargaining position at the table in the future, should be ready and willing to do the community police work, too. Some officers insist they are, but in the coming years on the job they need to prove it to their superiors.

In fact, we believe they will. Let the CSOs go before firing sworn officers.