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PBSO presents 2024 District 8 report to Wellington council; calls up, crime index down

Village Council of Wellington, Florida · August 26, 2025

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Summary

Lieutenant Matthew Lavinia told the Wellington Village Council that District 8 handled 91,703 calls for service in 2024 and that the local crime index fell 25% from 2023 to 2024. He outlined enforcement results, community-policing initiatives and next steps including school‑zone camera enforcement.

Lieutenant Matthew Lavinia of the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office presented the District 8 annual report to the Village Council on Aug. 26, reporting 91,703 total calls for service in 2024 and saying the crime index fell "25% from 2023 to 2024."

The presentation emphasized a mix of proactive policing and community engagement: self-initiated activity accounted for 74,167 of the calls, an increase Lavinia attributed to deputies' proactive enforcement. He said residential burglaries fell, major-crime totals dropped from 757 in 2023 to 570 in 2024, and arrests declined to 272, a 22.3% decrease from the prior year. "There were 91,703 total calls for service in 2024," Lavinia said during the presentation.

Lavinia highlighted several program-level results: 50 stolen vehicles in 2024 (down from 61), with 37 recovered (a 74% recovery rate); three robberies in 2024 (a 50% decline from 2023); 139 shoplifting cases (down 19%); and 80 golf-cart incidents including 16 crashes. He also reported 62 calls for short-term rental (Airbnb/Vrbo) complaints in 2024, a 55% increase over 2023, concentrated in Sugar Pond Manor and Greenview Shore.

To address recurring problems—especially vehicle burglaries tied to unlocked cars—Lavinia described outreach and enforcement efforts including public service announcements, targeted operations with neighboring police departments (used as predicate cases in broader RICO investigations), and a dedicated PBSO liaison for short-term rental complaints. He said PBSO will continue community policing events, pursue grant funding and expand traffic enforcement. He also noted the roll‑out of Genoptics school-zone speed cameras, currently in a warning phase.

Council members praised the report and the partnership with PBSO. Mayor Michael Napoleone and other council members thanked volunteers from the Citizen Observer Patrol for their contributions; two volunteers, Howard Gross and Ken Finkelman, were recognized for countywide honors. Several council members said they want a future briefing on camera-enforcement data after the warning phase ends.

The presentation concluded with a focus on continuing community outreach and deploying resources to crime hot spots; the council did not take formal action beyond receiving the report.