Actually Jeff, Blotter was made first, finished and in the can the year before Reno 911 debuted. If anything, Reno was as imitation of Blotter.
Blotter was not created as a series per se, but was commissioned by TBS as a bunch of short vignettes that might be used to fill time during rain delays in Braves games. Unfortunately the adult humour in the show was found to be objectionable by the families that had tuned in to watch baseball, so Blotter got relegated to filling in time slots after late-night movies.
Although clearly made on a limited budget, Blotter had many good characters and plot lines (many appropriated later by the Comedy Central series).
The biggest weakness of the show was in leaning a little too hard on the redneck humour. A little of that goes a long way.
Some of the best moments were the improvised bits like when one of the officers tries to train a police dog or another examines the strange contents of the police station vending machine.
