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HomeMy WebLinkAbout02/02/2010 04B Minutes 01-20-2010 Council Public Safety Committee • Council Public Safety Committee CED Conference Room City Hall January 20, 2010 MINUTES Council Members Present: Maureen Adkison, Kathy Coffey and Bill Lover Staff present: Dick Zais, Dave Zabell, Sam Granato, Charlie Hines, Michael Morales, Carol Maples, Terri Croft, Cynthia Martinez, Randy Beehler, Kelly Rosenow (late), Jeff Cutter (late). Adkison called the meeting to order at 3:00. Election of Committee, Chair Adkison nominated Coffey for chairperson. The committee unanimously approved her selection. The meeting was turned over to Chairperson Coffey. II. Recap of Judiciary Committee Testimony Zais advised the committee that Representative Norm Johnson had requested a delegation attend the hearings on proposed gang legislation, regarding abatement of nuisances involving criminal street gang activity and forfeiture of property used to facilitate a criminal street gang-related offense. The House Judiciary Committee held hearings on the two bills on January 14, and several staff and community members travelled to Olympia to testify in support of the bills. The committee chair had some concerns regarding the bills, and the delegation will attempt to address those concerns. Coffey requested a list of assignments to the legislative committees be provided for the council members. III. Status of Gang Free Initiative Zabell provided a brief update and advised several models have been studied. Yakima County has undertaken a county-wide network and it was recommended to let them act as the lead agency in this coalition to provide consistency in approaches and prevent redundancy in program start up. Coffey stated that she thought there would be regular updates on the initiative to council but had not received any yet. Zabell advised he envisioned reports, such as the one presented today, to be brought to the Public Safety Committee and then forwarded to Council. He asked if the committee wanted staff to pursue the "next step" bullet points in the report as a starting point. He stated that the program will be the County's program with a representative from the City of Yakima, as 11) there is not a lot the City of Yakima can do individually. It was agreed that staff should continue with the following bullet points. • Continue to work with Yakima County on the countywide OJJDP approach, • including resource allocation, and monitoring the Stand Up Outlook project. • Offer assistance in development of the County Gang Commission. • Continue working to identify how any project would be targeted to specific neighborhoods, and map the assets for implementation. • Develop a resource allocation plan for the city that may include staff support, both existing and new. The committee agreed that it would be important to have early successes in the program in order to maintain the momentum of the initiative and the only way to do that would be to take on small projects first. Before moving on to the next agenda item, Coffey asked how the committee tasks and assignments that were included in the packet had been decided. Zais advised that these were set by the Public Safety Committee a year ago with additional suggestions from staff of issues that should be reviewed. He stated that agenda item 7, suggestions for future agenda items, was added to allow the current committee members to review the tasks and assignments. Coffey asked that due to time restraints that the Committee tasks and assignments be added to the next meetings agenda. IV. Crime and Intelligence Analyst Supervisor Position • Zais introduced this item with the history of the budget reductions in 2009. During the budget review, Councilman Cawley proposed that this position be considered for elimination to reduce the City's budget. There were questions from the Council regarding the history and the work product of the position. A policy issue was created and deferred until it could be reviewed by the Public Safety Committee, and then possibly be presented to Council again in a study session. Granato advised he would like a yes or no vote from the committee on the continuation of the position rather than drag the issue out through a study session. He distributed demonstrative copies of the work product of the Crime and Intelligence Analyst Supervisor, Cesar Abreu. Some of the work product is intelligence information which can only be released to an employee of the police department, someone who has passed a thorough background check. This information cannot be given to an information systems employee who has not undergone the criminal background check. Granato advised the history of his request for a crime analyst as part of his objective to move the department to a CompStat model. He attended a training session in crime analysis and was advised by the trainers that the start up phase of the crime analysis unit would be the most difficult. It was at that time Granato realized that he needed an experienced crime analyst and not an entry level data clerk. The job descriptions for both the Crime and Intelligence Analyst and Crime and Intelligence Analyst Supervisor positions were created with the assistance of Steve Gottlieb of the Alpha Group, a firm with experience in crime analysis. Funding for the supervisor position was identified in the library annexation revenue and the .3% sales tax revenue. None of the applicants in. Page 2 the first recruitment met the minimum qualifications. Mr. Gottlieb advised there were only 0 670 analysts in the U.S., Canada and Europe with those qualifications, and that it would take approximately 2 years to obtain the certifications we were requiring. At that point, a second recruitment was conducted, giving the applicants 18 months from the time of hire to obtain their certifications. The first choice applicant was from London (U.K.) Metro Police, however she declined the position when she learned it was a start up operation. The next choice was Cesar Abreu. Mr. Abreu's credentials were reviewed by Mr. Gottlieb, who advised that his background was excellent. Mr. Abreu retired from the army as a chief warrant officer. He underwent a background investigation, polygraph investigation, and drug test as part of his hiring process. Mr. Abreu also has a Top - Secret military clearance. Granato advised there had been rumors that Mr. Abreu had • been hired because they were personal friends. He advised the committee that he had met Mr. Abreu on one occasion at a training in Texas, and didn't realize he had met him until Mr. Abreu had already been hired. Granato added that Mr. Abreu's background included supervising seven FBI agents during his last tour in Afghanistan. Lover inquired if the Chief was positive that Abreu had supervised FBI agents, which Granato stated he was. Lover stated that Abreu was not in the army, he was a civilian employee. Granato advised that was incorrect, that Abreu had retired as a Chief Warrant Officer of the Army. Granato advised that his reasoning for having the position report to him was to avoid * information filtering. His goal in moving to the CompStat model was to increase accountability and many traditional police agencies have experienced resistance in transitioning to such a model. He did not want to receive filtered or diluted information regarding crime statistics. Coffey asked Zais what the committee needed to do. Zais advised that the position was fully funded for 2010, and the committee could recommend to the full Council to either retain the position or eliminate it. Lover advised he would not be voting on any recommendations until after he had the opportunity to discuss his questions with Zais. His specific concerns were with the job creation, cost of implementation, the LEMAP report and application itself. Adkison asked how long Mr. Abreu had been in the position. Granato advised he had been with the Department a little over a year. Adkison asked if the Department was seeing any results since his hire and Granato advised yes, he had been advised to expect three years to get the unit up to speed and see significant results, but results are already being attained. It was MOVED by Adkison and SECONDED by Coffey to move the issue to the full Council with the recommendation to retain the position. Motion PASSED 2-0, with Lover abstaining from the vote. V. School District Budget Reductions Yakima School District Superintendant Elaine Beraza attended the meeting along with ill.Davis High School Principal Ben Ramirez and Washington Middle School Principal Lorenzo Alvarado. Zais introduced the issue of school district budget reductions with history of the School Resource Officer program and the COPS Hiring Recovery Program Page 3 Grant. The current School Resource Officer (SRO) program is funded by the school levy. The City of Yakima received a grant through the COPS Hiring Recovery Program 411 (CHRP) for 7 additional police officers. Due to budget reductions, two vacant police officer positions were unfunded in the 2010 budget and a request has been submitted to the COPS office to transition those two unfunded positions to two of the CHRP funded positions. Additionally, the CHRP grant was written to add two more SROs, so that each high school and middle school would have an assigned SRO. In an earlier meeting, Superintendant Beraza brought forward State budgeting issues that would impact the Yakima School District. Zais expressed that the City of Yakima was concerned with any State reductions to the Yakima School District budget. Dr. Beraza advised she was very pleased with the relationship with the Yakima Police Department and the Yakima School District (YSD). She stated that she would like to see cost sharing between the City of Yakima and the Yakima School District, since the School District only has the SROs 180 days of the year She additionally would like to see that the SROs are available and at the school during the school year and not assigned to Honor Guard training or other auxiliary duties. YSD staff advised that they are paying for off duty officers, as well for special events, such as sporting events and dances. Dr. Beraza advised her review of the school levy indicated that the levy would support the SRO program, but did not specify that the YSD would carry the full cost of the SROs. Her research of other school districts has indicated most school districts are sharing costs at a 75%-25% split (school districts paying 75% and police agencies paying 25%). She advised other levy items have long since been eliminated and she is projecting major cuts in basic education. Dr. Beraza also provided information on the supplemental security the school district has in place on campus. The security officers work hand in hand with the SROs and provide proactive measures to reduce problems on campus. They do see the value of the direct information exchange between YSD and YPD with the SROs on campus. Dr. Beraza expressed her appreciation for the grant for the two additional SROs. Zais advised the City of Yakima would consider the cost sharing proposal and additionally would assist with lobbying support in Olympia for issues concerning YSD. VI. Proposed Ordinance Strengthening Nuisance Laws Jeff Cutter spoke regarding this draft ordinance, which is based on a new Seattle ordinance. The ordinance would allow property to be abated for nuisances caused by personal activity on property and not just neglect or structural degradation of a property. The City of Seattle's ordinance has the Chief of Police as the citing authority while the Yakima draft has the Code Manager as the citing authority. Coffey asked if this legislation is something that the City could enforce or would want to enforce, and felt the issue needed more review. Adkison asked for the opinions of staff present regarding the issue. Granato feels the police department and code administration division have a good working relationship and could continue to partner in order to make this ordinance work. Caruso advised there are situations where there is criminal activity at a location but there is no building code violation, and therefore no recourse to abate the nuisance created by the criminal activity. It would require a partnership of Codes and Police to identify and abate those locations. Page 4 0 Adkison MOVED and Coffey SECONDED that a study session be scheduled to further discuss this topic. Motion PASSED unanimously. VII. Future Committee Agenda Items Staff recommended the following items be placed on the next agenda: • Committee assignments • EMS Levy • Fire Apparatus needs and funding • Federal Legislative Priorities • County-wide Records Management System • FY 2011 applications for earmarks for RMS system Additionally, the committee members requested the following items be added: • Red light cameras/school zone cameras • Update on Gang Free Initiative (to be carried forward onto each agenda). The committee decided to hold regularly scheduled meetings on the 3 Wednesday of the month at 3:00 p.m. The meeting was adjourned at 4:55 p.m, ALAJA4 fit Kathy Coff-y ' Public Safety Committee Minutes prepared by Terri Croft - S Page 5