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Home My WebLink About11/25/2008 00 Agenda and Packet 7 � rVilill■ David Edler, Mayor �'', Micah Cawley, Assistant Mayor Yakima Kathy Coffey i �� City Council Rick E,sey . Johnson X1,,1 ., (')Rn,. �P =- Norm RATk:�� Agenda Bill Lover 129 N. 2nd Street,Yakima,WA. 98901 V Neil McClure Phone: (509) 575 -6000 • Fax (509) 576 -6614 City Manager Email: ccouncil @ci.yakima.wa.us • www.ci.yakima.wa.us Richard A. Zais, Jr. Anyone wishing to address the Council, please fill out the form found on the tables and give it to the City Clerk YAKIMA CITY COUNCIL ADJOURNED MEETING — BUDGET REVIEW NOVEMBER 25, 2008 — 8:30 A.M. — 12:00 NOON COUNCIL CHAMBERS — CITY HALL 1. Roll Call 2. Police Department (see attached memo re Police policy issue) • Police Department • Law and Justice Capital' . 3. Community and Economic Development • Urban Area Hearings Examiner • • Environmental Planning • Code Administration • City Hall Facility Maintenance • Economic Development • Office of Neighborhood Development Services • • Parking and Business Improvement Area (PBIA) • Central Business District (CBD) • Trolley • North Front Street Business Improvement District • Tourist Promotion • Capitol Theatre • Engineering • Growth Management • Cemetery Trust Bonded Debt 4. Adjournment to December 1, 2008 at 8:30 a.m. in Council Chambers for Budget Wrap Up • Yakima *Ameflca City of Yakima Vision Statement: To create a culturally diverse, economically vibrant, safe, and strongYakima community. 11 I If Adopted March 2008 1994 4411 41- • ' VII YAKIMA POLICE DEPARTMENT INTER - OFFICE MEMO Date: November 21, 2008 To: City Manager Dick Zais From: Police Chief Sam Granato Subject: Clarification of Citizens for Safer Yakima Valley Communities proposed contract As you requested I am submitting this memo to clarify confusion about the proposed contract for services for the Citizens For Safer Yakima Valley Communities (CSC). As you know the Byrne Grant earmark allowed for us to develop a project called the Yakima Second Chance initiative. Part of the initiative to was to contract out for services for a coordinator who will serve as a conduit between service providers, residents, education, faith based organizations, and law enforcement. Some of the programs already utilized by the department are Neighbors on Watch (NOW); Crime Free Rental Housing Program (CFRH); Crime -Web (interne based community crime alerts); Gang Resistance Education and Training (GREAT); Police Athletic League (PAL). All are designed to help reduce the incidence of crime in the City of Yakima, but what is lacking is coordination between the programs and someone to educate the community about each one of these programs. For example, currently the NOW program and CRFRH program have clerks who maintain the database of members for each program and enter data for calls of police service to rental properties. GREAT has a police officer coordinator to promote the program, but PAL does not. Crime Web is dependent on officers to enter what they deem important to send out as alerts. NOW in particular is in dire need of a fulltime person to revitalize it and to develop new Block Watches in neighborhoods where crime is prevalent. The majority of NOW chapters are concentrated where crime is relatively low and we have virtually none on the eastside of Yakima where a high proportion of our crime is concentrated. Efforts to reach out to this part of the community met with little response and the problem is compounded by the fact that a large portion of the community in this area is non - English speaking. CFRH has the support needed to enter the data driven by the submission of cards by police officers and volunteers from the Landlord Association, but lacks the outreach to those affected areas where there is a high level of rental properties where we may be trying to establish NOW chapters. The residents may be renters affected by other renters and whose landlords are unaware of the programs. To assign fulltime officers to these programs would mean we would have to divert resources from other divisions or add to the workload to current officers already handling other duties, thus diminishing the effectiveness of the programs. As an example, the two officers who are trained in CFRH and teach the landlords would then have to have NOW and PAL added to their workload to administer. A coordinator would be tasked to develop new NOW chapters and ensure the new programs are added to the database, inform landlords and residents of the CFRH so that the officers can assist them in training for the program and how it works. The coordinator would inform citizens and parents of the PAL and GREAT programs for their children in the affected areas. The coordinator would be required to maintain regular contact with all NOW Block Watch captains with an emphasis on the targeted neighborhoods. They would be responsible for working with the proactive unit and emphasis patrol program to start up these NOW chapters to maintain the lower crime rates after an emphasis sweep. In addition to those fulltime duties, the coordinator would be required to focus on building neighborhood revitalization of resources that currently exist in the CSC such as: a) Faith & Families Team — This team is a coalition of faith based organizations. Strong . communication between team members helped organize and promote community faith based events including prayer rallies, distribution of prayer cards with a prayer for gang members, prayer walks, making connections with local schools, coordination of extreme winter weather shelters including training of 100 volunteers, and the creation of HOPE (Helping Our People Engage) which is a program designed to increase unity among pastors in our valley. Additional interconnected faith based activities also sprung out of this groups communications and are spearheaded by individual faith based organizations. b) Multi -Media Narcotics Reduction Campaign: An example of this service is Meth Reduction Action Team — MRAT consists of media specialists and concerned leaders who are working with local legislators and Washington State's Attorney General to develop and deploy a campaign aimed at increasing awareness of risks associated with Methamphetamine use. CSC developed a multi -media campaign concept called the "Shadow of Meth" using the tag line "Meth Lied ". This campaign is designed to educate parents and youth on the dangers of this drug, how addictive it is from the onset, and how to get treatment for addiction. CSC is actively seeking funding from multiple sources. We continue to inform our legislators of our progress on this and many other public safety fronts and they continue to support the CSC mission. c) Youth Programs & Education Team — This team is a diverse group of local leaders working together to create and promote youth specific activities and programs to protect and/or direct youth to wholesome activities. This group organized and held a 2007 Youth Job Fair and the 100 Jobs for 100 Kids program. d) Legislative Communications Team — A team of politically aware leaders and public officials work with elected leaders to advocate changes needed in the criminal justice system. e) Safe Neighborhoods & Communities Team (SNNT) — A team designed to take a geographic approach to create safe neighborhoods, increase Block Watch programs, support Crime Stoppers Program, and empower neighborhoods to reduce crime through resident involvement So as you can see the duties and responsibilities of this coordinator are to bring all the crime prevention resources available in the police department and in the community together. The money allocated would be for two years at $60,000 per year. This is not to back fill a position currently in the department because there is no one person doing the coordination of these programs and as in the case of NOW, no one is administering the program. I hope this clears up the confusion as to the purpose of the allocation in the Yakima Second Chance initiative for the Citizens for Safer Yakima Valley Communities. Should CSC choose to pass up on this opportunity then we could contract out to another person or organization willing to take on this contract for services.