District 3 Advisory Board

District III Advisory Board Minutes for May 4, 2016 District III Advisory Board Minutes May 4, 2016 www.wichita.gov The District III Advisory Board meeting was held at 6:30 p.m. at the WATER Center, 101 E. Pawnee, Wichita, KS 67211; Councilman James Clendenin, eight District Advisory Board members, one City staff and five signed in members of the public were present. Members Present Members Absent Elena Ingle Eric Bell David Robbins Emily “Emy” Winterhaltor Paul Davis Connie White Gerald Henry Bruce Gass Staff Present Cindy Miles TeiaWair, Community Services Representative Marjorie Griffith Jessica Hutton Guests Councilman James Clendenin Listed on last page ORDER OF BUSINESS At 6:30 p.m. Councilman James Clendenin called the meeting to order. Minutes from the April 6, 2016 meeting were approved. The agenda for the current meeting was approved. STAFF REPORTS Fire Report None: Fire reports are presented every other month. Next fire report will be June 1, 2016. Police Report None: Police reports are presented every other month. Next fire report will be June 1, 2016. PUBLIC AGENDA Scheduled Items NONE Off-agenda items DAB: Reported that the house located at 6048 S. Hydraulic was demolished. Councilman James Clendenin, stated that they disconnected the utilities a few months ago, so it is great to hear that the house was demolished. 1  District III Advisory Board Minutes for May 4, 2016 DAB: It is a joy having the police and fire report bi-monthly. It is great to hear their warnings and what is occurring around the district. Can an update on the joint training centers be provided? There seems like there is an impasse. Councilman James Clendenin: Stated that there are a lot of items occurring behind the scenes. Public: Stated that the county originally rejected the cost then the city rejected the cost. There was an RFP put out. The county questions why they have to pay half. Councilman James Clendenin: About a decade ago the Fire Training Center was built at that time the city tried to get the county to do a partnership with them. The county declined, so the city went ahead and built the training center without partnership. The plan is a 50/50 split for the funding of the training center. The county is interested in doing a partnership with the fire department and combining the two training centers. The city would like the fire and police training centers to be two separate agreements. Wichita State Innovation Campus will be the location. The 50/50 split may change to 60/40 but they are still working out the details. DAB: Does the county pay to use the fire training center? Councilman James Clendenin: Yes twenty-five dollars an hour. Public: Does the entire state utilize the training center out west? Councilman James Clendenin: Yes, I believe that is an accurate statement. Councilman James Clendenin: Housing the training center at Wichita State will provide a great opportunity for recruitment from those seeking careers in the criminal justice field. Chief Ramsay has a vision of hiring police as a second career is amazing. Younger police are great too but having life experience can help out a lot. Around 13th and Woodlawn a 13 year old boy was apprehended for thirty minutes because he fit the description of a suspect. The police failed to contact the parents and let them know the young man was in their custody. The mother began calling around because she was scared. Chief Ramsay went out and spoke with the parents to obtain their story. After speaking with them, he has opted to change some policies on how the police handle minors when they are apprehended. He is really into listening and changing those policies that need to be changed. DAB: Does he have the authority to change polices or does he have a board. Councilman James Clendenin: Yes, he is able to change policies like rewriting job descriptions. The Chief works under the City Manager. Public: What are your thoughts of how police complaints are reported? Would it be good to go back to the old way to where the caller can obtain a follow up call or remain anonymous? Councilman James Clendenin: You can call things in anonymously but only to a certain point. For court reasons such as if you’re cited to testify you must report your name. Public: Many are scared to call the police because of the inability to remain anonymous. DAB: Stated that if you contact Crime Stoppers with a crime happening right now. Crime Stoppers will get on the phone and dispatch WPD to the area. You can remain anonymous this way. Public: Chief Ramsay needs to be aware of the fact that some officer’s exhibit and I do not care attitude. Some casually ask how you are doing, drive by and look rather than stopping and providing help. Councilman James Clendenin: Chief Ramsay is working on a lot of things. It will take roughly a full year before we see the impact of the changes. There are changes to the Daily Report Center. Adding funding for a detox center attached with Compare. If an officer transports an alcoholic to the hospital they must stay and wait for four to six hours. This process takes an officer 2  District III Advisory Board Minutes for May 4, 2016 off the streets. The problem is that we have limited officers. Chief Ramsay wants everyone to have a community policing mindset. Getting out and meeting the citizens. This will be a culture change. Once we have officers available to be community minded policing. Public: For District III it is an unusual situation. The emotional describe people are state funded to live in a large chunk of the motels on Broadway. This area South of Kellogg to 47th is a different criteria. Chief Ramsay needs to come out and address District III differently. Councilman James Clendenin: I wanted Chief Ramsay to attend our District breakfast but he was unable to. He is in the middle of moving his family to Wichita. I want to have him at our DAB. DAB: There is a formal process if you have a complaint on a specific police officer you complete a form. Then a hearing will be conducted. Councilman James Clendenin: The cameras have added safety for citizens as well as the WPD. There are a lot of great changes occurring from Chief Ramsay. Public: There has been an increase of animals dump off. Councilman James Clendenin: The city council is waiting for data to determine how many additional Animal Control Officers are needed. City Council would like to adjust their budget to hire additional Animal Control Officers. The Animal Control Board meetings are held the 1st Wednesday of the month at 4:00 pm at the Transit Center. Public: The goal is to eliminate the illegal dumping of animals, trash and mattress. All the answers are unknown but South Central Wichita has become a big sewage for illegal dumping. Councilman James Clendenin: Prevention is key. Report the situations as you see them occurring. When you see suspicious things going on call at that time. Cameras and technology are great. Public awareness is important. Public: Can we televise the awareness of the need to report illegal dumping? Councilman James Clendenin: We have 15 neighborhood associations in District III. There are only 4 or 5 that are very well attended. Many are falling apart. It is very hard to get people involved. Those trying hard to get the neighborhood associations up and running are working very hard. The question is how you get people involved. He mentioned that he is only one person. Public: Is there anything available that allows citizens to report things without being notified? An application like Facebook would be ideal. This way citizens could share complaints anonymously. The application could be linked to an email that goes directly to the correct parties to get the issue addressed. Councilman James Clendenin: There is an applications called Next Door. Regarding how to get the notification to specific people is the concern. Next Door would need to configure away to get these items to the correct parties to get them addressed. Public: There is an issue with getting citizens engaged. This not a new issue it has been going on for years. The question is how citizens do and government officials get those citizens involved? Councilman James Clendenin: This is a huge issue. In addition to the local issues the national dialogue is also a road block which frustrates people. DAB: The route of the issue is we all need to report criminal things to 911 as we see them occurring. The issue is that people are discouraged from calling to report things because 911 seems to give you the run around. An officer does not always come out to check on the situation. 911 does not communicate effectively to the citizens calling in suspicious activity. There needs to be another avenue to report those items that are not life threatening. Councilman James Clendenin: The most effective way to report neighborhood nuisance or other none life threatening items would be to contact Teia Wair at 316 303-8030 or twair@wichita.gov and myself at 316 268-4331 or at jclendenin@wichita.gov. You can report complaints on the wichita.gov website and remain 3  District III Advisory Board Minutes for May 4, 2016 anonymous. Please do not report things that need 911. One issue is the City Manager’s phrase right now is to create employee raving fans. If you have raving fans you are doing something right. This is going to be a culture change which is not going to happen overnight. Public: Are there plans to add solar powered lights to the dark and deem areas in South Central to help prevent crime? Councilman James Clendenin: I am not sure about solar lights going in but there is an order with Westar to add lighting on Topeka and Clark. On a case by case bases lighting can be added. Councilman James Clendenin: At our district breakfast Deputy Chief Seiler stated that two arrest were made in connection with the graffiti. This was probably attributed to people calling and reporting what they saw. DAB: Can OK kids day be moved to a later time of the year because the weather was not warm enough. Councilman James Clendenin: Last year the weather was great but attendance was low. This year’s attendance was the highest. If the weather was warmer the numbers would have been even higher. Public: Did the train at Watson Park really cost three hundred thousand? Councilman James Clendenin: Yes, the train will pay for itself with ticket sales over the next three years. The old train received forty thousand rides a year with two cars. The engineers are volunteers. Councilman James Clendenin: There will be a new sixty inch force (sewer) main put in between plant one located along K-15 to south of 55th and Hydraulic. If this main is not replaced there will be a huge issue. The old pipe was six inches thick and it is now two inches thick. This project will cost roughly forty million dollars. This is included in the current water/sewer rates. If you live along this area you may endure the unpleasant smell. NEW BUSINESS Scheduled Items NONE BOARD AGENDA Meeting was adjourned. The next District Advisory Board III meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m., June 1, 2016, at the WATER Center, 101 E. Pawnee, Wichita, KS 67211. Respectfully submitted, Teia Wair, Community Service Representative – District III Guests Chad Roush Ronald Tracy Lonnie Wright Trisha Epps W.A Stofer 4