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Minutes of Meeting on Citywide PAC Leaders and City Manager, January 6, 2000 Introduction to minutes: The Partners Against Crime program has grown by leaps and bounds since its inception. In order to continue the positive mission of the program with the Durham Police Department, the leadership of all four PACs met to discuss matters on January 5, 2000. The discussions covered the structure of the citywide meetings and how they can be improved, as well as ways to include active participation of other city departments and agencies in PAC. This meeting also gave the PACs the opportunity to compare notes on individual successes and challenges working with city departments in the PAC program. On January 6, the PACs had the chance to meet with City Manager Lamont Ewell to elaborate on these goals. For PAC II specifically, we brought these issues to the table: 1) Hosting the PAC web site -- obtaining city server space to host the site with PAC maintaining the content; 2) Inter-departmental meetings -- how the PACs can be a more active participant; 3) Agenda items and focus of citywide meetings -- how to make the meetings more effective 4) Bike patrols -- how to make this happen. The minutes from the meeting with the city manager follow. *** January 6, 2000, Meeting of Partners Against Crime (PAC) Leaders with City Manager In Attendance: City Manager: Lamont Ewell (lewell@ci.durham.nc.us) PAC 1: Jackie Wagstaff (NECD Chair), Stephen Hopkins (co-facilitator, Stephen@dahc.org), Ethel Crisp PAC 2: Brooke Whiteford (co-facilitator, brookew@rti.org), Pam Spaulding (co-facilitator, pspauld@duke.edu), Mike Shiflett (LABACM@gte.net) PAC 3: Mayme Webb (facilitator, jack.webb@prodigy.net), Ethel Simonetti (co-facilitator, tubaex@aol.com), Treva Haynes (sec. district 3) PAC 4: Harold Chestnut (facilitator, cnut@gte.net)  Also: Frank Hyman (fincaminor@mindspring.com), Lorisa Seibel (lorisa@dahc.org) Purpose: To develop ideas to strengthen the partnership between the community and city government in Partners Against Crime (citywide PAC and four district PACs). Lamont Ewell (LE) asked for reference point of meeting. Mayme Webb (MW) gave an overview. Brooke Whiteford (BW) added that the growth of the PACs necessitated the meeting. LE recognizes correlation of the growth of PAC and its impact on crime reduction. Ideas to strengthen the structure of the citywide PAC: 1) Look at roles of citizen leaders and city staff in the citywide PAC, and how staff can support citizens in leading meetings. BW: much of the structure of how PACs are run is now determined by the individual captains. LE: no cookie cutter approach works, since the PACs have different needs and approaches. Does the structure of the meeting need to be designed by the PACs? MW: there may be a problem as to who determines the agenda. An agenda doesn't necessarily need to be specifically defined, but we need guidelines. When transitions occur in the police liaisons and PAC leadership we need information to pass on to new people about how PAC works. LE: your bottom line is -- "Who runs the PACs?" As PACs are restructured, certain criteria need to be met, and we'll need to come back and work out those issues. We can be flexible as long as it is ethically, legally and morally correct. Stephen Hopkins (SH): The name PAC gives the perception that the police department is the driving force. PACs should be able to deal with other city agencies as well as the police. LE: I agree that it needs to move to the next level. *** 2) Follow formal process for setting agenda. Citizen leaders and city staff could meet prior to set agenda. City could send agendas to all members--citizens and staff. Lorisa Seibel (LS): The community liaison system is working at the district level already, there's no reason why it cannot work at the citywide. There should be a formal process for setting the agenda. Citizen leaders and city staff could meet prior to setting agenda. City could send agendas to all members--citizens and staff. MW: We want to set up our own agendas for the citywide meetings. We are not able to facilitate the meetings effectively, we would like to look at how we can restructure the meetings. BW: We want to meet with other people in other departments at citywide to make it work. Ethel Simonetti (ES): Perfunctory notices about the meetings aren't effective. opportunities are wasted, with no dialog at all between the city, the DPD and PAC leadership. SH: Some feel intimidated by it being held at the police dept HQ. Harold Chestnut (HC): We are dancing around this and need to be straightforward -- the problem is with the police dept. BW: This is one item that there is not complete agreement on in the PACs. Mike Shiflett (MS): It's run by the major, one item after another, no interaction with the citizens. In some individual PACs is the same way, but not in others. The feeling is that citywide is run like a paramilitary organization and the goal of the meeting is to get down the list and leave. HC: The military thing is what is the problem. BW: The grassroots structure is not the same as the top-down structure of the DPD. BW: For instance: I was told to "sit down and shut up," along with other officers. LE: I will go through this with them and come back to address the issues with you. Jackie Wagstaff (JW): the police do their job well, but don't understand how grassroots organizations function. We need to come to a compromise on how to improve the safety of our neighborhoods. It can't be driven by the police code. *** 3) Include more city departments in addition to Police. LE: I'm fine with that. MS: We do have great representation by Mitchell Archer and Lynwood Best at individual meetings [MW and BW concur]. LE: You want more input from...? [Entire room: suggestions from lots of the other city departments, including fire, public works, zoning, etc]. LE: Would hate to see every dept show up and have the agenda not be meaningful to their department.   Ideas to strengthen support from the city to the four district PACs: 1) Assistant City Manager is a contact person for PAC leaders. To address accountability, designate an Asst. City Manager to be responsible for ensuring that all city departments provide support for PACs that is consistent, timely, efficient and effective. TH: This would diffuse the power plays that occur with depts. LE: no response. *** 2) City Council Members serve as liaisons to their PACs. LE: We have a past and present ones here, but he would be happy to broach the issue with them. *** 3) City budget staff should meet with each PAC to get ideas for budget. MW: need more respect from reps from agencies. Often call for late addition to a meeting, making the agenda run over. BW: The attendees need more information. MW: It is better to have agenda in advance so that people can act. LE: The PACs are morphing and need to handle these kinds of issues more delicately. JW: Give leaders more time to come back and relate to community. LE: This will require more time and attention than today's discussion. It is time driven, allocations of CDBG funds and grants make it hard to present information. It feels like crunch time and feels like it to the PACs. FH: A lot of these things come down every year, like the budget, that means that things _can_ be done ahead of time. LE: the PACs will have to take responsibility for notifying communities about budgetary issues in order to get back to the city in time.   *** 4) City departments send representatives in addition to Police, Housing and Impact Team. MS: having citizens meet and talk to reps like Bennie Fields really makes them feel that action is being taken. JW: Most people come just to see the police and it would be good to have some one from depts to come. Frank Hyman (FH): It is good to have someone from each agency there even if it isn't on the agenda, because items not on the agenda often come up and if that one front line person is not there, action isn't taken. MW: Lynwood Best has often followed up with other agencies who haven't attended and shared information about other PACs. *** 5) Citizens are represented in interdepartmental meetings. This can be facilitated by scheduling meetings at times convenient for both citizens and city staff. *** 6) Interdepartmental meeting announcements and minutes are sent to PAC leaders. MW: I want to combine 5 and 6. Some people in PACs didn't know about them. A lot cannot attend during the day. Would like good solid information, have minutes, and a better scheduling time. BW: If it was at the beginning or end of the day that would be helpful. ES: One thing we recognize, is that these are ways we can exhibit responsibility and be able to send someone to a meeting or have the info on hand to distribute info. We want to be able to share dissemination of information, make phone calls, get better feedback. MS: During budget time, having citizens able to come down and support the agency reps that attend, it benefits everyone. LE: We don't want people lobbying for budgetary concerns, but I understand what you are asking. SH: In particular the Impact Team has proven its worth to the communities and he is being spread thin. *** 7) PAC meetings are publicized through City newsletter in water bills and media. BW: The only agency advocating the PACs is the DPD. Talked about the Trinity Park-Duke Park meeting. About 1/2 of the attendees didn't realize that attending PAC would be able to fulfill needs that came up. LE: Likes the idea of helping to disseminating information, including the water bill. Wants to have additional meetings of this. *** 8) Free meeting space is provided in City recreation and other facilities. MW: For the PAC meetings, it seems that the Parks and Recs dept and other city facilities can help with this. LE: I will check on this, I agree in concept that if this is helping communities then it would be money well spent. There are competing interests at play that have to be considered. MS: We have had good support from the Durham Public Schools in district 2. JW: Our space is not free. *** 9) Mailing and copying of announcements and minutes. MW: There was a definite inconsistency of treatment between PACs. JW: The city person who was handling the mailings is gone and has not been replaced. It has caused participation to go down since these mailings have stopped. *** 10) Website space. [BW recounted the genesis of the current PAC II site, which has been up and running for several months.] Pam Spaulding (PS): The DPD was enthusiastic and wanted to publicize the site but I couldn't allow them to do that since it resides on my personal directory. It was disconcerting that the city webmaster dismissed my initial request outright saying PAC wasn't city business. LE: That's an easy one. MW: requests for additional comments? None.   Ideas to strengthen the grant process: 1) Leaders of each PAC should be involved in applying for grants or changing grants. MW: We all had initial problems with these in the past and are thankful for Ada Gregory's improvements in the process. Things can still be tweaked. We would like to see that the process is successful. LE: How would that work? Have discussion at citywide, or individual PACs? MS: The reason the $25,000 was distributed to the individuals PACs initially was because the PACs knew what their needs were. The process made sense at that time. MW: Transportation may be a focus in one PAC, nuisance abatement in another. SH: Our big issue is the job creation. LE: Equal distribution was fine. At some point in time, we'll have to look at how the pie will be distributed. Reluctant to spread it equally and leave citywide forced to divide it equally without considering need. BW: I live in a section of district 2 that has drug dealing and gang activity, but if another district is using the funds in a different way that is not the same level of concern in my area, it would still benefit everyone by building communities awareness there and eventually in my own neighborhood. LE: You could have this argument about distribution of police officers. I am skeptical of splitting the pie equally and achieving the desired goals. It should achieve the 6 goals of the city council. I have to look citywide to make sure each dollar goes toward that goal. Spreading the wealth equally doesn't necessarily work. FH: one of my understandings of the use of city allocating the funds for refrigerator magnets and such is that we are creating a whole other level of citizens who have to weigh these issues of budgetary allocations in their districts and citywide. It's a process of educating these citizens. MS: We have talked at citywide about sharing funds for a particular common goal for all PACs, and everyone was receptive to that idea. LE: Depending on the source of funds, it requires a different set of requirements and restrictions and we need to see if these restrictions affect the debate on the use of funds. *** 2) PAC leaders should get grant criteria and policies in writing. SH: Would like a book of the policies in order to enable citizens to do grant writing. MW: [recounts the weed and seed problem and how her district couldn't participate in pursuing the grants]. Since the PACs have to pull together the data they need the support from the city to make them happen. LE: If we could, over time, designate times when the PAC leadership to meet with grant unit once or twice a year and help PACs achieve goals, would that help? BW: We have received materials with Ada and want this level of communication to continue. MW: Met with Ada about nuisance abatement. Is this considered Fed or city? What is the criteria? We need clarification and more information. SH: Example, district 2 wrote a grant for a computer, district 1 applied for 2 and was denied. Questions about who made this decision and why, since the criteria was met for the computer grant. LS: This comes back to the issue again of who controls the funds. LE: This does raise a serious issue; I will check on why one was denied and one was approved. SH: We had another problem with cellular phones, it was turned down because they said Weed and Seed was getting the phones, so we couldn't get them. It doesn't make sense why PAC funds cannot be used for this. MW: Bike giveaways. Some PACs were approached to contribute PAC funds to kick in the money for it, where other PACs were not. Parents were called to come to KMart to pick up bikes on short notice. It seemed like a publicity stunt -- we don't know if it was, but it felt like it. *** 3) PACs should decide how money is spent as long as it meets grant criteria. MW: We can continue to discuss this as time goes on. SH: We just found out that Mjr Pettiford was now in charge of grant approval, if the grant falls within the guidelines, then why can't it be approved.   Ideas for the city budget--these have not yet been approved by the PACs: a) Bicycle patrols in each district. BW: at last citywide, all districts felt it was a good idea, it would allow a conduit into the communities to become familiar with residents. It gives a presence that the police are actually there. We mostly see black and whites [patrol cars] whizzing through the neighborhood. We want officers back in the community. All districts agreed on the matter, but the DPD has no cohesive plan to do it. They were unprepared to deal with the issue then and made it feel that it was a nonevent. This idea has come directly out of the communities. SH: It came up that they had no bikes. BW: Police wanted some PACs to supply bikes. They thought it over when realizing that providing the officer would prove to be the larger expense. MS: Need to have communities get more input and to get city to have accountability for expenditures so that they are cost effective. LE: The bike patrol cannot happen without additional staff, and the city is constrained by that issue. It is a major budget item. We are still trying to fill the current positions as the classes graduate from the academy. The utilization of personnel. [Regarding their presence when driving through the neighborhoods] I thought that the police are supposed to stop, get, out and work with citizens and interface with the community. My understanding is that this was being taken care of. BW: You cannot use the term community policing without backing it up. We need to see a plan as to where the DPD is going in regards to staying in touch with the community. SH: Officer Jones and other officers went to AL to get more community and sensitivity training. That was very successful and needs to be done in the DPD. JW: What I am finding is that the word [community policing] is being used but it is not what is represented. When the face is familiar in the community people get used to that, then the person is moved and the process has to start all over again. No one knows why it happens, and the community has to adjust. We need more longevity. LE: There are several variables; promotions, reassignments, substititions. I don't know that you will ever have static assignments. In order to get a promotion, you have to move around, and the officer wants that varied experience. FH: It would be good to have some minimum assignment for the Community Liaison officers. It's a misnomer without a 2 year minimum commitment. If they aren't willing to do that, they don't have to become a Community Liaison officer. ES: Regarding the bike patrols: what is the philosophical/paradigm shift to accommodate it? LE: It was a emergency response oriented structure at first, and we are still working on this level of action. We need a ton more officers to accommodate coverage. It requires a major retuning of organization, cost and equipment. They have to have available backups and such in order for it to succeed. FH: If citizens feel that this is important, then it needs to be considered, there will budget pressures. MS: PAC started in 1995 [not including the earlier establishment of PAC I], and police staffing was an issue even back then. We tried to figure out why staffing was a problem. False alarms and school crossings were causing the resources of the police to be drained. We need to make use of the GIS system where high activity crime areas can be targeted. LE: We do this and we still receive complaints about the distribution of officers. It's a question of assigning officers where they are needed. It will take time. We are reviewing the 311 idea. The business community complains about having to pay taxes and deserve the calls. I think that the police have had a shift in thinking toward the communities, and crime is going down. We need more encouragement. We need to have more districts involved with the PACs in a concentrated way. SH: We have been at odds with the police regarding the use of the equipment. Regarding the mobile station, the citizens were promised certain access to it and the promise has not been fulfilled. LE: I don't recall that commitment being made. I'm not a police expert, but you're just pushing the crime elsewhere when the mobile unit sits and parks. JW: I beg to differ. I have advocated the idea that the mobile unit was to go to a high-crime area like Canal for a period of time to work on it. If it sits there for a few days then you can really crack down. LE: Substations were touted as the solution, but it turns out that crime hasn't gone down, that the criminals just move.  BW: Police have come to us about decisions they have made about our communities, but we need to have more substantial input about something like the bike patrol. We took offense at the way the issue was dismissed by the DPD. *** The following items on the agenda were left for the City Manager to consider and discuss with PACs at a later time, since votes are pending in some PACs: b) Nuisance abatements--contract with attorney Natalie McKinney to coordinate cases. c) Designated transportation planner to help neighborhoods solve traffic problems. d) More subsidies for affordable rental and home buyer homes to maintain mix of incomes. e) Impact Team expanded to meet need in each district. f) Free bulky item pick up to reduce dumping. g) Support for city staff to prepare cases for Community Life Court. h) Support staff in district police stations to keep doors open and help officers. i) Training for district police officers to access computerized reports. j) Action on storm water, sewage and vermin problems already inventoried. k) Dirt streets paved in timely fashion. l) More open space. m) Bilingual interpreters in every department and district. n) Advertising campaign aimed at reducing crime through public education. Ads that help educate and focus the public's attention on ways that we all can help reduce crime. *** MW: Could we meet again in 6 mos? LS: It would be a good idea if you [LE] could attend the next citywide meeting. LE: We have a retreat on the week of the 20th. I want to bring the ideas to the table. Want to see what flows from that. If I cannot make it on the 24th, we will get feedback to you. The process will take time and figure out what some of the critical issues are, including the budget and how funds will be used. Need to link up grants administrators with the needs that communities have.   MEETING ADJOURNED -- Minutes Index