CC 20161101 03 Public Safety Admin Analyst II Position Neighborhood WatchRANCHO PALOS VERDES CITY COUNCIL MEETING DATE: 11/01/2016
AGENDA REPORT AGENDA HEADING: Regular Business
AGENDA DESCRIPTION:
Consider and review update on Public Safety Administrative Analyst II position and
Neighborhood Watch
RECOMMENDED COUNCIL ACTION:
(1) Receive and file update on Public Safety Administrative Analyst 11 and
Neighborhood Watch.
FISCAL IMPACT: None
Amount Budgeted: N/A
Additional Appropriation: N/A
Account Number(s): N/A
ORIGINATED BY: Gabriella Yap, Deputy City Manager.
REVIEWED BY: Same
APPROVED BY: Doug Willmore, City Managenfr
BACKGROUND AND DISCUSSION:
The City, like most of the other cities on the Peninsula, had experienced a dramatic rise
in residential burglaries in the first half of FY 15-16. In response, the City adopted a
Public Safety Strategic Plan in FY 15-16, which took a holistic and both a short- and
long-range approach to public safety. The plan looked at Sheriff's resources,
technology, and outreach and awareness, with a number of sub -goals within each
category. In the FY 16-17 budget sessions, the Council requested that Staff include a
new position in the budget to carry on these public safety efforts and to ensure the
continued success and continuity of Neighborhood Watch (NW) through administrative
and technological support. As a result, the Public Safety Administrative Analyst 11
position was added during the budget process and was highlighted as a new addition to
the budget. The budget was approved unanimously by the City Council.
The following is a list of projects that the Analyst would work on:
• Phase 2 of the camera project, focusing on the Eastview neighborhoods along
Western Ave.
• Creating a program for HOAs to install cameras at the entrances to their
neighborhoods with a possible matching funding program with the City.
• Continue working with the other Cities and the vendor on the remaining parts of
the regional Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR) project
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• Assisting with efforts to secure a Sheriff's Safety Center at the Civic Center
• Performing ongoing analytics on the crime trends in the City to determine what to
focus our resources on and make a visible impact
• Implementing a new service to assist Seniors from becoming victims of
telephone scams
• Performing home audits to help residents fortify their homes
• Coordinate with Code Enforcement on coyote education
• Becoming cross -trained to back-up our Emergency Preparedness Analyst
• Assisting with a public safety committee if one is established
• Assisting with Neighborhood Watch activities for multi -family residential
properties (identified by NW Working Group as difficult to organize due to
turnover)
• Assisting with Neighborhood Watch activities in neighborhoods that have gone
through multiple block captains or area coordinators (identified by NW Working
Group)
• Assisting with public notification and public safety information sharing to the
community — finding additional avenues of communication to augment what
Neighborhood Watch does.
At the October 4, 2016, meeting, Mayor Pro Tem Campbell requested an update on
Neighborhood Watch. As background, Gail Lorenzen, the volunteer NW Coordinator,
began this program in the 90s at the City's behest and with the support of the Sheriff's
Department. Her efforts have paid dividends in helping to reduce crime in the residential
neighborhoods. Gail's work, and that of her Area Coordinators and Block Captains, is
volunteerism at its best. These positions keep their neighbors apprised on how to
prevent crime from happening in their neighborhoods, educate their neighbors on how
to prepare for emergencies, and look out for elderly and/or disabled neighbors who may
need extra assistance.
Staff met with the Neighborhood Watch Working Group on October 12, October 22, and
October 24, 2016, to exchange information and ideas. The discussions were very
helpful in providing this status update. Neighborhood Watch provided insight into the
measures they have in place for continuity in the event that the NW Coordinator is
unavailable including:
The NW Coordinator has a backup person who sends out the crime reports and
monitors email and telephone messages in her absence. All of the Area
Coordinators have this person's contact information in case of an emergency.
If a single point failure were to occur with either NW's database or distribution list,
the information would be recreated using the records kept by the Area
Coordinators and Block Captains, who initially compiled and continuously update
this data.
Depending on their size, most neighborhoods have several Block Captains, and
the Block Captains each have Assistants who act as their backups.
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The Neighborhood Watch Working Group also met independently to evaluate their
structure and their recent expansion. There has been a membership increase, likely tied
to more interest in public safety with last year's uptick in residential burglaries, resulting
in the NW Coordinator now having over 50 Area Coordinators. The NW Working Group
made the following recommendations to improve their organization:
Expand the organizational structure to include a Steering Committee (consisting of
5 to 7 at -large members) that would meet regularly to review the activities of NW
and advise the NW Coordinator. The Steering Committee would be independent
from the City and would consist of resident volunteers recruited by NW with an
interest in sustaining and furthering the organization's mission.
Expand the structure to include five Regional Coordinators, each responsible for a
geographic portion of the city, situated between the NW Coordinator and the Area
Coordinators. This new management level would network with each other and would
be able to take the lead in recreating the NW database and distribution list in the
event of a failure. This group of people would also provide for improved succession
planning, as stepping up to NW Coordinator from a Regional Coordinator position
would be much easier than from an Area Coordinator position.
The proposed new structure is depicted below:
Steering Committee (new)
NW Coordinator
Regional Coordinators
(new)
Area Coordinators
Block Captains
The Neighborhood Watch leadership would meet on an as -needed basis with a
City Council Subcommittee or an in-house Public Safety Advisory Committee (if
one were to be established) to review current issues, provide input on the City's
public safety projects and foster lines of communication. Staff asked if the NW
Coordinator, or her delegate, would consider being on a committee if one was
formed, but the NW Coordinator does not envision having a regular role on a City
citizen's public safety advisory committee.
Below are the items the Working Group identified where the City and the Public Safety
Analyst could provide assistance to Neighborhood Watch:
Continue to support the flow of information between the Lomita Sheriff's Station
and NW. Since the October 12th meeting, the communications from Captain
Beringer have been frequent, timely and extremely helpful. With the Captain's
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approval, also continue the lines of communication with the Station's Watch
Commanders and Detective Team.
• Request that Captain Beringer or his designee continue to review NW Bulletins
for factual and potentially controversial content before they are sent out to the
NW network.
• Assist NW in procuring a redundant database system and the technical assistance
to migrate the existing data onto the new backup system.
• Update the NW website and host it as part of the City's website.
• Provide a NW voice mail extension on the City's telephone system.
• Continue referring inquiries received through City Hall to NW. The voice mail
extension referenced above could be used for this purpose, rather than referring
the calls to the NW Coordinator's home phone. The extension would also allow
the Coordinator's back-up to easily retrieve messages in the Coordinator's
absence.
• Make the City's GIS system available to generate neighborhood maps for
Area Coordinators and other NW uses. (Staff has already provided some
samples that appear to be helpful and will continue to work with NW on this.)
• Use the NW Emergency Preparedness forms for the City's own EP programs,
so there is uniformity across the city.
• Provide access to City facilities and provide support for meetings between Area
Coordinators and their Block Captains, and well as NW appreciation events
and training sessions. (Staff may need to bring forward an item to waive fees.)
• Continue to coordinate with the City to use resources, such as RPVty, the City
Newsletter and social media presence, to promote the NW program and to educate
and inform residents not involved in the program about public safety and crime
prevention.
Staff is able to assist with the items above and believes it would be beneficial to the
community.
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