What's the status of the 100 million? What are the prospects this year?
If she covered it in detail, I can read testimony later. What is the status of the teen centers? Any more online for this fiscal year?
The Recreation Commissioner is making his way up to the microphone.
And while he's coming up, is there any connect or connection of the dots between the teen centers, the curfew centers and the truancy centers?
And Julia Danzy is making her way up to address that. 164 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 COMMISSIONER RICHARD: Hi. Good afternoon. Vic Richard, Recreation Commissioner. There's a teen center being retrofitted right now in the far Northeast at Disston Rec Center in Ms. Krajewski's district. There's another one at just about the physical plant that's almost complete in South Philadelphia in President Verna's district at Vare at 26th and Morris. Those two are scheduled to come online full service this summer. The one at Disston we're accepting delivery on the infrastructure as we speak, and the physical plant at Vare is just about done. We do have some others that are on the wish list in the pipeline but aren't funded as of yet.
Given the City's efforts to have systems again to talk with each other, what is the relationship or connection, if any, with those teen centers and the truancy and 165 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 curfew centers?
One of the things, Councilwoman, that we are planning to do -- in fact, we're doing now -- every youngster we get in the curfew center and our -- you know about our AVRP program, because that's another piece that's wrapped up in that, and our young people who are coming to us with truancy, we are ensuring to do an assessment of every one of those youth and engaging with them to get them connected with programs. One of those key programs would be our teen centers. We have in our budget for this year even to put some staffing with the teen centers in connection with DHS so that we can provide the kind of services -- we're talking about mental health -- by putting in some mental health components there, because we know that's a key area where we can service our young people, that they will go to those teen centers.
Sure. 166 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 Health Department -- well, I did hear in the testimony that the curfew centers have some link or connect with the Police Department, correct?
So now to the Health Department, could the Health Commissioner come forward. Please speak, if you would, to any relationship, connection with the Police Department or L&I when it comes to stop and go's. You recall we had hearings around the need for more inspectors visiting stop and go's because of the menace they are in the community with kids hanging out at them all hours of the evening and night. Did you state in your testimony that you simply don't have enough inspectors at this time to handle the need for those stop and go's to be inspected on a more regular basis? COMMISSIONER PARIS: The only establishments that the Health Department actually inspects are those that has food 167 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 preparation on it.
Is that the same as sanitarians? COMMISSIONER PARIS: Yes. But the stop and go's, I'm not familiarized with the fact that they do prepare food.
That is true. Revealed in testimony -- I guess that was before the holiday -- in a resolution introduced by Councilwoman Marian Tasco the issue arose that because there were an inadequate number of sanitarian inspectors, that may be a contributing factor to the nuisance that stop and go's are after hours. Young people hang at stop and go's. They hang there for reasons that we know aren't healthy. I need to know, is there a relationship with the Police Department? Does Health have a relationship with the Police Department or with L&I around the issue of stop and go's?
So those 168 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 worlds don't --
I don't think the Health Department is linked into that. Let me ask L&I. COMMISSIONER PARIS: Yes, it's L&I.
The question is are we coordinating among City departments, is L&I working with the Police Department and to the extent there's a Health sanitation worker in a stop and go, are we working to try to make sure that kids aren't hanging out in these facilities and get diverted to the right kind of programs.
That's precisely it. Thank you. COMMISSIONER SOLVIBILE: The Police Department when we have hearings --
Please identify yourself. 169 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 COMMISSIONER SOLVIBILE: I'm sorry. Robert Solvibile, Commissioner of Licensing and Inspections. Good afternoon. The Police Department and L&I -- when there's hearings or a problem with a stop and go, Dominic Verdi's group, the Nuisance Task Force, coordinates with the Police Department to find out the number of complaints received. We've met with personnel in the Police Department about stop and go's where there's shootings, and then we would try to do enforcement. That's basically the coordination now. As far as Health Department, I'm not sure of any coordination with them.
But if there were children at the stop and go's, then the Police Department is very involved in making sure that those kids end up at the curfew center.
Exactly. They are then brought to the curfew center. And, 170 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 in fact, we are moving now to become even more aggressive in any of those facilities that are in those areas that they're harboring youth, either when they should be in school or when they should be adhering to the curfew, that they also become sanctioned in addition to the youth being brought to the appropriate points.
And that's consistent with the new curfew law. So that is the duty of L&I for the sanctions or whom?
I want to correct something that was just said. If it is an area that's served where there's a curfew center, children are brought to the curfew center. Otherwise, the Police write a curfew violation and then refer the information over to DHS. But if there isn't -- obviously at this point there's one live curfew center and you 171 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 don't have curfew violators from all over the City being taken there. What happens now is the referral from Police to DHS. So L&I might take -- it might be a complaint to L&I that gets L&I to the nuisance stop and go, bringing Police with them, and if there are underage kids there, involving the DHS in the writing of the violation. And the review of the curfew violations, all curfew violations are reviewed by DHS. They're made aware of all of them.
I see. The bell has rung. So I will revisit my question with the Health Commissioner after I've done my homework from the last hearing, because I need to review the testimony where it was -- the revelation was if you had more inspectors, then that would somehow aid L&I in what they're doing and thus definitely not eliminate but move towards having fewer young people outside of those stop and go's. So I'll do the homework and then I'll 172 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 revisit that question with you when your department comes before us on its own. I have additional questions, Madam President, and I'll wait until my turn.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilman Savage.
Good afternoon, Mrs. Wilkerson. On the Five-Year Financial Plan, you mention that you will be creating a landbank to facilitate development. Can you explain how the landbank will work?
Is anybody here from Housing? One of the things that we've been working on in NTI is -- one of the underlying strategies was try to figure out what the land inventory really is and get parcels of land positioned for redevelopment. Historically, what the City would do is, a developer would come 173 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 in and say, I want that vacant lot, that vacant lot, that vacant lot, and we would begin a process to acquire the land. A lot of times with condemnations in particular it can take almost a year to acquire the land. So you'd have a live developer and have to begin a very protracted acquisition process. The thought behind the landbank was to get properties through as much of the acquisition and disposition process as you can so that when a developer knocks on the door and says, I want to do a development, you can just convey the land. So that was the thinking underpinning it. It's something that had worked in Cleveland, was very successful. It was a best practice we wanted to implement here. We've done a lot to -- we've taken some steps towards that end. We have worked on reorganizing our housing agencies. We think they will function more efficiently. We support a lot of 174 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 the work now with technology. For the first time in a long, long time, probably decades, the City is probably in a position to know where the vacant land is in the city just because of the IT projects we've undertaken. We're working on developing streamlined disposition policies to support what we do. There are conversations still with City Council about exactly how far in the disposition process we'll go to have parcels poised for actual transfer. Council has made it clear that before anything gets transferred out of the public inventory, it has to come back to City Council for legislation, but we wanted to get it as close to that point as possible so that when developers come, we're not beginning a year, year and a half process.
I understand that Councilwoman Campbell had to leave and she had a question that she 175 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 wanted to ask. I understand that video cameras have been installed in Wynnefield and there was a public announcement about the cameras. Apparently, the cameras are not being monitored and she feels very strongly that people in that community now have a sense of false protection. Can somebody address that and tell us when the cameras will be monitored and should people know?
Pedro Ramos, Managing Director, with Joe James from MOIS. First of all, the City's current pilot does not include any cameras in that part of the City. There are cameras, I believe, that are owned by PCDC that there have been some discussions about whether the City would take on responsibility in the future for those cameras. There have been some discussions from them, and other organizations have also sought to have 176 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 the City take on administrative and overall responsibility for cameras. We have been in the process that Joe James referred to earlier, been trying to put those such requests in some kind of framework that makes sense for our plan going forward. So we have not made a decision about whether we would -- the conditions under which we would want to take responsibility for cameras currently bought or committed to by agencies outside of the City Administration. Joe, is there anything else? DEPUTY JAMES: That's right. That's correct.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Commissioner, I had some conversation with some of our police officers. Apparently there's two types of technology for these surveillance 177 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 cameras. There's one that's monitored in the police vehicle on the laptop and there's other that goes back to police headquarters. From what I'm hearing, the ones that are in the police cars aren't very well received by the police officers. They're so busy there's just not the opportunity to -- could you describe what I'm trying to express to you? DEPUTY JAMES: Sure. As I talked about last year, when we started the initiative shortly after the voter referendum, we went through a phase of deploying about cameras, and of those 17 cameras, eight of them were deployed to 18 what we call POD-type cameras, which are portable over digital surveillance cameras, similar that's been deployed in Chicago and in Baltimore. Most of the cameras that we have deployed are your traditional cameras that are on poles connected by fiber. They go back into the City's 178 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 network and we're able to transport that video to the police headquarters for them to monitor. The POD-type cameras, these portable cameras, are not networked. They are self-sustaining cameras that are mounted on light poles and they're probably more identified by the blue strobe light that most people see them flashing all the time. Those cameras were designed to work with a portable laptop unit that would allow a police officer to be able to go out to a scene in proximity to the cameras and through line and slight be able to retrieve that video from that camera to the laptop in the police car. Part of the whole purpose of doing the pilot is, we wanted to look at kind of lessons learned and what was the best practice, and we found out that in most cases because you had to be in such close proximity to the camera to retrieve the laptop video, it really wasn't as 179 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 effective as an officer basically standing at that intersection, because you didn't have a lot of distance that you could be, feet maybe top. So that 6 became one of the read-outs from the 7 pilot as while these are nice and they 8 have a very visual impact in the area 9 where they're deployed, they're not very 10 useful to the officer, and today the 11 current solution is not networked into 12 the City's network. We are currently in 13 a next phase of developing a solution to 14 allow us to transport the video from 15 those PODs the same way we do the other 16 cameras into the City's network so we can 17 retrieve them at the police headquarters. 18
Councilman, I guess 19 I would add that they're probably -- Joe 20 responded to your question in terms of 21 two types. There are probably three 22 types of cameras, because you're familiar 23 with the third type that's not mentioned 24 here. One is the pan/tilt/zoom, which 25 Joe mentioned, which are the ones you 180 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 manipulate. Second, the fixed cameras like you would get at an ATM machine, let's say, where it's just shooting in one direction all the time. And the third would be what people refer -- can mean a lot of different things, but people refer to them as smart cameras, those that are programmed so that when something unusual happens, they record or they zoom or do something like that. So part of the effort that's being led with the help of project management and the expertise in MOIS is to look for those -- to match up those types of technologies with the different types of public safety needs that you have and the different levels of effectiveness for each of those types of cameras. There's a Department of Justice study that talks about sort of the effectiveness of cameras that we'd be happy to share, and those are being matched up now. Now that we've got some 181 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 experience with the different types of cameras and know a lot more about what's worked and not worked in other cities, going back now to all the different stakeholders, starting with the Police and saying, Now that we've got some of this experience, we've got some new knowledge, what's the smartest way of using cameras to get the biggest impact on public safety. And we're very -- and the fact that the City is building a wireless network now, frankly, is fortuitous because we believe that in the end, it will enable us to do much more than we would otherwise be able to do. It might take some tweaking of the arrangement that we already have and what we expect in the build-out of the current or other vendors, but the ability to do it in a wireless way rather than having to pull fiber for each and every camera will let us just make those dollars go a lot further.
Madam 182 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 President, may I take 30 more seconds?
I know you'll count. You mentioned in your conversation about the blue lights, the flashing blue lights. They're a double-edged sword. They make it look like a combat zone. I've had people say to me, What's going on? They don't really know why those blue lights are flashing. Obviously it's to let the bad guys know that that's a camera-controlled location. But it's kind of -- I was at around Broad and Erie the other day, and really it looks scary to see all these blue lights flashing.
People have different opinions as to that. A lot of people like the flashing blue cameras. The idea behind that when you read some of the research on this is that if you're going to affect the behavior of a 183 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 prospective criminal, part of the calculus is that the criminal has to know that the cameras are there, be afraid that they're going to get caught.
And that the consequences will -- and it assumes that somebody is rational and sober and making that type of calculation.
You can imagine what a tourist must wonder if they're going through those areas or driving through those areas. And I will keep my commitment. I went over 30 seconds.
Well, is there any other way to do this? If you're talking about the smart technology, could the blue lights light when there's an incident? Because it really is a little much to go to an 184 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 intersection and see all those lights. DEPUTY JAMES: I think what you're seeing, Councilman, is a point in time where we've taken a pilot to see what type of experience so you can gauge that. And like the Managing Director said, we've had a number of different types of comments. Some people find them very positive, some people find them somewhat distracting, and I guess the comment that, Do you need to have that on all the time. And I think as we move forward, we're going to take advantage of that information and figure out. Like in Chicago, they have it connected to something that it is more alarm based, so that it's a reaction that's precipitated that causes the light to flash. And I think we need to look at it. And most of the cameras that we do have just have a solid blue light and they're very small and non-descript and most people don't even notice that they're even there. So it's really kind of a gauge. 185 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 We're trying to see what kind of reaction we are getting. So it's somewhat intentional.
Germantown Pike is a strobe light. DEPUTY JAMES: I understand at Germantown, but if you go to 7th and Girard, it's a solid blue light.
There may be cases, Councilman, which you, I think, would agree with if, for example, you're trying to stop short dumping, then you might want a very conspicuous, flashing, screaming camera to let people know that if they're short dumping on that avenue, they're going to get caught.
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Brown.
One 186 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 question, Madam President. Does the Managing Director's Office still have this program wherein you bring in currently enrolled college students interested in government with hopes that you will transition them into government, particularly that -- well, they would be college students.
We continue to participate in the citywide internship program.
That Personnel, I think, leads. We do that. This coming year -- and we'll be talking about it more in testimony, but happy to talk about it now, too -- we have started a public interest fellowship program in partnership with the Personnel Office, targeting people that are finishing up graduate programs in public policy or social work for people that want to work in government and have studied government. And it's a -- for this first 187 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 year of that public interest fellowship, which we call Destination Fellowship, we're hoping to be able to bring about five people into that program and give them a pretty structured experience in the government.
So I will look forward to hearing more about that, because specifically what I'm interested in is what the City is doing to hold on to young professionals between the ages of and 34, what kind of connect are we 14 making with Merrill Levitz and her outfit 15 and what she's doing for the young 16 professionals group. 17
The only exception 18 I would take, Councilwoman, is I would 19 include 42 as young. 20
But, in fact, the 25 effort that I just mentioned, Destination 188 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 Fellowship, is fun and good for the City, not just because it's a new effort to bring in -- to keep people interested that have studied government and are interested in government, give them a way into the government, but what makes it even more special, I think, is that the whole thing was really imagined, planned, conceived by a group of people in the age category that you just mentioned that work within the government already, a pretty unique group of go-to people in the government, right down to the website. They worked at Merrill Levitz's group.
They're on the new issue website and they're linked back to each other, and they really did create a buzz about this new public interest fellowship and it shows. I think they are justifiably very proud of that work. And we're doing some things informally, too, in terms of sort of brown bag 189 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 lunches, which we would probably want to formalize some more. But working on this public interest fellowship was a nice way of starting to organize and involve folks like that. I think it's also incumbent upon each of us in management positions in the government to -- I mean, I think part of being a manager is looking out for the professional development of your folks.
That's generation of leadership. That's exactly right. I am very much interested in that. So if you would please forward to Madam President any details, information about that. Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam President.
You're welcome. Are there any other questions from members of the Committee? (No response.)
Seeing no one, this Committee will stand 190 3/6/07 - WHOLE - RES. 070128 in recess until Tuesday, March the 13th at 10:00 a.m. Thank you all very much. (Committee of the Whole adjourned at 1:40 p.m.) - - - 191 CERTIFICATE I HEREBY CERTIFY that the proceedings, evidence and objections are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me upon the foregoing matter on March 6, 2007, and that this is a true and correct transcript of same. ______________________________ MICHELE L. MURPHY RPR-Notary Public (The foregoing certification of this transcript does not apply to any reproduction of the same by any means, unless under the direct control and/or supervision of the certifying reporter.)