Twenty.
Good morning, good morning, welcome, welcome, welcome. It's time now for a community connection right here on K one, the one you dressed in day after a city council meeting. We call this city Matters because if it matters to you, it matters to the city. Larry Eastwood is today and counselor how are you doing today?
Doing fine? Thanks? How are you today?
I'm do it all right. It's kind of an interesting session last night. Let's get started off with the flock cameras and these are license plate reading cameras. What is the scenario, what was proposed? What got accomplished?
Okay, well scenario wise, well, you know, we have ten of these cameras around the city and they are a point in time capture. As vehicles go by, they take a picture of the back of the car, they try to recognize the license plate and read other details about that and sore then in a database that allows the police force to be able to search by that anything about the nicle eavn are.
These video are just still shots.
These are just still shots and uh and they're and they're not by the way, uh traffic enforcement, like if if somebody ran a red light or or something.
You know, want that town because they got to tell you that the angle is right there, and you think these are a little bit on the dicey side, Wait till you put a red light camera.
Yeah, yeah, So, uh So there's been a lot of a lot of controversy, you know, back and forth.
Uh on all of this. And there are people.
On both ends of the spectrum, those who would like to see these cameras on every corner and more and would like to be using them for for traffic enforcement as well. And then there are those who don't want them at all, one percent against them.
Uh, definitely.
I've heard from a lot of individuals pretty evenly balanced from both ends of the spectrum.
And all the way in between.
And uh so this was a lot of the debate
being brought last night. Mister Kirkpatrick had sat down with the police chief and and the city manager and tried to work through some some regulations that some guardrails that we could put in place on how they're used, how much, how long the data can be retained, how many cameras we could have in total, and so there were there were several proposals around that or usage criteria around that, in his proposal, I had a few amendments around that, if we're going to have them, I would like to
see see guardrails around them.
THI we would as well, and so in in you know, for my.
Take on it, I'd like to see us not store the data to really just use it as an alert system. Right now, the data is stored for thirty days, and that was what was passed, was the thirty day retention period to keep it as it has been with that and uh, and so there was there was a lot of discussion around that.
Also.
Uh, well, we we agreed not to directly or automatically share the data with federal agencies. I know there's been some some concern around that as well, and so that was included trying to think of other specific details there, but a lot of good, good discussion around it, a little little debate in there as well.
Uh.
I guess, well, sure, I mean, you know, I think that's well, I mean, I know that's mentioned as a thing just because I know there's been some some targeting of of Christians and others, not specifically here, because by the way, I you know, in all of this, even though I would like to see a reduction in the usage and how these are used. Personally, Man, I think our police chief and the whole police department are doing
a great job. Uh And and and it's also just as a side note to that, I've I've been able to be attending the police academy that they host years. Yes, the Citizen Citizen Police Academy. I've been attending that the last couple of weeks. It's an eight week program. They do this about once a year, I think, And so I would highly encourage you to go to that. They do a just a great job of just sharing all kinds of detailers. Yes, yes, it's it's really good, very interesting.
And so anyway, you know, back on the flock thing, I mean, I think they're you know, they're using them responsibly.
Our concern probably is more about, you know, where that data is shared, because we share it with a lot of other police departments in this area and all around and and that network is continues to grow as well as far as who has access to that and that's automatic access to the data while there is uh an audit if we run a query against our database or whatever, you know that any any other departments that have that we have an agreement with can access our data at
any time at will and so through the through the system, and so I think that was a lot of people's concern as well.
We're some parameters put on advancing technology as technology advances.
And yes, yes, thank you for mentioning that as well. That was another amendment that I proposed. And actually that was kind of came out of a conversation with Flock. I've I've had a zoom call with the Flock company along with the police chief and Captain Elkins as well, and that was something they said, you know, if there are concerns about advancing technology, like right now, they said they didn't have anything in the works as far as
facial recognition or that sort of thing. But and while these are a still shot in time and pointed to the back of a car, they could potentially, you know, pick up a face or whatever that sort of thing. And while that data is not currently searchable, it recognizes, oh that's a that's not a car. It's still out there in the database, just not something you can query on.
But if at some point in the future they were to add new features software, hardware otherwise, then that would need to come through the City Council for approval for us to have those features added to the capabilities of what we have here.
Very good. Another thing that took place, and believe me, I came back from the kiddie Park kickoff for the campaign Sunday, I guess it was around four four thirty, and all of a sudden, all my social media was flooded with homeless people are gonna be fine five hundred dollars and you know we're gonna put them in dinner as present and all this good stuff. Was that a little bit of an overstatement that maybe we were seeing on social media?
Yes, and I and I could see on the on the surface where someone might look at those proposed regulations, and I say proposed, it's really a a potential regulation for the Council to begin considering and forced to have out there for the public to see. If if anyone, you know, someone's curious about that conversation, I'd really encourage them to go and watch from the webcast of last night and hear mister Kirkpatrick's presentation.
Uh.
And it was it was good to try to help give context to see who is on the team from the very organizations here in town. And yes, and and the fact that these fines were something that is up to like it says it may a fine may be incurred up to five hundred dollars and that's just commonly listed as a potential find for all kinds of things.
That's the maximum fine for anything in the city court.
Correct, right, right, and so and he also presented some photos there to show, you know, recent encampment near the tracks out here where they're not allowed to be. And you know, as you see with most of these encampments, there is a massive amount of trash and other things that accumulate needles, you know, just a lot of stuff, a lot.
Of bad things. It could be harmful to other people.
Yes, and so you know, as that came before Judge Gentis, he said, guys, you know, really, you know, rather than imposing a fine, you could just help clean this up. And so city provided a dumpster work together with the police and the guys who had been in camping there, and they helped clean the mess up. And so you know, that's what we'd like to see. There's there's a lot of compassion on this committee.
Uh.
And and that's something else you can probably see on that video. Webcast video is the team members UH and UH that are that are part of that task force, presenting lots of different perspectives in UH, in the different areas that they serve in our community. And so, you know, they are our neighbors, as mister k Patrick pointed out, they are.
Just like any other neighbors.
We there's also things that we would expect them to do or not to do in terms of putting us in harm's way or or making uh for instance, you know, camping in a public restroom or whatever. You know, that's not a safe situation for.
Anybody, for really anybody. But even that's true, not even for them, And.
So UH and I think there's been an issue with a lot of those public restrooms no longer being able to be locked from the inside because the locks have been destroyed by people breaking into them who want to camp out in there or or or try to take a bath in the sink there, or you know, showering the sink or whatever. So anyway, so that that's really the intent is to to try to help set forth some some stipulations and regulations on on how we handle
these situations. And as you pointed out earlier in our conversation. I mean, it's a very complicated thing. It's it's not simple.
No, And one thing that I think we we were we talked about was we've got a vast amount of resources available for people who are in trouble or who are facing some uncertain ahead, and how to get that information out to the folks you really need. It is a little bit of a challenge.
It is.
And one of the things I mean this was, I think it's surprised to a lot of us on the committee when police department brought us a list of resources, because when they encounter folks and they give them a list of these resources, and it was several pages long of just numerous resources throughout the city that can help. And the intent also is to add a number possibly QR code to the signs in the parks, have to find a parkway and that sort of thing for those
who are in need of those resources. And as you know, a couple of times that I've been able to go down and help with the warming shelter at be the Light, I see a majority of these people will actually have phones and.
It folks, but that that's the truth.
Yeah, yeah, they actually do.
And and if they don't even they know someone who does word spreads quickly where the resources are. In fact, you know, sometimes folks will come from out of town specifically because they've heard of specific resources here and they want to be able to take advantage of those.
Wow. So it sounds like basically we just kind of peeled back a little bit here and we're still in discovery.
Oh yes, absolutely, really this this gets it out to the public where they can they can look at that. Encourage you to go look at that packet, think about that, Encourage you to come to the meetings. I think we have one this Friday at eleven o'clock. We've been trying to meet every two weeks on Fridays at eleven.
Yeah.
They're in the conference room at City Hall, and I would encourage people to come and you can if you'd like to speak there. There's an opportunity to speak, just as there is a regular city council meeting if you would like to just sit and learn and take it in, which is a lot of what I'm trying to do there, that would be encouraged as well.
We're talking with city councilor Larry East here in Bartlesville and Larry, there was a council meeting rules change or something to that nature. Can you explain that what took place in what got changed if anything?
Yes, well, there were a lot of It was really spelling out the details of what's largely been followed for years with city council meetings. There was just more specific detail of how things might be dealt with to lay that out clearly in black and white. There was also a change for the citizens to be heard a portioned.
Previously it has been all all.
Of the city of Bartlesville and all of Washington County, and no longer will it.
Include all of Washington County.
Now it'll be citizens of Bartlesville, anyone who has a valid business license within the city limits. Also anybody who owns a piece of property within the city limits or is a manager of a piece of property. Let's say, you know, I lived in another state, owned a piece of property here and had someone managing it for me, had a concern about something that I wanted my property manager to go and speak to the council about.
They would be able to come and speak to that.
And the other item that was added there also was anyone who has basically a power of attorney to represent someone here.
Who lives here here. Yes, it sounds like you covered all the stakeholders pretty well on that one.
I think it got very close, Yes.
Very close. Nothing's perfect, a pretty darnk clothes. All in all, a very action packed night, A lot of but things got accomplished, a lot of things got discussed, and it sounds to me like a lot of things have had the doors open for even even further discussion.
Yes, yes, that's our hope.
We want people to engage and and help us in trying to make the right decisions.
Alrighty, I want to thank you very much Larry for coming in today. I know it's kind of rough when you you work all day, work all night, and then come back in on the radio the next day, but thank for taking time out.
For us today.
Folks, you've been watching and listening