Speaker 1: Good morning, good morning, good morning, welcome, welcome, welcome time
Speaker 1: now for city matters on our community connection. And with
Speaker 1: this here a city Councilman Tim Sharey.
Speaker 2: Hey, dude, sir, doing great, Tom, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Good to be here.
Speaker 1: Always great to have the folks in from the city.
Speaker 1: You'll give us kind of a recap of what happened
Speaker 1: with the City Hall last night. The big news, I
Speaker 1: guess was the Task Force on the Homeless. And I
Speaker 1: understand that we got an ordinance taken care of and
Speaker 1: a few things that we're kind of brought to light
Speaker 1: to concerning some language and what have you.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's true, So I have a copy of the
Speaker 2: ordinance here with us.
Speaker 3: Sure, And I thought that the committee did a very
Speaker 3: fine job kind of keeping government and it's lane, you know,
Speaker 3: it's it's not our job to try to legislate an
Speaker 3: individual's pathway to recovery.
Speaker 2: We can't do that. We don't know what they need.
Speaker 3: We can't come to them with a holistic approach and
Speaker 3: support that they're going to need to perhaps recover from
Speaker 3: some of the life controlling behaveaviors that have been pointed
Speaker 3: out by the committee. But what they did was create
Speaker 3: an infrastructure here that regulates certain kinds of behaviors in
Speaker 3: public spaces as it relates to matters of public health
Speaker 3: and safety, and that is a legitimate government concern, and
Speaker 3: I think they did a very good job keeping that
Speaker 3: all together in the right lanes. One of the things
Speaker 3: that we caught was just basically an effort to try
Speaker 3: to keep the code clean. Our municipal code, of course,
Speaker 3: hasn't been updated in some areas for some time. So
Speaker 3: anytime you want to bring something new like this where
Speaker 3: you need to address issues that are occurring in your
Speaker 3: current culture, you need to go back and make sure
Speaker 3: that you're not going to have anything that the courts
Speaker 3: can trip over as they attempt to adjudicate infractions. So
Speaker 3: there was one section in chapter twelve, section twelve one
Speaker 3: oh seven A where it had some language that was
Speaker 3: conflicting with the remainder of this ordinance, and since we
Speaker 3: wanted this to be authoritative on matter, we just simply
Speaker 3: added a section to the ordinance that repealed that conflicting section.
Speaker 1: Oh, very good. So you got to keep up with
Speaker 1: the times, as they say, yes, sir, So there we go.
Speaker 1: Other things that we're I guess talked about were trying
Speaker 1: to make sure that these folks get their ideas because
Speaker 1: some of them run around with no identification.
Speaker 3: Right, it is important to get them an ID to
Speaker 3: make sure that we can recognize who we're dealing with.
Speaker 3: That allows repeat encounters with individuals to be guided, if
Speaker 3: you will, so that they can be directed to the
Speaker 3: appropriate resource to best suit whatever they may need. Particularly
Speaker 3: when we're talking about acute care, where you're talking about you,
Speaker 3: do you have water, do you have food? Do you
Speaker 3: have adequate survival skills?
Speaker 2: Here? Are you going to be? Okay?
Speaker 3: That's kind of the first humanitarian effort, and so that's
Speaker 3: I think very important. Another piece of that, though, is
Speaker 3: that if you get them to the nonprofit, they don't
Speaker 3: have to pay for the ID. If they just go
Speaker 3: to the tag office like you and I, you're gonna
Speaker 3: have to pay for a photo ID. It doesn't matter
Speaker 3: if it's a drivers. So I think that's that's a
Speaker 3: nice feature that the nonprofits can help them to get
Speaker 3: a photo ID that will help them to do a
Speaker 3: lot of other things like.
Speaker 1: Help them help themselves.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, you know you'll need it for a job interview.
Speaker 3: You will as you as they begin to come out
Speaker 3: of perhaps the homeless situation that they're in.
Speaker 2: They'll need those kinds of things. You know, if you
Speaker 2: want to go apply for a job at Walmart, they're
Speaker 2: gonna want to picture.
Speaker 1: Id you bet you any any place? Really. Also, I
Speaker 1: understand that we cleaned up some of the language. I
Speaker 1: remember several weeks ago, actually a couple of months ago,
Speaker 1: there was an email that went out saying that the
Speaker 1: city is going to find anybody and everybody found homeless
Speaker 1: why one hundred dollars?
Speaker 3: Right, There was some information out there that we were
Speaker 3: attempting to criminalize homelessness.
Speaker 2: No, we're not. So what that does is it allows
Speaker 2: a protection.
Speaker 3: To exist for anyone who might have to encounter the courts.
Speaker 3: By stamping it with a maximum of five hundred dollars,
Speaker 3: it keeps it firmly within the realm of a misdemeanor offense,
Speaker 3: rather than being perhaps misconstrued as a felony offense.
Speaker 2: That that's good for everybody. It is.
Speaker 3: Not something that's going to be handed out as a
Speaker 3: matter of first choice.
Speaker 2: As these people are encountered. The language of the ordinance.
Speaker 3: Now says that the officers have the option of helping
Speaker 3: to refer them. I think as we go through this
Speaker 3: next six months, you can see some QR code that
Speaker 3: pop up. It's amazing that people are homeless but still
Speaker 3: have cell phones and access to a lot of that
Speaker 3: Internet access. But it's good for us because we can
Speaker 3: make it available in a very portable fashion all of
Speaker 3: the resources that they could access if they choose to
Speaker 3: do so.
Speaker 2: So it's going to be based on.
Speaker 3: Repeat offenders, of course, will be adjudicated, perhaps a bit
Speaker 3: more stringently than others. I think that's appropriate. I think
Speaker 3: you see that in the entirety of our law. But
Speaker 3: it's not going to be where they're just passing out
Speaker 3: five hundred dollars fines because you happen to be homeless
Speaker 3: and sitting on a sidewalk someplace.
Speaker 1: Okay, very good. Other things coming up, I guess there
Speaker 1: was some land things that are coming up in the
Speaker 1: future that you deal with our city owned lands that
Speaker 1: I guess it's coming up. As far as the Endeavor twenty,
Speaker 1: what's going on.
Speaker 3: There, Well, we had a couple of things that dealt
Speaker 3: with property.
Speaker 2: We accepted some.
Speaker 3: Bids for development in a couple of areas. Some of
Speaker 3: that will create new housing in Bartlesville.
Speaker 2: There were some other things that we had to deal
Speaker 2: with that.
Speaker 3: For one individual, they thought perhaps it would be better
Speaker 3: if they just knocked property down. And I was really
Speaker 3: impressed with Larry Curtis as he volunteered to give some
Speaker 3: more time to work with that individual and make sure
Speaker 3: that his property rights were preserved. That he was going
Speaker 3: to make sure that it could be the property itself
Speaker 3: could be secured and then that would keep that where
Speaker 3: he could use it.
Speaker 2: For his business as a shed and so forth.
Speaker 3: So I thought that was a highlight there that you know,
Speaker 3: Larry really approached this with some compassion. Now, as far
Speaker 3: as as the other things for the zoning, we did
Speaker 3: create an ad hot committee that consists of three community members.
Speaker 3: They were based on the recommendation and that packet, of
Speaker 3: course is available for everyone out on the city website
Speaker 3: if you want to go see all the detail of that.
Speaker 2: And we.
Speaker 3: Also placed Councilman Kirkpatrick on as the City Planning Commission
Speaker 3: representative and Vice Mayor Dorsey as the council representative.
Speaker 2: And what they're going to do is.
Speaker 3: Review and select a contractor basically to come in and
Speaker 3: evaluate our code and see what might need to be
Speaker 3: remediated as it relates to the endevor twenty forty five plan.
Speaker 1: So how often is this group going to meet as
Speaker 1: needed or.
Speaker 2: It's going to be on an as needed basis.
Speaker 3: They'll have to identify first of all, how much needs
Speaker 3: to be adjusted so that it's brought into alignment, and
Speaker 3: I think that will set their schedule.
Speaker 1: Okay, good. Our reporter who was there last night, they
Speaker 1: told me this in an email. I got it just
Speaker 1: a guess. Before we came on about information sharing or
Speaker 1: a documentation, A discussion took place there. I really couldn't
Speaker 1: make anything out of the audio I heard, But what
Speaker 1: was that all about? It? It seemed like that you
Speaker 1: guys were kind of talking past each other a little bit.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 3: About document retention and the authority to destroy. So anytime
Speaker 3: that you have public records, you have to have a
Speaker 3: document that controls how long they're retained. Like if you
Speaker 3: were going to talk about a financial it might be
Speaker 3: five or ten years, or maybe even fifteen years, depending
Speaker 3: on exactly right.
Speaker 2: So this was.
Speaker 3: Hey, guys, we haven't addressed new forms of media in
Speaker 3: many years, so there are certain forms of media that
Speaker 3: are out there that we need to create a policy around.
Speaker 1: What has been omitted what has not been brought up
Speaker 1: to speed.
Speaker 3: So I think the last time that they touched on
Speaker 3: this was around twenty ten or twenty twelve. They didn't
Speaker 3: have the proliferation of email, text and other like WhatsApp,
Speaker 3: signal and other messaging applications. They didn't have body worn
Speaker 3: cameras back then.
Speaker 1: No, I mean they were around, but they weren't used
Speaker 1: wide use.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, there was an explosion of social media over
Speaker 3: the last ten to fifteen years. Voicemails were not included
Speaker 3: in the previous policy, So there were certain things that
Speaker 3: we needed to go back and say, Okay, this is
Speaker 3: going to be our policy. This is how long we're
Speaker 3: going to set as a city that these things need
Speaker 3: to be retained. And then certain other things we set
Speaker 3: as a city policy to know required retention, and what
Speaker 3: that means basically is that it defaults back to the
Speaker 3: departmental retention policy. So, for example, on the body worn cameras,
Speaker 3: the police department already has a policy that says any
Speaker 3: uncategorized data is retained for sixty days, and if it's
Speaker 3: a part of an ongoing investigation or anything like that,
Speaker 3: it's retained for much longer.
Speaker 2: The life of the case. Sure, basically that seems pretty simple,
Speaker 2: cut and dry.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, So there was some concern that we wanted to
Speaker 3: provide for transparency so people would be able to come
Speaker 3: down and ask for records and be able to see
Speaker 3: certain kinds of communications that may have contributed to some
Speaker 3: decision making.
Speaker 2: So we moved the email, text.
Speaker 3: And other electronic messaging from a no retention required policy
Speaker 3: at the city level to a two year retention policy.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, And what that will do basically is preserve
Speaker 3: all of those types of messages over the life of
Speaker 3: a single elected term and bleed over slightly into the
Speaker 3: next term, leaving the subsequent council members' records. They'll be
Speaker 3: able to look back and say, Okay, I have access
Speaker 3: to the Ward Won mailbox and it looks like we
Speaker 3: were talking about this and these are some pertinent conversations.
Speaker 3: So it creates I hope it creates an additional level
Speaker 3: of public trust. I believe that the people that worry
Speaker 3: the most about accountability are the people who need it
Speaker 3: the most. And I don't think any one of us
Speaker 3: had any problem with the new policy. I think it's
Speaker 3: absolutely appropriate to make that available.
Speaker 1: So basically, getting some clarification. That's what the discussion was.
Speaker 1: Like you said, the new media. That's and you know,
Speaker 1: could have gone back to nineteen forty three when it
Speaker 1: was just telephoned. Yeah, got to keep an eye on
Speaker 1: dates and what's happening with the times.
Speaker 3: Right, And some of us communicate in different manners, so
Speaker 3: some of us primarily communicate face to face in by phone.
Speaker 3: I think that's great because anytime you try to send
Speaker 3: a message, you lose the nuance. How much of our
Speaker 3: communication is nonverbal a lot.
Speaker 1: And you know what a text or a message on
Speaker 1: WhatsApp or a signal has no tone, and with that,
Speaker 1: you're the recipient and you can see that as somebody
Speaker 1: just getting up in your face, or is somebody just
Speaker 1: kind of just saying nothing and it doesn't have that
Speaker 1: human component. I understand that.
Speaker 3: Totally right, And that's something that I decided early on
Speaker 3: that I would try to do, is make myself available
Speaker 3: to have those conversations. I've said several times, I've got
Speaker 3: fifteen minutes for anybody, you know, And it also makes
Speaker 3: sense from a certain perspective for me because I'm a
Speaker 3: senior analytics consultant.
Speaker 2: That's what I do every day.
Speaker 3: That's your world, that's my world, and my time is
Speaker 3: at a premium depending on what project is going on
Speaker 3: at the time. So it makes more sense for me
Speaker 3: to take five minutes with you by phone or ten
Speaker 3: or fifteen minutes and work through an issue and give
Speaker 3: you what information or direct you to what resources you
Speaker 3: may need and be done, whereas if I have to
Speaker 3: go back and forth on email because it's misconstrued, it's
Speaker 3: it's not clear, it's misunderstood. Maybe I'm not communicating it
Speaker 3: in a way that is a way that that you
Speaker 3: anticipated or found useful.
Speaker 1: Or a simple TYPEO can really throw a.
Speaker 2: Message off the error and punctuation can really.
Speaker 1: Punctuation is sexy.
Speaker 3: So that's that's something that I do. I may I've
Speaker 3: posted my phone number out there. I talk to more
Speaker 3: people by phone than anything else, and that's that's one
Speaker 3: way that I try to make sure that people have
Speaker 3: a better understanding of what we're doing and why okay, okay, good.
Speaker 1: Anything else you'd like to bring up that maybe do
Speaker 1: we have any openings on boards, commissions, stuff like that
Speaker 1: we do. You guys are always looking for somebody.
Speaker 3: We do, so they put these out there and of
Speaker 3: course We're really trying to stimulate more community involvement.
Speaker 1: You bet.
Speaker 3: We want everybody to at least throw your resume online
Speaker 3: and let's see what we can do. It may not
Speaker 3: always be a good fit, but we'll see where it
Speaker 3: could fit. One area that I'd like to promote because
Speaker 3: I happen to serve on that board is the Bartlesville
Speaker 3: Area History Museum Trust Authority. We also need someone on
Speaker 3: the Bartlesville Library Trust Authority. There's an opening on the
Speaker 3: Street and Traffic Committee, and two openings on the White
Speaker 3: Rose Cemetery Board.
Speaker 1: Just go to the website the City of Bartlesville dot org.
Speaker 2: Correct.
Speaker 3: You can go out there and fill out the application
Speaker 3: online and then you can be considered for those things.
Speaker 1: Sure, anything else you'd like to pass along.
Speaker 3: There was one consideration or concern that was brought up
Speaker 3: in our meeting about the flock cameras. You know, we
Speaker 3: passed a new ordinance related to flock, and as part
Speaker 3: of that ordinance, we said we did not want.
Speaker 2: Who share the data outside of Bartlesville.
Speaker 3: And so there was a story online back on May
Speaker 3: thirtieth from four h four Media that talked about lookups
Speaker 3: that were conducted by agencies across dozens of states, including
Speaker 3: police departments in Texas, Florida, Missouri, and Arizona. And in
Speaker 3: many of those cases, local officers were acting on informal
Speaker 3: requests from federal agents to try to discover information about immigrants,
Speaker 3: undocumented people, and so forth.
Speaker 2: So we had a moment to.
Speaker 3: Talk to Chief Ickleberry about that, and he assured us
Speaker 3: that it would have to be part of a criminal
Speaker 3: investigation that is documented, or they would not fulfill the requests.
Speaker 3: So I think that put to rest some of the
Speaker 3: concerns immediately in the community. But there's always that sharing agreement,
Speaker 3: and that's troublesome. The data is accessible, the data is hackable.
Speaker 3: I don't think that flock was ever a great idea because.
Speaker 2: Of some of those things.
Speaker 3: It is still twenty four by seven surveillance, and even
Speaker 3: though we're modifying it somewhat for our community, it's not
Speaker 3: one of those things that's ever going to be completely
Speaker 3: secure unless or until they institute a universal standard, and
Speaker 3: those just don't exist, so those mutual sharing.
Speaker 2: Agreements are still out there.
Speaker 3: I did see that Guthrie actually is getting rid of
Speaker 3: flock after having experimented with it, and that may be
Speaker 3: something that Bartlesfield wants to do at some point, I
Speaker 3: know that we are still considering the possibilities of doing that.
Speaker 3: So this is a concern. These kinds of things are
Speaker 3: continuing concern. There's also a concern where Flock in Georgia
Speaker 3: is now using drones. So they have a nine to
Speaker 3: one one drone. When a nine to one one call
Speaker 3: comes in, it doesn't wait to be dispatched. It immediately
Speaker 3: launches and begins to navigate to the address where the
Speaker 3: call originated and sends video back to the real time
Speaker 3: crime center. They're also using drones to fly over traffic
Speaker 3: as it goes through their downtown streets to look for
Speaker 3: people who are texting while driving, or looking for people
Speaker 3: who aren't wearing seat belts, and then they're pulling them
Speaker 3: over and giving them a citation for that stuff.
Speaker 1: So the drone pulls you over.
Speaker 2: The drone sends the video to the police unit.
Speaker 1: I got you, okay.
Speaker 3: So there's a guy standing on the side of the
Speaker 3: road flying the drone and there's three cars the video
Speaker 3: that I saw, there's like three cars sitting there, and
Speaker 3: as it gets a hit for someone not wearing a
Speaker 3: seat belt, someone who's texting on their phone while they're driving.
Speaker 3: The drone identifies, it sends the video to the police unit,
Speaker 3: and the police unit pulls them over and writes some
Speaker 3: a citation. So it's an ever expanding technology that's going
Speaker 3: to make the invasive nature of the surveillance even more so.
Speaker 1: Texting and driving is kind of stupid.
Speaker 2: It is very stupid.
Speaker 1: You look down, you've gone one hundred yards. I don't
Speaker 1: think people realize that, right you look down at your phone,
Speaker 1: You've gone hundred yards. Lot could happen in one hundred yards.
Speaker 2: It's very dangerous.
Speaker 3: I think our concern is, you know, with using these
Speaker 3: things to help to perhaps remediate some things that we
Speaker 3: feel like are inherently dangerous. It's that's a precedent that
Speaker 3: it could potentially be used to regulate things that aren't.
Speaker 1: So it's all about trying to find where the line is.
Speaker 2: It really is, and that finding the line for some
Speaker 2: is blurry.
Speaker 3: In Oklahoma, you know, I had a conversation with John Eccles,
Speaker 3: who's running for our next Attorney general's position, and I
Speaker 3: talked with him through some concerns around FLOCK. And he
Speaker 3: also believes that FLOCK is perhaps in violation of Oklahoma's
Speaker 3: Title forty seven. He also believes that it could present
Speaker 3: a Fourth Amendment encroachment. He was in Barblesville speaking to
Speaker 3: the Oklahoma Second Amendment Association when he made those comments.
Speaker 1: So it was back in February.
Speaker 2: It was just our very last meeting.
Speaker 1: Oh meeking, gotcha?
Speaker 3: No, I'm sorry. It was not our last meeting. Charity
Speaker 3: Lynch was here at our last meeting. It was the
Speaker 3: meeting before that.
Speaker 1: All right, good, Well, I want to thank you for
Speaker 1: coming in, yes, sir, after a busy night last night. Yeah,
Speaker 1: got some beauty rest. But Tim Shark, thank you very
Speaker 1: much for being a part of our program here on
Speaker 1: City Matters.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me Tom, always a pleasure.