The Public Safety Committee met on March 3, 2026, at 10:16 AM. The committee received updates on the East Lancaster corridor public safety initiative, EMS staffing schedule changes, and emergency communications improvements. The meeting began with approval of the previous meeting minutes.
It is 1016, and we're gonna go ahead and call the public safety committee meeting to order. First item of business is the approval of the February 3rd, 2026 minutes. Do we have a motion? All right, all in favor aye. Any opposed? All right, passes. All right, next is a written report from UNT Safer Care Texas. Uh, this is submitted by neighborhood services. This is a question uh about what they were doing. Do we have any um questions from the committee on that? Okay, moving right along. Next, we have a hope team and partner updates, and Deputy Chief Wheeler and Commander Stewart from the Fort Worth Police Department are here to give that update. Good morning. So, how do we get this? I can see it on my screen. Do you guys okay? There we go. All right. We're on. So good morning, everybody. Um, I think I know everyone here. My name's Buck Wheeler, serve as a deputy chief over to the community alliance command. Wanted to give you guys an update on what we're doing in the Lancaster corridor. Um, specifically specifically along uh Presidio Cyprus area. So as we go through this, I'll probably touch on a few things uh a couple times. Uh Commander Stewart will come up and give some stats and data for what we're doing PD-wise. But just an overall synopsis. Really, what we're trying to do out there is uh uh there's a lot of resources in that corridor. As a result of that, we have a large portion of our homeless population that stay in that area. Um, as a result of that unhoused population, we have things that stem from that illegal camping, narcotics, uh, that leads to some violent crime. Also, it's a very vulnerable population. They are often targets for people coming into the area, whether that be for narcotic cells or prostitution. So the highly congested area, um, it leads to a lot of those things. We we want to really focus on making that as safe as we can for those people that need the resources and the folks and resources or the people that work down there as well. So just geographically, you can see there's a high concentration, whether it be medical, MHMR, employment services, various shelters, and you can see that is uh that is the Lancaster corridor, very concentrated. That's what brings those folks in. Um, so a lot of resources down there, then those are also uh partners that we work with on an almost daily basis. So some of the violations that we are focusing on are things like illegal camping, obstructing the roadways, the sidewalks, littering, obviously, there's uh stored vehicles and parking issues, narcotic sales in use, the prostitution, and I mentioned it before, even though those initial offenses they may seem relatively minor, that sets the stage for the violent offenses that we see when we have these kind of situations build up. So the goals really really simple public safety, promote public safety in that corridor. We want to reduce the violent crime, enhance the safety of everyone working down there and living in that area, especially I mentioned it before, those folks that unhouse population, the folks that actually need the resources, and we want to reduce the fear and danger that for not just the folks that work there, but the people that legitimately need the help. If they don't feel safe going down there to use those resources, it's gonna be a much more uh I guess bigger challenge to break that cycle. So public safety, that is the goal. The strategies proactively address the criminal behavior and disturbances that we see, uh remove the illegal camps, disperse the groups that are obstructing the roadways and sidewalks. So pretty general strategies, resources. We have pulled a lot of folks and teams together on this. Obviously, our hope uh police team, central division, environmental services. When I say central division, you'll see it on there. We're just we're talking about patrol, our bike teams, our MPOs, uh, homeless strategies, some of the our local stakeholders in that area. The schedule, I'll just touch on a few things here. The Hope MPOs and patrol team.