Thank you.

We're lying.

Welcome to the one PM budget and special projects committee meeting.

Today is Wednesday, July twenty-ninth.

Item number one, I call this meeting to order item number two, discussion with the public safety commissioner or her designee regarding an update on the downtown curfew ordinance.

This is Counselor Juton's item.

These years have seen better days.

Counselor Gilbert.

I think the last time we were here was February, uh, maybe March.

We can address those again as well.

But these are our most current numbers through July 20th on a monthly basis for the number of downtown curfew violations citations that have been written.

So actually the summer months, so the June and the July, where we saw an uptick last year, uh, are actually lower than we saw during the school year.

So I think that that's a positive uh success and step in the right direction.

And then we wouldn't keep if you want it.

This one or keep going.

Um so this one is obviously just a demonstration between uh a citation versus physical arrest, and we can talk about the February being an anomaly as well.

That was a a party that kind of spilled out into to downtown, but like so we can address it, and is there we're not gonna take it?

Oh, you can a map breakdown of inside the IDL where we're seeing the most activity and the citations are written.

Um I don't think any of this is probably a surprise to anyone.

These are our primary uh late night hot spots, entertainments, bars, event centers, um places where we have seen the gathering, parking lots were um we've had some problems in the past, but uh the hotspot map and then the addresses as well, and then we have a demographic breakdown uh uh age of arrestee being 11, the youngest, um, or and then citations written as well, anywhere from 12 to 17 years old with the breakdown um of male, female, and then uh a racial breakdown still question about sure.

I I've got counselor Dutton first and then so I will if there's anything that Deputy Chief Wilmerhauser or Captain Seibert want to add before we go into questions, sure is there yeah.

I I think if you're looking at the point of is this a success or not?

Um again, I think taking out the anomaly, and uh I think when counselor Archie, when we spoke, you know, the goal was never mass amounts of enforcement, and so I think it being very low numbers, and I think it's averaging like three a month or so-ish uh when you take out that that party and the successes, the the anecdotal information we're receiving from bar owners from our officers, it is good.

We are able to keep large crowds of kids from uh gathering in areas where there's literally nothing for them to do except uh potentially become a victim of crime or uh be a uh potential violator of that.

So it all it's been a huge success for us to keep downtown safe, and also I really appreciate the fact that it was done last year because I don't know if you guys have kind of monitored the um events around the nation and a lot of other cities this spring and summer have had to quicken act uh similar ordinances to prevent some because they had huge team takeovers, uh they're now having to go back and do some of that stuff as well.

So anyways, just want to say thanks.

Okay, absolutely.

Thank you for that.

Uh Councillor Dutton.

Yeah, can we scroll back to yes, the addresses offered?

So I'm I'm looking.

Some of these are out west.

That one that had the most amount that one time was that from a uh BB that had been spilled out into that was that family party that people I think it grew larger than they were expecting, and then it poured out into some fights and everything, and that's captured most of those okay.

Are all captured in the 600 East Archer, the one North Greenwood, and I think the 100 North Elgin.

Um I think that that takes out pretty much all of those.

Okay, yeah, they're all generally where this is right here.

Okay, and then if we could scroll back to the breakdown of I'm sorry, and down the demographics.

Thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

On the demographics here.

Um I am concerned about the breakdown in the demographics.

Um I think that probably white population also is just as representative as these that have already been cited, though maybe not actually being captured.

Um so again, the 16, my understanding, Deputy Fulmerhauser, was those were all African American males that were written tickets or mostly males, but all African American.

So the off balance of the 16 written because of one party um is is does somewhat skew this.

So if you take out the 16 from here, it's 11 and 6, which is a little less disparate.

Right.

Um it's almost 50 percent really.

But I I'm concerned about that aspect.

That's correct, and outside of the 16 when we remove it, we have not done a deep dive into that.

These statistics obviously were are through the 20th of July.

It would still be displayed.

And so taking a deeper dive into that is something that we can do, looking at each individual one and kind of how those panned out.

So yeah, I'm happy to do that and then report back to you on that.

Yeah, I would be interested in that as well.

I'm also concerned about the amount of violence that occurs with the entertainment crowd itself, those that are utilizing the bars and the fights are falling uh coming out into the streets.

Um, I would like statistics and numbers for that as well, because it seems to me that a lot of these businesses are using TPD as personal security by number one over serving alcohol, and people are leaving the establishments intoxicated.

Um I actually had a friend that was walking home from um a club one evening, and he was uh attacked and had multiple staples on the back of his head because he got sucker punched and didn't know who so I think there's a lot more violence occurring in the realm of those people that are actually utilizing the entertainment district, and we have more than just downtown entertainment that doesn't have to do with the curve.

Yeah, and I don't think that's an actual trend, it's just we have ambulance chasers online.

Oh, okay.

I'm sorry, I'm deviating and I apologize.

I'll answer your question really quickly, and then we'll so I can say that TPD is not being used as a private security, or on duty TPD is not being used as a private security.

We are we do have a regularly staffed patrol that's downtown again, like last year under Deputy Chief Wilmerhauser.

We have been um have it's not every weekend strategic, but we have been deploying a task force type approach downtown by increasing the patrol.

Um but just about every bar has their own bouncers, own security guards, have folks at the door checking um for IDs, of course, to make sure you're 21 to get in.

Um, some of them are even doing weapons checks.

Oh, we're doing weapons checks at some point.

But I am happy if we want to address violence downtown to get that data and come back.

Yeah, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to define the we'll have to do that on another item.

Yeah, which is fine.

Um go ahead.

Yeah, and and I would just offer one additional thing.

Um I I got on in 2005, and I remember every Saturday night uh when I was assigned a RID.

It was okay, everyone, it's about 1:30, drive over to Brookside, and we would watch the fights and the other things and not watch.

We we would see that happen, we would then address it.

Yes, exactly.

Witness it, and so it I would say while while punching and assaults, and I'm sorry that happened to your friend.

Um when you have alcohol involved, yep.

People are gonna get into fights.

Yeah, no, I agree, I agree.

And then can I relate this back to the curve view though?

Um, how the curfew ordinance helps with this is it frees up officers for long crime suppression.

So not having to deal with and you have seen the videos.

There's hundreds, if not a thousand people down there on the weekend on Saturday night.

That's how the ordinance helps us.

It frees us up so we can focus on gut interdiction, violent crime suppression, these fights.

Um, a reference to the bars, we uh have met with them, we met with them in the spring, we work really well with them.

They do have their own security, they're bouncers, they're well trained, they have their own uh internal policies about how to handle things.

Will things slip by them occasionally?

Yes, but building an entertainment district, we have the same problems that come with an entertainment district, which is maybe being overserved, but a lot of times we find people go to the parking lots and drink, so that's one of the things that we patrol.

So the bargener may not realize I think they serve someone a couple drinks and they've already chugged something in their cars in the parking lot.

So we have that, we have DUIs, we have the fighting.

Those are common occurrences when you get people who are intoxicated, that large amount of people doing that.

So we try to mitigate that and have a rapid response.

But the curfew violation helps with that just by limiting the amount of people and certainly children down there.

Okay.

I don't have any further questions.

Thank you.

Okay, counselor Dicker, right?

Thank you.

Thank you for uh bringing this back.

Um I will just amplify my concerns about the disparate impacts, even when you take out the one kind of outlier.

Um I did want to see if we could also get a curfew update for everything going on outside the IDL.

I know that this is really targeted to IDL, but I'm just curious to know, especially with out of school time, are we seeing youth that are in violation of curfew outside the IDL and maybe what those demographics are as well, just so we can kind of get a look.

Um I also wanted to ask, and maybe it's you all aren't the right people to ask, but I'll just throw it out here.

So now we've had this in motion for almost a year, just like what nine months.

It happened when my son was born, so I just think about July.

Yeah, so what organizations do we have getting involved for diversion so that these kids aren't hanging out in spaces and places they don't need to be and offering alternatives.

I didn't know what is youth services involved at all, or brothers keeper or some of these other organizations.

I grew up in an international metropolitan city with lots of entertainment and adult activities and lots of places and spaces teenagers shouldn't be, but there were also organizations that would organize things like midnight basketball or uh you know teen dance that's um sanctioned and uh you know monitored or um like karaoke nights and things like that, so that these are really young kids, a lot of them like 11, 12, 13, that's young, super young to be out, um mixing to your point with people who are of age and partying, and thank you for mentioning that part of why we put this in place is so that they could clear those folks out by nine o'clock, ten o'clock, whatever, you know, with mornings and things before the rest of these folks are spilling out on the streets because once you get you know kids in the mix to your point, counselor, you know, you could just be an innocent bystander that gets caught up in a thing very quickly.

So that was the main point.

I think that we're seeing that that is um being accomplished, but what I guess now that we're a year into it, like what's the next step to give these kids an alternative place to be so that they don't have to you know do this um as regularly and you know teens want to socialize, they want to be together, and there's not very many places as a mom of a 14 and a 16-year-old.

There are not many places in the city where kids can go and be safe, and it doesn't cost money, right?

Um we even know that for young ones, right?

Trying to go to the park pool is three dollars an entry, and then you take these 11.

I mean, I have a concern that we're seeing 11 and 12 and 13 in a mix of older kids, but just in general, that's my question.

I don't know if youth services comes out with you all in this capacity, or once they're transferred to the juvenile justice um system, like how these young people get on a different path.

So I know what Captain Cyber cover a few things, but I know we've worked with YSD, I know we've worked with MBK.

Um I've had conversations with uh the I think it's current president of under Black Men of Tulsa trying to get as many uh opportunities as many folks plugged in, so that one, there's other things going on other places, but two, also getting them down into the entertainment district late.

It's not always been uh successful, but more often than not, uh, they want to answer the call to to show up and try to divert some or some away.

The other thing too I want to offer, at least in in again, I want to say the 11 and 12 year olds were again part of the party.

Um but at least in one of these cases, we're talking we are talking about guns in bolt.

So while the curfew is the is the predicate offense, it prevented potential violent crime because we were able to get that gun uh away from away from that group.

So to me, I think it's it's a or are you gonna have some kids down there who just end up curfew violating, and and again we can look more into that and because they're looking for something to do, but I think we also have to take into account the these are these are some folks who are intentionally bringing a gun into downtown to do something else, and that to me is is a way different story.

Well, and to your point, uh there's young kids right now with guns outside of the ID doing really terrible things, so that and it's not I don't think for police to solve this problem.

They're bringing to us like this is what we're seeing.

I think we're going to have to activate some sort of wraparound, uplift.

Um, and I know that there's that new initiative, right?

And that in North Hulsa specifically uh to interrupt violence and things, community violence interrupters.

So I know there's like things going on, and that's one other thing.

I think it would also be helpful just um I mean there's many young kids in my district for times, yeah.

And that's pretty far away from downtown and far away from North Tulsa.

So that's kind of now that we have a year's worth of data that's very concentrated here.

I do think I would like to see maybe everything outside the IDL for the last year as it pertains to youth, if you guys can just pull that report that we can kind of layer on.

Um but then my next question as the policymakers and those that are being asked to invest in initiatives, like what is the next step to layer on to some of these things?

Um and the the takeover thing, you know, a lot of those are centered on malls and shopping districts, gathering right, and parks and things.

But I mean, just across the country, it's very mall centric, so I'm certainly always paying attention and flagging things as I as it comes to my attention.

But I would like for us to get out of reaction mode and into proactive mode.

And we know that young people want to be together, they don't have a lot of money, and and you know, so what can we do?

And how can we activate to keep them safe?

Teach them conflict resolution that doesn't involve firearms, you know, and also hold adults accountable that are allowing young people to access these firearms.

That's it, you know, it all layers in.

So thank you for bringing us the report.

I know last year when you brought it to us, we had pretty robust discussion on how far and wide we needed to cast the net.

In your um assessment, is the concentrated like weekend time frame working, or do we need to consider opening that up?

I think it's I think we've limited an out of Friday Saturdays, but first time Friday and Saturday would be good.

I just we have done some things well as I think something we could do is review special event permits, and um that's something that could be in the play.

One example of how it was done really well this year is with Legacy Fest.

Um there was a lot of um planning about youth, like they had an area just for youth, and then they had peacekeepers out there.

Um so if they left the event, they weren't just wandering downtown.

If they encountered us and we stopped them, then we were juvenile.

Um, a person would come out and they would say, I can walk them to the car, I can get them home, and it was nice to have to be around hand off, yeah, hand that off, and then we're freed up to do, like I said, bio crime suppression.

So that worked really well.

And I'd like to see more of that happen.

So on the event permitting side, are you suggesting that we add a question about like are there gonna be youth participants and what's your plan for them?

Something like that.

We have we have several things uh since the summer, and I think you can see last summer compared to this summer when it comes to any kind of gun violence downtown, it hasn't happened.

It's not just by chance.

We have a lot of planning that we're involved, pre-planning to get that done.

So I think we have a lot of recommendations that we could give up through the commissioner when it comes to reviewing permits, um, some suggestions we have.

So, do we need to add Thursday?

You think on this ordinance?

We started with the Thursday to Sunday.

If we did, we changed.

We changed it right before the renewal in October.

Yeah.

So it just seems like it was yesterday, though.

I know.

Well, let us know if you all look analyze stuff and there's a reason to but to your to what you were saying to your point, counselor doctor right.

I think we also have an office of family youth and children that can help us with this as well.

Yeah, for diversion.

Some different activities.

Yeah, so counselor doctor right.

What I know you're talking about proactive approaches.

Yeah.

These citations are not preset fines.

Yeah.

And so they do require.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Let me clarify.

I'm not talking about proactive policing.

No, no, I don't know if you're talking about proactive approaches to diversion.

And so these kids aren't out here offending at the hours that they're offending.

Yes.

And I'm saying on the back half the reactiveness is there is I don't have what you know what these kids are getting in terms of a sentence for lack of better terms.

So they go to court as course.

Like do their families have to go to their dissertation written, yes.

Yes, they're not a preset fine, so they do have to appear.

So there is some sort of continued and they're private hearings.

Yes.

Of course.

So yeah, they go they go to court municipal.

It's confidential.

And well, um, even if even if there is a companion charge, because I don't think county has a juvenile curview charge, they will still have a charge at municipal and then potentially one in the county system.

If there is a lot of things, so maybe we can ask the court kind of when you're seeing these kids come through, what's the next step for them and their families?

And I think we can get that for you.

I'm not sure what their sentencing pattern is.

I would just be curious patterns.

Yeah, I would be curious to know out of the 33, were they all um unduplicated, or were there any duplicates?

And you don't have to answer today, but you know, that's some cool.

So duplicated means this is the same person we've seen more than once.

And duplicated as one time only.

Yeah, because that tells a different story, obviously.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yep.

All right, counselor Bellis.

Um just as one quick thing relate to the proactive piece that maybe of interest everyone.

Um, because I know there's been those teen takeover issues at the gathering place, and I've been talking with them a bunch on that, and they actually did their own full audit of youth serving organizations, how to coordinate it across them, when they're available, and they identified a pretty big gap that most that are serving, especially right, there's not as many serving teens and adolescents, they're less cute, you know, um than smaller kids.

I get it.

Um, but also that the hours they operate, almost none operate when these issues are happening, right?

And for your point about um, but I know Vanessa and I talked about this before as well.

Um, when I grew up in Philly, the Y had like dance parties, and that's been done in the city before, but those creates you know, there's safety challenges there too.

But I I did want to name that it was like this very identified gap for this.

I appreciate the gathering place doing this very thorough audit of organizations of their own accord because they just were trying to help and assessing that basically almost no one operates nights and weekends who does like adolescent stuff, and so that's a real challenge.

So I think there's a an opportunity I'm glad Councillor Gilbert brought up that's could be something that if the like Office of Children Youth and Families could like really address could be really powerful, especially like directing you know those adolescents towards like having safe fun, career opportunities, all the good stuff.

Um, and then going back to the downtown piece, I know you mentioned that one or two that maybe had a credit parking lots.

I had definitely about a year ago, and then I started getting into this hard zoning regulatory place about where you could overlay certain policies.

I was looking at parking lot safety policies for private lots.

I just wanted to check back with you all.

I know that's not just for youth, though obviously some of these are related to that, about if there were certain policies or things that you do think would be helpful.

I've been looking at whether it was like required lighting or cameras and parking lots, or I just wanted to check both for these youth incidences and in general if there's certain things that you think would be beneficial for downtown safety like that.

I think there's definitely some policy.

I know we talked about lighting, we talked about security guards, we talked about you know loitering, yeah, and those kind of things, and any of those approaches again just help the officers that are there.

It's it's it's less distractions, you know, noise that they have to deal with where they can focus on the real problems or the bigger problems or the more threatening problems.

That's right.

Yeah, I know I know we talked about it.

I think it's kind of just been treading water, we haven't done a whole lot on it.

I think there's definitely some definitely advantageous uh to have an app.

Okay, yeah, I'll definitely revisit it.

I think I was kind of like, okay, we'll let the youth curfew piece play out.

I mean, we were forming the new like more downtown focused unit.

Um, and then I think I what's something I have to revisit.

I'm saying this to my council colleagues was if we were looking at parking lot regulations just in downtown in other like being business districts, there's just things like that to think through for all of us.

Um but yeah, and if there's any other things you think would be helpful as Counselor Decorate mentioned as well from that policy perspective, definitely happy to explore it.

One of the things that's helpful for us for parking lots, and we spent a lot of time in the spring contacting the owners, and sometimes the managers of parking lots they they turn over.

So we have to get updated trespass letters so we can act with that if they don't have an attendant, um, and we can make those announcements.

lot regulations just in downtown in other like being business districts there's just things like that to think through for all of us um but yeah and if there's any other things you think would be helpful as counselor decorate mentioned as well from that policy perspective definitely happy to explore it one of the things that's helpful for us for parking lots and we spent a lot of time in the spring contacting owners and sometimes the managers of parking lots they they turn over so we have to get updated trespass letters so we can act with that and if they don't have an attendant um and we can make those announcements so we did a lot of that uh before the summer months to get uh to identify all those parking lots that didn't have a letter on file we went uh and proactively got those and so that's helped this summer quite a bit that's great that's good job thank you for doing that following since you just mentioned that I'm curious um this will probably be a question for legal sorry Jack um but are we able to I don't know if it's through a licensing thing or something for parking lot ownership to be like require a a trespassing letter on file or anything like that.

I guess that's like their own legal decision to do that.

I'm just trying to think through with turnover and then they don't have a letter and then you need a new one if there's a way to necessitate and engaging.

I think we can facilitate it but I I'm not sure we can require and we did look at some other cities we're doing several months ago and we had looked at Minneapolis's yeah it was a licensing scheme we can revisit some of that and then all also to that as well as Counselor Director Wright's comment about going on throughout the city so shift change for TPD occurs um at the at the very end of August and so there'll be a an all operations bureau meeting between captains and above and and captain cyber um will be able to explain to her colleagues what has really helped and worked in downtown so that they can replicate that in different areas where they may be having struggles and issues with similar kind of things situations thank you for doing that it's good that you guys I mean in your own way are being proactive on this so thank you for doing that all right uh counselor archie and then counselor Bangle okay I think uh most of my questions have been answered but thank you all for coming of course so you all are suggesting that we have a the Thursday was I hear that clearly or well we'll look into it as the as she suggested and see if there's a need that those are typically more boroughs Thursday calling Saturday I think Saturday's the biggest yeah yeah 100% I think if I remember though when we launched in July last year we did have Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday and then as we moved into the fall and school was back and session that's when they said we could drop back.

Yeah we didn't have Sunday did have Thursday Friday Saturday Saturday right we dropped Thursday because we're and then we dropped the Thursday after school started right so this that data goes until the 20th like yesterday I would think about my daughter went to uh Benson Boom and they said it was sold out so lots of people downtown were there challenges downtown with lots of young people yesterday or like when we run these these numbers again did you all have a response yesterday where you have to manage large amounts of teams so I don't know about yesterday specifically but one of the things that is important about this is there um in our just curfew ordinance citywide there are exceptions to the curfew and one of the things we discussed when we were talking about implementing this downtown specifically was folks that want to go to the B OK or want to go to the coffee shop and as long as you're going to or coming from you know a legitimate function movement.

Right.

It's the loitering the hanging out the you know tagging along to the group of 21 year olds that are inside the bar that we're really trying to prevent and and a couple of those like ones at fifth in Denver ones at eighth in Denver I I can imagine might have they decide to linger way past uh but what it also helps us do is for events at BOK or events in the orcs district or or anywhere else you're right kids are now out and they're like okay what do I do no don't forget you have the ordinance please go oh yeah yeah you're right and again most kids are are trying to violate the law they just need some reminders move along yeah yeah very good yeah but did you see any issues last night after that concert I mean even though it's not last night was a Tuesday night so it's not part of the curfew great good okay counselor Bingle yeah from a public safety perspective as a former law enforcement officer I'm encouraged by these numbers to be honest with you.

I don't know if there's comparative data about the 33 that were cited versus the number of engagements right so that's a comparative that I think may give some context to that to me and then eight month period 33 is not a high number but because that tells me when we originally started considering this ordinance the number hundreds was used right so comparatively 33 does not match hundreds that were coming down here.

So comparatively, 33 does not match hundreds that were coming down here.

These are 33 individuals that are now alive that may have you know a minor offense that they have to go to court for, but they weren't killed, they weren't involved in something serious that could have taken their lives, which could have been more catastrophic for them and their families.

I do agree with counselor Dr.

Wright that we have some sort of comparative outside the LDF IDL that were actually enforcing this and not just focus specifically on this one corridor, so it gives some context that we're even handedly um applying application of law.

Uh to counselor Bullis' point, this is something we've talked about previously, and I hate saying this, um, but Bell's was one of those things, one of those outlets that kids had previously that now doesn't exist.

I know it, and I've said this a hundred times, but I don't know uh what that replacement looks like, right?

Um, but there has to be something of that level.

Um, and as counselor director Wright was talking about, you know, these other you know avenues like some sort of sanctioned activities, those are a little harder to get potential you know, churches will do those things, and some civic organizations will do these things, but I feel like there's something that has to match that level because uh I remember you know going out there uh working at the county and kid it would just be full of kids.

I mean, just full.

Um, and it was a place for them to socialize and do these types of things or games, they had things to do and keep themselves engaged, and I feel like again, it's not an advertisement for bells specifically, but it is that type of environment.

And I did ask a question is there anybody that does that type of development anymore?

Um, and I started looking online to do a little research, and it's a challenge.

Um, you would have to get somebody to come in here and do a site, go through the whole entire process, and it's a challenge.

So I hope at some point, as you know, when we start going through capital improvement packages, we'll start trying to figure out how we create something to that scale to where our kids can go and they can be safe and you know be screened as they come in to make sure they don't have guns or things of that nature.

But I from my perspective, that's an encouraging number, especially when we've had hundreds used when we were considering this ordinance.

Like I said, I would want to see a comparative of engagement versus site.

So comparative engagement would be difficult because we don't document that exactly most of it is an educational piece, it's just give some context to how many how many youth am I engaging?

This is how many I'm citing because you can get into the weeds on the anecdotal aspects of each one of those individual citations, right?

So I'm assuming there's some encouragement as Chief Wilmers Howler implicated is that you're encouraging them to hey, you're in violation of curfew, move along before it gets to that point of citing.

So or even having an identification, right?

We could say it to a 19-year-old, exactly but we're not checking for ID to determine whether or not they're of age, we're just giving them notification and they're moving on.

So but we can definitely bring a comparative analysis to outside the IDL and we come.

So that way it doesn't feel targeted.

Yeah, definitely.

Okay, yep.

All right, I have counselor Dutton and then um Archie again.

So thank you to my colleagues, and thank you, Chief Loomerhouser and Steburn and I know that when we initially uh brought this forward, that we had requested monthly updates, I believe.

And so quarterly, my bad.

Well, I'm just not on the general.

We have a quarterly report lady.

I apologize.

I appreciate that, I know that's right.

So I appreciate that.

Um is that sufficient?

It's sufficient for us if as long as that is satisfying what you guys are trying to, you know, monitor in this, but um, yeah, I think it's great for us to have the opportunity to do it and talk about its success in anything that we may suggestions we may have to alter it or expand it.

Okay, yeah, okay.

And I appreciate that.

And if there's anything that you need from us to amplify uh programming and whatnot, even with the Department of Children, Youth and Families.

I really I think that we need to hear it so that Wilma would have the news to help you out as well.

Thank you.

Okay, Councillor Archie.

You all said earlier that gun violence in the IDL was down year over year or in the whole city year over year.

What y'all saying?

How about that?

I think the gun violence this summer is down from the gun violence that we saw inside the IDL last summer.

Okay.

So you have do you have like the if you can send the data on, I'd love to share that in some town hall or something.

Just talk about Eurobeer Violence, that'd be a good little number to have.

Sure.

Thanks.

And you want it just inside the ideal, right?

Well, I'd love it in West Tulsa, you know, my in my area.

But uh our conversation, I don't want to make Jack angry.

Our conversation is about downtown we can talk offline as to what you need.

We can always get you information and statistics or data that you need that aren't on the agenda council.

Stay on the agenda item.

We'll talk on records or any other questions on item number two.

No, okay.

Thank you.

Moving on.

Thank you guys.

Thank you for your um for all the work that you're doing.

Appreciate it.

Click it now.

All right, item number three discussion with the public safety commission commissioner or her designee regarding protocols for siren deployment during emergency situations.

Yeah, so I put this on because we just went through.

I I know that we have had a lot of rain lately.

Um, but on the 4th of July, we had a tremendous amount of rain to the point where there was lots of street flooding.

Um, and there was a lot the meteorologists were putting the warnings out that it was coming, but um we weren't getting any notification uh from our new emergency management um division.

So um we also saw lots of cars being stalled in the streets.

Um for me in my district, I even had unfortunately a gentleman that was stranded in a wheelchair and a firefighter had to push him home because his motorized wheelchair stopped.

So um, because he was going through high water.

So I just want to know the protocols of what were when do we all heard um previously when the sirens go off or um for tornadoes, but um we we've now we're seeing flood, we did see flooding and um didn't hear anything.

I know the meteorologists were also asking and concerned about no sirens, so that's why I just wanted to um get a better understanding of when those sirens are deployed.

Sure, and I appreciate the opportunity to talk about it.

Um this button right here.

So uh just real quickly, our objective today is we're gonna talk about um an overview of the flood sirens, like you said, Councillor Gilbert, discuss their strategic use and how we're keeping Tulsa safe, right?

So we'll do an overview.

We have a great history in here um of kind of how we've worked through flooding in Tulsa and then how we best inform the public.

So we have uh our emergency sirens sound for three different um life safety threat scenarios.

The one that most Oklahomans are familiar with are that three-minute steady tone is uh is an impending tornado, and we've talked at this table and we've had Steve Pills from the National Weather Service at this table.

But that is um when atmospheric conditions uh show that there's a tornado that's imminent or that there's a tornado on the ground and a tornado warning, we call it a polygon, has been dropped on a certain area, uh one of the quadrants, four quadrants within the city of Tulsa, those sirens will sound.

The second one is a three-minute wavering tone, which is an impending nuclear attack, which uh we hope we never hear, and then the third is the high here one time.

That was yeah, that was weird of ender issue that we're still trying to figure out with them.

Uh the three-minute high low tone is the impending flooding siren.

Um our comms team, the City of Tulsa communications team did put out a video a couple weeks ago.

It's another opportunity to talk about um when the flood sirens go off, and we have on our website what all of those these three sounds when they go off and actually what they sound like.

So city of Tulsa.org has more information if you want to actually hear those sounds or or read some more.

So I thought you were going to be able to do that.

I'm not, I did not embed them in here so that we can hear all of them.

No, I was talking about you make it sirens.

No.

Well, I wasn't saying that a question.

So it also has 108 sirens throughout the city.

This is in our city limit.

So those are strategically placed to be outdoor warning systems, so that if you're outside, then you're you hear them and you you know that there's impending threat that's coming.

Um the warning system is designated to instantly alert people who are outdoors.

I address that.

That's an outdoor warning system.

Um and then that the high low tone again we talk about is for the flood sirens, it lasts for three minutes.

There is a one-minute pause, it will sound again for three minutes, so it's a seven-minute interval, and then there's a reassessment.

This is with all sirens or all alerts.

There is a reassessment if it's a need to sound again.

So if you'll you'll hear it, you'll hear a pause, and you'll hear it again if there's still a continuing threat.

So uh the flooding sirens are designed for when there is life safety risk, and there's a rapidly developing threat to our community.

Um in 2019, I think most of us were here, most of us heard those sirens.

That was a policy decision to sign to sound those sirens.

There were evacuations taking place in West Tulsa, and there were there was a potential for the levee to breach, and so the decision was to sound those.

Um, though we did not get to catastrophic life safety threat during that flood, that was the decision behind the 2019 um sounding of those sirens.

Um I will talk about is precaution with flood sirens here in Oklahoma.

Most uh high water street flooding, um, because it's raining harder than our infrastructure can drain it, is also embedded with thunderstorms.

So a flood siren tells you to seek higher ground, and a tornado siren tells you to go to a low confined space, or the you know, somewhere with no windows, seek the lowest shelter you can.

So they are they are opposite directions to individual safety.

Does that if that makes sense to everybody?

And so um when a I know July 4th was one of these incidents where we storm blew through, we had the fireworks come faster.

That storm had a significant wind gust on the front end and significant water that fell.

The wind gusts are the primary threat to life safety, and so had we sounded flood sirens to alert people that there's potential street flooding in these prone, flood-prone areas.

Most people that are gonna hear that are going to think that is a tornado siren.

In Oklahoma, we are accustomed to those being tornado sirens, and at that point we're locked in a box for flood sirens, and if those wind gusts had gotten to a point or the atmosphere had changed, that torn that it the tornadic development with the storm, it would have been caused a lot of confusion of there's a clarifying question to that.

Sure.

Just as a quick clarifier, sorry, because I totally hear you, and I know it can cause public confusion.

And I know with the Father's Day Storm, we didn't know, like you know, that was like very sudden, but for this Fourth of July event, sirens then on the box.

Yeah, that's right.

There were you're right.

What I'm trying to figure out too with the wind gusts is because there was we had all these people out, including on the pedestrian bridge for that fourth of July event, and they had to be rapidly evacuated.

You know, people are running with their babies, like as that because that storm I know descended quickly, and I know that there was a forecast.

How does that work?

Or are you saying that there's not because that was just strong wind at that time leading up to flooding, there was no good way to like or I just wasn't sure how we are monitoring to go this event should be shut down.

Yeah, what's what are our options for warning people in that situation or like deciding about permitted events paired with because I know this is the I understand this is the sirens, but there were just a few layers of like warnings that I don't understand.

If are we do we not have a mechanism to warn people in that situation?

It's only once there's actual like flash flooding, or or like if the wind's not meeting a tornado level, then we don't have anything if even if it's like a you know a hundred plus mile per hour wind gust or well, a hundred mile an hour plus wind gust is a trip for the sirens to go off.

Okay.

So there are wind gust thresholds.

Okay.

So on the 4th of July, we it was a it was probably three o'clock, 3 30 in the afternoon.

We're watching this build out to the west and up to the north.

The National Weather Service is the one who does all the weather predictions, puts together the weather maps, the forecast.

That is not a role of emergency management.

Role of emergency management is to take those threats and then push them out.

So on the 4th of July, we didn't have wind gusts, we had no tornadoes, and but it didn't there were tornado warnings associated with the entire storm, not in the city of Tulsa.

So we knew that it did have the surrounding areas, though.

Yeah, I don't remember exactly where that storm had tornado warnings, right?

But it there was a significant wind gust.

There was you know cooler air.

I I know that there was a lot of discussion about Freedom Fest.

You talk about information, right?

That is an event put on by river parks.

There was communication between special events, our emergency management and river parks.

And so the decision was made to shoot the fireworks off at 7 30 rather than 9 30, and that message was communicated out through river parks.

I believe the city of Tulsa also put out communications that there was going to be changes on it, right?

And so that was a decision that was made by River Parks who was hosting that event, and they did the primary communication to folks.

Okay.

But then that still led to like, you know, I'm just thinking through you still ended up with people caught, like whether it was like caught in flooding or just like literally caught like just like the you know, all those people had to run off the pedestrian bridge.

Is it so it's like potentially that might be an upstream National Weather Service forecasting issue?

Or I'm just trying to understand at what point there would have been sirens or what kind of advanced notice people would have had to actually evacuate because they were evacuating as it was happening, basically.

Well, we basically I mean that's what I don't understand.

We had meteorologists reporting flash flooding, and so if there's flash flooding, do we not sound the flood sirens?

No, and to let people warn people that there could be flash flooding and turn around, don't drown.

No, not for street flooding because of h a short heavy rainfall.

We do not it is for catastrophic levee breach, dam breach.

There is a wall of water coming.

If I can work through some of these slides, I think it might be a little bit clear as to kind of what that threshold is.

We we talk about the thresholds with tornadoes, it's very easy to say it's 70 mile an hour wind, it's going to trip.

There's a polygon, it's going to trip.

Street flooding is not a time that we alert sirens.

Okay.

I mean, the the people that I were listening to, they were saying this.

I mean, get through it and then we'll finish.

Thank you.

So, yeah, sure.

So, this is on our website.

Um, and this does change and it is updated uh based on like um in cell development and whatnot, but these are um common flood-prone places.

Um I was actually driving home from the EOC one night in March, I think it was, and uh I was at Harvard in the Broken Arrow Expressway.

Harvard goes under the broken arrow there, it's prone for flooding.

We had a lot of heavy flooding.

Um it just backs up because the stormwater, even though we have one of the best stormwater systems in the nation, sometimes just can't hold all the water.

As soon as the rain starts to dissipate, that water drains off.

So this is a map that we keep that is updated uh based on uh what our you know, where where those flow flood print plant prone areas are so a little history in Tulsa for those of you that were here in 1984, we had this significant flood.

Um, and I really appreciate Monica who helped with this uh PowerPoint slide.

She went and pulled these historicals off of here.

Um, but this was these were just pictures that depicted what that flooding was, and this was before we did a lot of infrastructure work with the levee and the dam.

Um, and so the the rainfall did not it it accumulated and it built up more than it does today because of the investments that we've made.

So 1984 Memorial Day flood, you can see there how much rain actually fell that we actually have fatalities, there were buildings that were damaged because water got inside of them, how many vehicles were damaged because of water, uh road and bridge damage, and about 180 million dollar estimate.

1986, almost the same thing, two years later.

You can see that low water dam and look at the giant log or piece of tree that's up there.

So and an aerial footage of where the water actually like seeped, you know, into the residential neighborhoods and uh the effects that it had.

That's a truck.

No, it was a truck that's not a log.

Oh, it is a truck.

Yeah, significantly more rain.

Um 10 to 20 inches, and then again, the damage there is almost twice as much, 350 million dollars in 1986 dollars.

So and that was you see 300,000 people evacuated from 25 towns that had significant downstream effects and affected you know towns along the Arkansas River.

2019.

This is what our our river looked like then.

Um for those of you that remember or being in the EOC, the waters were very high, and it got very close to some of Riverside.

Uh I think that's Tom's picture.

Okay.

I'll leave it up for a minute.

Copyright.

But we have the volleyball courts at 71st and uh Riverside there, just south of 71st and Riverside that that did take on water, but none of our roadways took on water, no houses took on water.

Uh we did have some water in the Cherokee Casino, I mean uh the Osage Casino, uh, but because of the investments in uh you know environmental design and the core in place in the middle.

Oh, gathering place.

Oh, yeah.

Okay, I just saw volleyball courts.

Yeah, no, but the trail was washed out around the casino, which is right by those courts.

Yeah, yeah, that's where it gets real close to the river.

Right.

And so here's the you know, statistics on that.

We had six to sixteen inches of rain over about a two-week period.

Um we did have some road and bread uh bridge damage and a few structures damaged, but again, you know, let significantly less rain, but uh investments in that.

So it large-scale flooding.

We talk about flood sirens, most cities don't use a dedicated flood siren during major flood events.

I'm gonna tell you that all three of these pictures are Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans.

When we talk about catastrophic um life safety issues, significant property issues.

Our 1984 or 1986 floods would have probably qualified for that.

Um, and again, this was New Orleans taking on water at a very rapid pace.

Um, and this is a situation where we would use our sirens again.

Our sirens are one form of notification, they should not be our only source of notification.

Everybody's got a cell phone, their phones will go off, you can get weather alerts, you can watch maps, but there's wireless emergency alerts, we've got weather radios, um, and again, you know, emergency notification systems.

So the sirens are one tool, they are not the only tool, and they're not the things that we should completely depend on for notification.

Can I ask a quick question?

Yeah.

With that flash flash flooding, did we do any wireless emergency alerts out to the public?

I think there was the flash flood war uh warning that was issued by the North uh National Weather Service, which would have been pushed out.

We don't push these out, these are pushed out to National Weather Service through uh other I mean other uh sources.

Okay.

Said it.

We have more you have more pictures.

No, that's all I got.

And I will introduce um I'm not gonna ask him to come to the table, but um we do have our new emergency manager for the city here.

Adam Woodard is sitting on the back row.

Oh, we'll I'll invite him to the table.

Of course you will.

Come on.

Adam actually starts as emergency manager on August 23rd.

He is still currently uh working for the Tulsa Police Department, so um, he will make that transition and come over as our emergency manager three months.

I was glad you have a gun.

But uh answer your question.

He is he is all right.

Um well, good to see you again, sir.

Yes, counselor.

Um counselor got to write.

Do you have a oh you already asked my questions?

Oh, I did.

Okay.

We're good.

Okay, all right.

Anyone else have any questions, concerns?

Yes, Counselor Bangle.

Um what type of okay?

So we have tornado sirens.

We have rain gauges.

We have pressure transducers, right?

Which monitor the flow of our storm water.

Um are you you have access to all that, right?

To understand, you know, the flow of water, and because I I'll tell you I have a stormwater creek behind me, and that petrifies me, the amount of water that is flowing, and I mean it is quick, it is high, and it is fast.

Um that's going right behind your house.

Um I can't imagine, you know, if you're in the street or when something pops up on you, obviously the pictures don't do justice, the experience.

Um are we using these tools to monitor that, or or those feed into the overall national weather system?

Is that is that our intent, or how we we make the investment of monitoring the weather, but how are we leveraging those tools in this in this capacity?

I do you have a better answer for that because I know that the last bout of rain that we come through, you know, we have a series of rainy days.

Um that is something we do monitor.

We have monitoring systems in like Bird Creek, okay, Polcat Creek, things like that.

Those do get watched pretty closely.

So we have very good predictive analysis that hey, we think this may breach its banks at this level, it's currently at this level, it's updated pretty continuously.

Um that is something we watched.

But again, those are things that they take time.

Right.

It's not a matter of you know, 60 seconds when that happens.

We know we're watching it the rate it raises and things like that, moderate, especially in some of your outlying areas, that's when they start barricading saying hey, obviously don't drive into this water that you see.

Right, and I think the challenge for me is when our watersheds get overburned, and we don't know that's occurring, right?

So that's always a thing for me when you see all this rain runoff, and there's this like I said, it's a little different when you're watching it, you have no water to all of a sudden it's like five feet of water rushing behind your house and all the objects that are in there.

How do we know are we monitoring the watersheds and you know uh whether they're becoming overburdened?

Because I think to the point that you're making about flash flooding, right?

How would we know as a pop as a citizens that we're getting ready to get close to that point to where our watersheds are overburned?

Yeah, so again, that's constant monitoring.

When we get a lot of rain over periods of days, there's constant monitoring, right?

To see the crests.

It hasn't rained, it's been extremely hot for the last couple of weeks.

If we were to get a significant rain rainfall storm today, streets could still flood.

Right.

Because the water is not, it doesn't have any worry, it's draining into our stormwater and it's just not draining fast enough.

So, yes, these bird creek, um, you know, a lot of these yeah, these ditches, you see it coming down from um, you know, the Verticus River, we watch those, we watch the Arkansas River and monitor those, but it's again it's the very quick rainfall street flooding.

There is no gauge to that.

It's there's more rain that can drain off when the rain dissipates.

Yeah, the flooding recedes.

So with that, are you I know that communications puts stuff out after July 4th, but are we doing any other educational communication to the public about turnaround, don't drown?

I think there's constantly during these flash floods, like at the time of the incident.

No, I mean just ongoing so that they know when we do have these downpours, these torrential downpours, that they know what to do.

I mean, it's I it's yes, it it's simple education, but just continuing having that communication with the public to again let them know and let them know where the pocket areas are that that might have these flooding issues, like 43rd and Sheridan.

Well, I know communications on a regular cadence pushes it out based on what the weather cycles gonna be every spring.

We put out you know, spring weather warnings, here's what to expect, here's you know, here's the thing.

But we don't we just don't get those rains in the springtime.

I mean, we had a tornado in August a few years ago, so had tornadoes in October.

But yes, I mean that there are regular cadence of information being pushed out and the turnaround don't drown being re-emphasized.

Um yes, there isn't an education piece that goes with it as well, but we're not doing it with every single storm that no, but I mean, like every other month we should push out simple communication because you never know what the weather's gonna be like in Oklahoma.

So that's gonna be a question for the communications team.

I mean, there's conversation obviously between us, but the communications team, yes, they push out things on a regular basis.

Like I said, we've updated the sirens, we put something out on the website a couple weeks ago on the sirens, all the sirens are on there.

There's there's always reminders.

Maybe we can do something with that communications.

Well, wait, can I quite say communications?

Do you mean city of just city?

Okay, so you guys don't have a PIO and emergency management.

No, no.

Oh, okay.

No, okay.

I have one more question.

Yeah.

Yes, yes, information center.

Yes, when we stand up.

You're not done yet.

Yeah, I have one more question.

Then finish.

So that we can get on with others.

Well, thank you.

You're welcome.

How old are our tornado sirens?

Do you know?

How old are they?

They vary.

Okay, they vary in age.

Um, our oldest tornado sirens are the rotating nature, and so we're gentle with those when we do our testing and things like that.

We have parameters on when we do and when we don't test for that reason, temperature being a factor.

Um we constantly monitor the maintenance um we have technicians that look at and we get status reports multiple times a day right now from the um because we're saying the ones I worked on in the 90s are still.

It's possible, it's possible.

Um they do replace them as the end of life occurs.

Oh, there's I can tell you right now.

There's a hundred speakers in that thing.

Did you put it in?

I archive their status test continuously throughout.

I mean, it's multiple times a day.

I'm getting them and archiving them and looking at them, and they they do an assessment on what needs to happen and which ones and which ones need to be replacement.

So, do we have a plan for end of life replacement?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, they're not gonna remove a siren from an area because it has to do with coverage.

Um, they want to make sure they those are there for strategic reasons.

So, but I'm talking about replacement of equipment.

Right.

There is a planned end of life for that.

Yeah, we're not gonna just wait till we go.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

I think uh counselor Q got the newest siren in West Tulsa.

So that was good for us.

Um counselor, are you done?

I am now.

I'm afraid to ask another one.

Counselor Dutton.

Um I just want to say it's so good to see you.

I didn't realize that was you sitting in the back.

Thank you.

This guy's one of my favorites.

Um what I would like to know is even though uh we're following uh protocol with the weather service.

Is it not possible for us to actually do our own within the city of Tulsa Communications, despite the fact that we're going with the National Weather Service and the protocols in place for alarming uh the sirens and whatnot?

Can we not just get information through our communications department that you know um there's a propensity for flooding or a map, even um that we can put online that shows the flooding areas within the city of Tulsa?

Come on up.

Hey, hey, I was watching.

I know that wasn't by accident, so I'm not gonna make my two o'clock.

Um we do have two websites, um, web pages available regarding flash flooding.

Uh city of Tulsa.org slash FFS.

Um those were just recently updated by our engineer about three, four months ago because those have updated as of late.

And then we have city of Tulsa.org slash sirens, and that has all the information about our siren systems, the tones, the triggers for the sirens.

Um, and then back to kind of the 4th of July event, which I think was kind of maybe the questioning.

So in the past, typically what happens is our emergency management department is monitoring um in the EOC, they will make the call to basically call in their support systems that includes PIO.

So for this particular storm, PIO was not called in because it was a special event that they recording directly with TPD and river parks.

And so we did put out three or four different notices prior to the wind event.

Plus turn around don't drown.

Our fire department does that constantly.

We have CRS rating that we are required to do as well.

We had a flood expo in May regarding kind of these issues.

So some of that stuff's already occurring and it happens year-round.

So what can we do as a council to help promote with the city as a whole to inform our constituents and our people.

I like that.

So I think what we can do, we can print together a plan, work with your communications team and see what would be most helpful for you and how we can help get the word out further.

Um I think one of the things we have September is National Preparedness Month.

We have a lot of things around that month.

Um now with Mr.

Adam joining us and some different things that we planned on doing in September.

Um also putting things out in our utility bill stuffer.

We have things in there constantly as well, but I think there's a lot of things that we can do that maybe we can talk about with Megan and team and Sarah.

Okay, perfect.

All right, Councilor Bellis, then uh Director Wright and Archie.

Oh, I think I'm getting got answered.

Okay.

Councilor Director Wright.

Thank you.

On that blue map where we show flood prone areas.

So at Garnet, south of 91st Street, it is a county road, but it does border my, it's in my district, and it's a low water place.

There's a dog park over there, there's overpass south of St.

Francis, you know, and they're doing a county road project that should mitigate flooding.

But right now, because there's all that construction in that area, if it floods, it there's already streets blocked off to those nearby neighborhoods.

So nearby neighbors are very concerned when there's flooding there.

That's even one less route that they could take or that emergency responders could take to get to them.

So I don't know if we could reflect that on there or how you all determine where those flood-prone zones are.

But uh South at East 91st Street on South Garnett Road is definitely an area that now has apartment complexes and single family residence with major major construction and roads blocked for probably the next year.

So it would just be a place to be focused in on tourists as well.

Yeah.

I mean, that came up during the the uh July 4th event for those folks.

And it's a little uh challenging because it is a county road and there's this push and pull on it, but we as a city have shut off some of the street um to through traffic to help the county, and so we're in we're in that conversation.

Um basically 101st to 91st on South Garnet for one of these big floods.

I think whenever like 41st in your district floods, that part also floods because um it's just kind of one of those things.

If it's rained enough to float over there, it's rained enough to float over there, and and your district too, Bird Creek for sure.

Okay, I think the commissioners passed time on her.

Yeah, one more question now, Councillor Arching.

Well, I think I think I'm good.

I think you coming down at UP and you will just be integrated into the communications efforts.

Yeah, okay, great.

Yes, we're always talking.

Okay, all right.

Thank you very much.

We are adjourned.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We were waiting for.

Boom!

Completely empty.