The Winston-Salem Public Safety Committee met on October 14, 2024, at 2:00 PM. The committee approved three consent agenda items related to grant awards, received updates on Hurricane Helene response and the Police Department's Drone as a First Responder (DFR) program, approved an amendment to Civil Service Board regulations, and held a proposed ordinance on massage businesses for further review.
Public sector committee to order. As always, our first unofficial item of business, but it's extremely official. I think the members of this uh circle will agree that we'd like to thank our police, our fire, and our emergency management departments for the work that you do every single day to keep our community safe. There's so many moving parts. I'm looking at attorneys and management staff. Thank you all for the work that you do to keep our community safe. The public safety committee typically consists of two items or two parts the consent agenda and the general agenda. Items on the consent agenda are typically approved with the sweeping motion unless a member of this committee acts that an item be pulled for discussion or consideration. With that being said, members of the committee, are there any items on the consent that should be pulled for consideration? If not, I didn't say the motion. Councilmember Scipio. Okay, Councilmember Larson. I imagine I think I know what you're gonna say, but I think that's right. All right, so that is the uh complete consent agenda. So what we'll do is we'll take item C one. Uh Madam Clerk, if you can please call the light. Item C one resolution authorizing acceptance of the 2024 prosecuting code cases using DNA grant award from the U.S. Department of Justice. Councilmember Larson's recognized Chief Penn, thank you for being with us today. Uh Councilmember Larson, is your question towards the chief, or did you just want to make a comment in general? First of all, I think the public audience knows that we have Senate agenda three items that are generating money for this. And I think worthy of those afternoon, Chair Taylor, members of the committee and council. So we're always looking for ways to improve the agency, and we found an opportunity to use our employees to learn a little bit about genealogy, go back to our code cases and be able to determine if we can identify the suspects involved in those cases. So we're working on staffing. We're we're gonna find a way to make that work so that those unsolved homicides uh we let our community know that we have not forgotten about them and that we're still striving to bring them to justice. $300,000. Yes. It is appreciated. Yes. They have a motion on the floor. Is there a second? Discussion. Chief, thank you for being here. I think this is a great grant to solve some of those cold cases that are out there. Um I know the answer to this, but I'm gonna uh mess with our uh city manager for a second. Mr. City Manager, I think that some citizens may be concerned about the impact uh for grants like these to our budget. Tell me a little bit about uh this particular grant. Are matching funds necessary? Uh in this case there are no matching funds required for this grant, so this is uh totally uh program totally funded by the federal government. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Chief. We have a motion and a second on the floor. All in favor of item C1, please vote yes. Opposers no. Item C one passes unanimously. Thank you. Uh Madam Clerk, item C2, please. Item C2 resolution authorizing acceptance of the 2024 community oriented policing services, law enforcement mental health and wellness act grant award. Chief, I'm glad you decided to stay put.