Attachment 01_Safe Community Task Force MemoMasterpiece on the Mississippi
TO: Michael C. Van Milligen, City Manager
FROM: Phyllis E. Russell, Management Fellow
SUBJECT: Safe Community Task Force Recommendations to City Council
DATE: July 15, 2010
Dubuque
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INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this memorandum is to forward to you the second set of
recommendations from the Safe Community Task Force to present to the City Council.
Along with this current series of recommendations I am also including the first set of
recommendations that were adopted by the Council February 2010 and an update on
the Crime Study being conducted by Northern Illinois University.
BACKGROUND
On September 17, 2009, Mayor Roy Buol and the City Council hosted a community
forum that was attended by more than 130 residents. The purpose of this forum was to
initiate an open dialogue on crime issues in our community and how, as a community,
we could address them. After such a high response to the open dialogue, the Mayor
and City Council appointed 25 citizen volunteers to a "Safe Community Task Force" in
October.
This group of diverse volunteers was asked to holistically look at both the causes of,
and solutions to, crime in Dubuque. The group was tasked with gathering facts about
the scope of the crime problems, focus on identifying efforts that are already underway
to improve and prevent future problems, review and analyze how other communities
have addressed this issue and recommend goals and objectives for the leadership of
Dubuque. Beyond the 25 appointed members, the Safe Community Task Force utilized
sub - committees and work groups to get all interested parties involved, and submit
recommendations to the City Council for further action.
The sub - committees were:
• Neighborhood engagement/social capital,
• Enforcement,
• Management of physical environment, and
• Research and facts.
In February 2010, Urban Strategies from St. Louis, MO was hired to facilitate the Safe
Community Task Force meetings and aid in guiding the appointed group through the
recommendation process.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Each of the sub - committees produced several recommendations for the Task Force to
consider and come to consensus on. The following are the recommendations (identified
by category) the Task Force is submitting to Council:
Enforcement
1. Develop and implement a juvenile curfew ordinance to use as a tool to help
reduce crime. Research utility, efficacy and enforcement issues, taking the
following suggestions into consideration:
• The police department would not conduct curfew sweeps of the
community.
• There would be a designated and staffed location to hold juveniles who
violate the curfew. Contact with parents or a responsible adult would not
be handled by police. (It is critical to keep the officers on the street and not
deploy them as babysitters). Penalties for curfew violations could include
fines, community service requirements and parenting classes.
2. Provide additional resources for the Community Policing Program
3. Direct Police Department to enforce noise ordinances more aggressively.
4. Direct Police Department to enforce traffic ordinances more aggressively.
5. Give the Safe Community Task Force and Police Department the opportunity to
respond to the Northern Illinois University crime study report and
recommendations due at the end of September, which may result in additional
recommendations.
6. The Safe Community Task Force recommends its continued existence to monitor
the implementation and progress of its recommendations through quarterly
progress reports from city staff, and special meetings as necessary. The SCTF
further recommends that the City Council consider creation of a Safe Community
Commission.
Housing Code Enforcement
7. Support landlords in evicting problem tenants for cause.
8. Mandate that landlords conduct renter background checks, using the city's free
service.
9. Establish threshold number of complaint calls that will place a problem property
in priority category. Establish policies and processes for immediate response and
resolution of problems involving those properties,
10. Tie frequency of property inspections to landlord's history of cooperation with
code compliance. Establish a threshold number of problem complaints that will
trigger a meeting among the landlord, the tenant, and representatives of the
Housing and Police Departments.
11. Intensify exterior code enforcement efforts. Encourage city employees across
departments to identify and report property code enforcement problems and
establish ways to reward employees.
12. Create a data clearing house limited to verifiable and factual information that
landlords and tenants can share and reference when making their rental
decisions.
13. Develop and offer frequently a training program on code enforcement and
property management for all landlords. Require all landlords to attend the
program; issue only temporary occupancy permits /licenses until training has
been completed
Section 8 Program
The City Council has addressed community concerns about the real or perceived
impact of the Section 8 program on the community by:
1. Decreasing the desired number of Section 8 vouchers in the program to 900
2. Limiting voucher eligibility to Dubuque residents
3. Increasing the staff capacity of the Family Self Sufficiency Program
Additional recommendations include supporting and providing resources to:
• Increase public understanding of the Section 8 Program
• Increase participation of Section 8 residents in effective self- sufficiency programs
• Provide training to housing commissioners to increase their leadership, public
relations and community building skills
• Implement an Exception Rent Program to avoid concentrated pockets of poverty
• Develop a stronger role for the Resident Advisory Board to encourage residents
of subsidized housing to give feedback on proposed new policies and procedures
and to cultivate leadership within the low income residential community.
• Provide community service credits for participation in effective programs that
foster self sufficiency
• Continue to provide resources to FSS program based upon evidence of success
Neighborhood Engagement and Social Capital
1. Human Relations (A Task Force Priority) - The SCTF believes that in order to
achieve its goals there will need to be a major citywide human relations effort
.The human relations effort will have these objectives:
a) Increase tolerance and mutual understanding among the diverse
segments of the population. The adoption of educational initiatives
that foster community solidarity and global citizenship should be among
the first practical steps taken by our City.
b) Implement appropriate measures that safeguard the rights and opportunities of
all.
2. Develop a Neighborhood Watch program.
3. Increase resident participation using such vehicles as clean up campaigns,
neighborhood picnics, new neighbor welcome events and other strategies
developed by residents
4. Cultural Competency Training should be offered periodically to businesses and
the community at large. It should be mandatory for city board and commission
members as well as for city staff.
5. The Human Rights Department should receive continued support. In addition the
city should devote resources to a human relations initiative that could include
programs in the arts, cultural programs and other strategies that promote respect
and understanding among residents.
6. Support a welcoming program for all new renters through community based
organizations (such as GDDC provides for new families coming to Dubuque).
Management of Physical Environment
1. Install street lights in the middle of the block to brighten up the streets at night
and increase visibility for residents.
2. Improve Dubuque neighborhoods by: a) encouraging home ownership, b)
encouraging a mixed income approach to neighborhood development, c)
creating (or re- creating) a sense of place through good design. All buildings
using city, state or federal dollars should be required to meet these objectives
and all projects should be required to meet the City's sustainability goals.
3. Create an ordinance prohibiting the boarding of windows and doors facing
streets.
4. Develop and enforce policies consistent with the "preservation briefs" to
maintain historic properties.
5. Increase the number of trash receptacles on the street.
6. Increase the number of neighborhood clean- ups and educate the community
on city waste disposal policies in an effort to clarify the purpose of
neighborhood clean- up programs.
Research and Facts
The crime study previously recommended by the SCTF and approved by the City
Council is in progress and will be completed by Northern Illinois University in late
September. The study authors will analyze crime and survey data which will: 1) clarify
crime data and crime trends in Dubuque; 2) identify demographic and other
characteristics most strongly related to the sorts of crimes that have increased
significantly in the past few years, and 3) compare these data with the public's
perception of the nature of crime and criminals in Dubuque.
The study asks these questions:
• Does the perception of criminal activity and its causes in Dubuque match what is
actually happening?
• What policies or strategies are effective in decreasing crime, especially within
categories of crime with significant recent increases in arrests?
• If there are community perceptions of increased criminal activity but no evidence
to support the perception, what policies or strategies can effectively address the
concerns?
Dubuque 2010 Quantitative Research Study on Crime & Poverty
Project Status Report
As of July 9,2010
Provided by:
Greg Kuhn, Project Director
Shannon Sohl, Project Manager
NIU Center for Governmental Studies
General Project
Info
• The contract and confidentiality agreement were formally executed
on May 27th when all required signatures were in place.
❖ On May 25 Carol Spinoso forwarded 26 documents related to the
study. The team has been reviewing the documents and CGS has
assembled a timeline that reflects our understanding of key events
that have led up to the current study in place. The timeline is
appended to this Project Status Report for your review and feedback.
• City staff and study team members have been in regular and ongoing
conversation on a variety of project elements, research questions,
logistical matters and data sharing transfers.
❖ The project is estimated to be completed by mid to late October but is
highly contingent upon timely turnarounds for missing data or
clarification of data issues.
• Optimally, if data scrubbing and matching can be completed within
the next two weeks, CGS plans to have a preliminary set of findings
available for Dubuque's review by mid to late September. This
projection is highly variable and is subject to change depending on
data conversion/ data scrubbing processes.
Comparative • CGS researchers confirmed the list of cohort members with Dubuque
Data in May for the comparative analysis of crime rates.
❖ Contacted and collected all crime data necessary from Iowa's
Department of Public Safety (DPS) and the City of Dubuque to
complete the comparative analysis. Final set of Dubuque's data,
including year 2009, was received from Dubuque on June 18, 2010.
CGS currently has compiled crime incident count data for all cohort
members (as well as university data where applicable) for years 2004 -
2009.
• Received confirmation on June 25, 2010 from the lead project staff
member, Kelly Larson, to include an analysis that combines university
crimes with city crimes for Ames and Iowa City and to apply total city
population (as annually estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau). Plans
are to also present the data by separate categories of crimes.
❖ Began formatting charts /graphs for presenting the comparative data.
• Uploaded, reviewed and entered data into files for analysis; Excel (for
presentation purposes) & SPSS (for statistical analysis).
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Incident Data
Housing Data
❖ Awaiting suggestions from City staff for groupings /consolidation of
crimes to reduce the number of charts and to present data in a format
that the City is accustomed to reviewing when analyzing crime data.
❖ A CGS team member will schedule a time to review (with Stacey
Moore) reporting standards for the various degrees of crimes to clarify
how the City collects various incidents and applies definitions for
reporting purposes.
❖ The findings of this analysis will be included in the preliminary
feedback report (projected to be ready mid to late September).
❖ An updated incident data file for the period under study was
forwarded by Dubuque to the secure ftp site on July 7th
❖ Data interpretation, cleaning and conversion to an analytical format
that removes confidential information is underway.
❖ Analysts are working to create a "Master" file with the Incident file
serving as the base set of data and consolidating Housing data &
Arrest data into this file by running matching routines.
❖ The key issues surrounding the Incident data that CGS is currently
working on include the following items:
➢ Within the Incident file, there are approximately 200,000
records of which not all data is necessary for the scope of this
project (e.g., witness information). Thus, CGS is working to
identify the variables that could be eliminated to make the file
more manageable from an analytical standpoint.
➢ Within this new "Master" file, data must be manually
scrubbed in a confidential environment for inconsistencies in
identifier fields (e.g., SSN and NameNo fields). Early reviews
indicate some of this data is missing, invalid or inconsistently
reported within the file. CGS will pursue obtaining the
necessary data, if available, from Stacey Moore.
❖ Housing data was received (via the secure ftp site) from Dubuque's
database vendor on June 18 but a significant level of follow -up
clarification was needed. Janet Walker assisted with the clarification
and confirmed various classifications of fields. This clarification was
completed on June 28
❖ The housing data received is not in as "readily useable" format as
expected (e.g., the data includes several fields /categories that require
clarification, sorting and interpretation). CGS staff has been in
conversation with City staff on this issue and clarification is ongoing at
this writing.
❖ Data interpretation, cleaning and conversion to an analytical format
that removes confidential information is now underway using the
clarified file.
❖ CGS is also working to consolidate /cross compare the Housing data
with Arrest and Incident data to create a "Master" data file for use in
the analytical operations to be undertaken.
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Arrest Data
Literature ❖ CGS has undertaken a broad literature search as identified in the
Review project tasks and scope of services.
❖ Researchers have identified over 900 articles /books /writings covering
the eight topics specified in our proposal.
❖ Researchers have identified and obtained the bulk of the sources
necessary for the literature review and have begun the
reading /annotation /review process.
❖ The majority of the literature review is expected to be completed by
late July and made available to the entire CGS team for their review
and comments prior to submitting it to Dubuque for their feedback.
❖ The literature review summary should be available for inclusion in the
preliminary report projected to be ready mid to late September.
Perception • NIU's POL is carrying out the community survey component of the
Survey project.
❖ POL worked with staff to develop a set of recommended questions for
the survey. The survey used to interview community members was
reviewed by Dubuque and returned by City staff with some
recommendation for changes on June 7 th.
❖ The final set of questions was approved by the second week of June.
❖ The Public Opinion Lab (POL) has conducted 385 phone interviews as
ofJuly 8.
❖ Their plan is to complete a total of 500 interviews and provide a final
tabulated report to the CGS team by mid July.
Additional Site
Visit
❖ Arrest data was received directly from the City via the secure ftp site
the on June 7th
❖ Data interpretation, cleaning and conversion of the arrest data to an
analytical format that removes confidential information is underway.
❖ As referenced above, CGS is matching up the Arrest data with Incident
and Housing data to create the "Master" data file.
❖ CGS has begun geo- coding the arrest data. Thus far, "EventLocations"
is approximately 75% complete in the geo- coding process. Once this
field is geo- coded, CGS will geo -code "ArresteeAddress" data.
❖ A contingent of the research team anticipate another visit in the next
few weeks from members who were not able to attend the first set of
meetings and to gain additional insights from the preliminary analysis
of the data.
❖ Members expected to visit include (tentative) Greg Kuhn, George
Graves, Charles Cappell, David Mitchell, Roger Dahlstrom and Rima
Roy.
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Every Child, Every Promise founded 1
Washington Neighborhood: Revitalize Initiative
Multicultural Family Center Opened
Pregnant teen Fatally Stabbed
Intercultural Competency Initiative
Washington Neighborhood Association Began to Curtail Participation
Washington Neighborhood Development Corporation Formed
Man Fatally Stabbed Outside of Downtown Bar on Central Avenue
Photo of Lynching Posted On Website
Problem Property Task Force Organized
Man Fatally Stabbed on North -end Street
Man Fatally Stabbed on Downtown Street
Alta Vista Research Study
Officer and Suspect Shot During Armed Robbery
Man Shot At Pawn Shop
Safe Community Task Force Formed'
U rban Strategies Retained as Facilitator For the Safe Community Task Force
NIU's CGS hired to conduct a Crime & Poverty Study
"Circles" Program formed
Founded in 2004, "Every Child, Every Promise" grew out of the Presidents' Summit for America's Future in 1997. At that gathering, Presidents Clinton, Bush,
Carter and Ford, with Nancy Reagan representing President Reagan, challenged America to make children and youth a national priority. America's Promise
uses the Five Promises framework to shape their efforts and improve the odds for youth: 1) Caring Adults, 2) Safe Places, 3) Healthy Start, 4) Effective
Education, and 5) Opportunities to Help Others. Every Child, Every Promise is introducing the concept of "Building a Culture of Promise."
2 In 2005, a partnership with the "Washington Initiative" and the "Washington Neighborhood Association." city departments, private lenders and neighborhood
businesses was introduced. This partnership addresses both physical improvements to create a better environment for economic investment, and programs
necessary to provide less- advantaged citizens with the capacity to "access the ladder of economic opportunity that leads out of poverty."
3 In July 2005, the "Multicultural Family Center" officially opened and they envision a welcoming Dubuque built on a foundation of understanding and
collaboration across racial, ethnic and socioeconomic groups committed to producing engaged families and community members. Serve as an inviting and safe
place for community members, stimulate connections and provide programs to foster civic engagement and social and economic success. Build unity out of
diversity.
° In September 2005, pregnant teen fatally stabbed and fetus died, too, during an altercation on Bluff Street.
5 In 2006, the City embarked on a three -year contract with One Ummah Consulting as part of its efforts to achieve diversity goals that include promoting
community understanding and education, encouraging a more diverse workforce, identifying tools residents can use to resolve conflict, and supporting a
community that values all residents.
6 In 2007, the "Washington Neighborhood Development Corporation" was formed. Their visioning effort in defining a neighborhood was one that promotes pride,
diversity, homeownership, civic responsibility and opportunity.
In August 2007, following the fatal stabbing of man outside of a downtown bar, racial tensions stirred following the identification of an African - American
suspect.
6 In 2009, a Problem Property Task Force was organized through the Housing Department to address the chronic complaints regarding vacant and poorly -
managed properties.
9 1n November 2009, Alta Vista Research conducted a multiple component study for the City of Dubuque.
70 In February 2010, following an incident of violence which resulted in the death of a community member, the City Council held a community forum to address
public safety issues. From this meeting, a Safe Community Task Force was formed.
11 In May 2010, the Human Rights Director, the Assisted Housing Specialist, and the AmeriCorps Volunteer met with the Board of Director of the Dubuque Area
Churches United (DACU) for their consideration to engage the churches in town by soliciting their members to become involved in the "Circles" program. This
program is an extension of Getting Ahead in a Just - Gettin' -By World.
Note: The violent crimes listed on the timeline in no way represent all the crimes that occurred.
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