http://muskogeephoenix.com/local/x1248735535/Wastewater-proposal-not-sitting-well-with-some
Muskogee Public Works Director Mike Stewart said a private contractor has approached the city about providing management services for the plant. (Operative word is "management," not replacing the 28 city employees with private company employees.)
Change comes extremely hard to Muskogee--city charter, Greater Muskogee Development, election campaign finance reform, ward voting, still no strategic plan for Muskogee, lack of true community involvement in city planning (a future blog article), ad naseum.
Note Mayor Hammons comment that, "City employees must be given the opportunity to improve services." Well, Mr. Mayor, they've had no incentives to improve services until now. Nothing like like free enterprise to get the competitive juices flowing, huh?
Councilman Lucky asked, "Do we not have that type of knowledge to run (the wastewater plant) properly." Well, obviously we do because the city has been operating it for years. But that's not the issue. The issue is how more efficiently can the wastewater plant be operated. And if city employees/management is not motivated to improve efficiencies by free market challengers, then there's no reason to do so. Remember the city is working on reducing a $1.8 million budget deficit.
The union is opposed because that's the job of the union--oppose anything that may change the status quo.
And City Attorney John Vincent, according to the Phoenix, said that once the city receives "request for porposals" from interested outside entities, the city must go to employees and say, "This is ther bid price, what can you do."
I think that's a fair question; and should management of the city's wastewater treatment plant come under a private contractor, that should be an incentive for other city workers to increase the efficiencies of their departments or face private management challenging their status quo.
The Muskogee Public Works Committee voted 7-2 to solicit "statements of qualification" from firms that could management the facility. Councilmen Kenny Payne and Jackie Luckey voted against the motion. The vote is subject to City Council approval. We'll see if efficiency wins over "tradion."
It really is time to drag Muskogee kicking and screaming into the 21st century of city management. Nobody likes change because it threatens their way of life, their power, their structure, their influence. Could that be the reason Muskogee has been stagnant for years? Hopefully the city council will vote to allow private management of the wastewater treatment plant thereby cracking open a sliver of hope that Muskogee has a future of growth and prosperity.
Showing posts with label city council. Show all posts
Showing posts with label city council. Show all posts
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Muskogee’s long term association with gangs (and the city's tepid response)
After the April 10 gang-related shooting at Arrowhead Mall that left one youth dead and four others wounded, Muskogee Police Chief Rex Eskridge said in a May 24 city council meeting that “he would rate Muskogee at a 50 on a scale of 0-115 assessing whether the city has a gang problem,” according to the Phoenix.[1] (I tried to listen to all of Chief Eskridge's "testimony" on the city's web site but the first 25 minutes of audio is missing, which encompassess all of Chief Esdridge's testimony.)
The scale is called a “Gang Assessment Tool” which has been available from the National School Safety Center
Here’s the rating scale:
- 0-20 points—No problem
- 25-45 points—Emerging problems
- 50-65 points—You have problems
- 70 + points—There are serious problems
- At 50+ points = a need exists to develop a gang prevention intervention program.
So how did Chief Eskridge arrive at those 50 points? In response to an Open Records Act request in which I asked to see all the documentation corresponding to Chief Eskridge’s “50 point” rating, the city’s response was: “According to Chief Eskridge, there was no specific statistical data upon which he relied, rather the assignment of the score of ‘50’ was based on his years of experience with the Muskogee Police Department.”
A better response from Chief Eskridge would have been: “Mr. Mayor, City Manager, members of the City Council, I have not had the opportunity to have my staff conduct a proper and thorough search of our records in specific response to these 13 questions from the Gang Assessment Tool. I would much rather refrain from providing anything at this time other than a thoroughly researched response to this critical issue of gangs. However, I believe that within 60 days, I can provide an accurate response to this assessment tool and from there the city can use that data to develop an appropriate response to this issue that plagues America
(Of course the real issue here is the integrity of Chief Eskdridge's statement to begin with, which will be addressed in another posting.)
So let’s take a look at the 13 questions in the gang assessment tool.
1. Is there graffiti on or near your neighborhood or community? (5 points)
2. Is the graffiti crossed out? (10 points)
3. Do the young people in your community wear colors, jewelry, clothing, flash hand signs, or display other behaviors that may be gang related? (10 points)
4. Are drugs available in or near your community? (10 points)
5. Was there a significant increase in the number of physical; confrontations within the past 12 months in or near your community? (5 points)
6. Is there an increasing presence of weapons in your community? (5 points)
7. Are beepers, pagers, cellular phones used by the young people of your community? (10 points)
8. Has there been a “drive by” shooting in or around your community? (15 points)
9. Have you had a “show-by” display of weapons in or around your community? (10 points)
10. Is the truancy rate and/or daytime burglaries in your community increasing? (5 points)
11. Have racial incidents increased in your community? (5 points)
12. Is there a history of gangs in your community? (10 points)
13. Is there an increasing presence of “informal social groups” with the unusual names that have words like kings, disciples, queens, posse, crew? (15 points)
So how many points did you score? The point is that it doesn’t matter. Only an organization like the Muskogee Police Department (MPD) and Muskogee Public Schools can truly provide the accurate data needed to reflect gang reality in Muskogee
The MPD has publicly acknowledged a gang problem since at least 1995 which is documented in the U.S. Department of Justice’s 1995 National Youth Gang Survey. The MPD is listed as one of the “City Law Enforcement Agencies Reporting Gangs.” [2]
And since Eskridge became Chief of Police in 1996, the Muskogee Police Department also appeared in both the 1997 and 1999-2001 National Youth Gang Survey’s “City Law Enforcement Agencies Reporting Gangs.”[3]
In the “The Federal Gang Violence Act of 1996,” Muskogee , Stillwater , Ardmore , Lawton , Tulsa and Oklahoma City are identified as six of the 118 U.S. cities the “Bloods” and “Crips” gangs have invaded.[4]
The Tulsa Police Department estimates that there are “5,000 people who are either gang members or have ties to street gangs” live in the Tulsa area.[6] (The reason why I state this fact is that if Tulsa Police Department can provide that estimate, why can't, or won't, MPD?)
A DEA news release dated October 10, 2007 entitled, “Operation Six-Killer Nets 90 Arrests in Oklahoma ,” names one of the street gangs in Muskogee as the “107 Hoover Crips” and also named the “Bloods” in Okmulgee County
The Oklahoma Gang Investigators Association reports that the largest gang in Okmulgee , Muskogee and Bartlesville is the Hoover Crips and specifically mentions the 107 Hoover Crips.[8]
At the memorial for 17-year-old Jerrod Reed, a victim of the Arrowhead Mall gang shooting, District Attorney Larry Moore acknowledged that Muskogee has had gang problems even before the gang shooting. Yet for the 10-years Chief Eskridge has been Chief of Police, he has not held, as far as I can determine, a public meeting addressing the presence of gangs in Muskogee before the Arrowhead Mall shooting.
More evidence that there are gangs in Muskogee is reflected in the numerous policies of the parent’s handbook for Muskogee Public Schools.
“The following decorations and/or designs imprinted upon or attached to the body or clothing is prohibited: symbols, mottoes, words or acronyms that convey . . . gang-related . . . messages,” 7th-8th grade center handbook and high school handbook.
The Muskogee Phoenix reported on June 16, 2009 school board member John Barton was concerned that looser dress codes would allow students to wear gang colors. The article then quoted board member Stacey Alexander as saying, “They (students) still wear gang colors in their shoe laces.”[9]
And in an August 2010 city sponsored meeting in regards to residents’ concerns, Derryl Venter, Muskogee Public Schools assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, “expressed concern about gang signs and graffiti.”[10]
So, city manager, what’s the plan? When are you going to tell the city council what really is going on in Muskogee about gangs? When do we find out what colors we need to be aware of that could possibly be associated with gangs? How about hand signs? What does their graffiti look like so we, as citizens, can recognize when our neighborhoods have been invaded?
Do citizens know how to identify whether graffiti is gang related or not? Does the city photograph all graffiti before scrubbing it clean (which is greatly appreciated)? Does the average citizen know how to distinguish whether hand signs are gang related? When graffiti is identified as gang related, is the location and which gang the symbol belongs to recorded for intelligence and tracking purposes?
We want to help you but we can’t unless you tell us what’s going on and how we can help. Will you do that for us? In 2007 Tulsa began a program called, “The Confidential Reliable Citizens Program” which trained volunteers to recognize and report gang-related crime with minimal risk of retaliation.[11] Any reason why Muskogee can’t implement a similar program?
Finally, city officials won’t respond with any degree of forthrightness to any appeal from the public demanding to know the true status of gangs in Muskogee until citizens get mad, show up at city council meetings and demand action and information. And if the death of a teenager during a gang-related shooting spree at a shopping mall doesn’t make your blood boil, then maybe we don’t deserve to know what’s really going on in Muskogee, Oklahoma after all.
[1]“Assessment says city has gang problem,” by Liz McMahan, Muskogee Daily Phoenix, May 24, 2010
[3]“1997 National Youth Gang Survey”, p. 56, and “1999-2001 National Youth Gang Survey,” p. 64, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. While there are summaries of National Youth Gang Survey’s after 2001, I could find no such surveys available “in toto” on the Internet although summaries were available.
[6] Tulsa World, 11/23/2008, “Police say nearly 5,000 in Tulsa
[9] “School board suspends dress code, may restrict piercings,” by Cathy Spaulding, Muskogee Daily Phoenix, June 16, 2009
[10] “Residents express concerns (sic),” by Cathy Spaulding, Muskogee Daily Phoenix, August 6, 2010
[11] “Volunteers target gangs,” by David Schulte, Tulsa World, June 20, 2008
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