Information Items:
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Information items:
The Centralina Council of Governments will be hosting a panel discussion on congestion management techniques and congestion impacts on April 25, 2008 from 7:30AM-10:30AM at the Charlotte Westin Hotel (see attachment for more details). Norm Steinman of CDOT will be one of three panelists, together with Dr. David Hartgen and a representative from the Texas Transportation Institute. The panel discussion is being sponsored by the Piedmont Public Policy Institute.
Council's Community Safety Committee met on April 17 to receive information updates on three issues that had previously been before the Committee.
Council approved the Pawn Shop Ordinance in 2006 and it became effective on January 7, 2007. A main component of the ordinance requires individuals pawning items to place their fingerprint on the pawn ticket at the time of the transaction. The goal was to identify suspects who had pawned stolen property. In an update to the Committee, CMPD reported that suspects had been identified in 48 cases; 36 of the cases with a match resulted in an arrest. Over $40,000 worth of stolen property has been recovered due to the ordinance. CMPD is pleased with the success of the ordinance and reports that the pawn shop owners, who initially felt that the ordinance would hurt their business, have been very cooperative and have actually experienced an increase in pawn transactions.
The Committee also heard an information report on the increase the number of active Neighborhood Watch communities. Since March 2007, there has been a 35% increase in documented Neighborhood Watch communities. There are currently 361 active Neighborhood Watch programs. CMPD also reported on the plans for SafeMeckFest to be held on Saturday October 4 at six Parks and Recreation facilities throughout the city. The event will be collaboration between a number of City and County agencies and will feature information and activities for both youth and adults. The October date was chosen to make the event the kick-off to National Crime Prevention Month.
The third item discussed by the Committee was the issue of door-to-door solicitations. Last April, the Committee discussed the issue after complaints from several neighborhoods regarding solicitors in their neighborhoods and their fear that they could be involved in crime in those neighborhoods. The Committee considered the option of amending the peddling ordinance to include requiring permits for door-to-door solicitations. The Committee felt that approach would create additional workload but have limited effectiveness since individuals soliciting for charitable, religious, and political purposes are constitutionally protected and since the permit would not prevent involvement in subsequent criminal activity. CMPD added a call classification to capture data on calls for service regarding solicitors and the Committee had deferred further action until the department had a year of data to evaluate.
The first year of data showed that there were 1,587 calls for service regarding solicitors, far less than 1% of the calls received by CMPD in that one year period. The majority of the calls were between 1:00 pm and 7:00 pm, and approximately half were in the Providence and South Divisions. Most of the calls were in regard to magazine salespeople and very few of the calls resulted in the officer being able to locate anyone. In those cases where the officer did come in contact with the solicitor, the information was documented on a Field Interview form. There was no clear connection between the presence of solicitors and crime in neighborhoods.
