WSTA Transit Security Council Meeting hosted by Pierce
Transit
Tuesday, May 9, 2006, 10:00am – 12:00pm
Pierce Transit, Building 5, Rainier Room
WSTA Transit Security Council Mission Statement
To
review transit security information in an effort to advise Washington State Transit
Agencies about training opportunities and the standardization of report procedures, codes
of conduct, security plans, crime-reduction methods, and police/judicial cooperation.
Attendees:
Joan Cormany, Pierce Transit
Phil Early, Intercity Transit
Geoffrey Getchman, Seattle Police Department
Barb Savary, WSDOT
Dave Fairbanks, King County Metro
Rod Baker, Pierce Transit
Kenneth Cummins, Security Officer (Sound Transit)
Absent:
Sgt. Phillip Nichols, Snohomish County Sheriff’s Dept.
Sgt. Dave Redding, Pierce County Sheriff’s Dept.
Sgt. Rodney Rochon, Snohomish County Sheriff’s Dept.
Ray Hawkins, Pierce Transit
Michelle Parvinen, WSTA
Kevin Bradley, Community Transit
Chuck Cox, King County Metro
Dave Hall, Lakewood Police
Mike Burris
Capt. Nathan Elledge, King County Sheriff’s Dept
Minutes Taken By:
Beverly McCarter
Rod Baker Opened
He noted Nathan is being
reassigned by August 1st.
Previous minutes were
reviewed and accepted.
Sound Transit
Ken (Sound Transit) introduced himself. He stated ST is currently working on several trouble
areas They are trying to operate with a budget that wasn’t well prepared and he will
be spending a lot of time on next years’ budget to address things they will need. Joan will send Ken a copy of the by-laws and
current list of contact info.
Ken stated they are working
on construction on the new facility and hope to be completed around the 15th of
May.
Ken is on the DOTs committee
gathering information about Mass Transit, he was asked to develop the critical
infrastructure of the rail, buss, etc.. He
will be e-mailing PT a list of questions he will be needing answers to. He stated the DOT considers any route that
transports 5000 passengers a day a critical route. Rod
stated we already have most of the information he needs developed. Rod will bring this information to Ken and also
show him what we regularly send Sound Transit. Barb
will get Ken in touch with John Hemmel, who handles safety and security.
WSDOT
Barb stated WSDOT has the
Public Transportation Conference, Aug 14-16th, in Bellevue, and the deadline
for submitting workshop proposals is next Monday 5/16/06.
Proposals need to state what type of class is wanted or you can submit your
class online at www.wsdot.wa.gov/transit.
Barb suggested we use a room
at the Public Transportation Conference in Bellevue (Aug 14-16) for our next WSTA Meeting.
Barb will let us know which date the room is
available.
Also they are getting ready
to develop the 2007 training calendar. They
will be gathering recommendations of classes other agencies found useful and scheduling
these classes for the year. Barb asked that
any recommendations or ideas be e-mailed to her directly.
Suggested Future
Speakers
Rod met the Lieutenant in
charge of the ferries system, and we are inviting him to the next WSTA meeting so we can
discuss coordinating and cross training the ferry system with the buses in the case of an
emergency. Barb suggested having a meeting in
advance of our next quarterly meeting so that we could talk to him and discuss what issues
we are concerned about. Rod stated there are
also two people from Home-land security that came down from Seattle and he would like to
get them on-board here. Rod stated these are
excellent ideas and he thinks that emergency management is important.
King County Metro
Dave stated they are taking
on 11-15 new deputies by June. They are in the
process of interviewing right now. The
incidents have been tripling on Sat. and Sun. even though service is less. Dave stated passenger vs. passenger assaults are
sky-rocketing and they aren’t sure what the cause is.
They have also been experiencing problems with loitering and enforcing the
“No Smoking” policy.
They are reducing the number
of camera busses in the fleet due to the poor quality of the system. They are looking at a new product called “Variant”. Rod stated we are in the same process and we have
narrowed it down to 3 companies and they are going to be at PT to demonstrate; he offered
to give the dates to anyone who would like to attend the presentations.
Dave and Rod both stated they
are working on making sure the smart card, camera systems, and radios are all compatible. Dave stated theirs is not working and it is partly
a band-width issues. Rod stated we are looking
at audio (Dave hasn’t seen this) as the public transportation does not require 2
party consent, and March Systems has the audio verbiage.
Dave showed a visual
presentation of the 7th generation camera system they are investigating.
Seattle
Police Dept.
Geoffrey stated they are
focusing on felonies mainly and they don’t have time or resources to do infractions
and misdemeanors. He stated that all the EIS
work they are looking at is 3-5 years out. Dave
stated that because the tunnel will be re-opening in ‘07 we need to talk about
putting the busses back in there. Geoffrey
stated there will be parking lanes that are eliminated, the configuration of 3rd
Ave is going to have to remain unstable as there is concern they are going to revert to
the old system for 3rd and then revert back again to the current system when
the viaduct is done.
Geoffry asked if we have
ideas on how to handle traffic in the next 3-10 years.
Geoff stated that they are looking for ideas as to how they are going
to direct traffic in the case of an emergency. Dave
went over the plan to move traffic around the protesters and stated it worked well.
Intercity Transit
Phil stated they are also
having problems with enforcing the “No Smoking” policy and loitering. They are on-track with the CAT AVL system coming
on, they have received 4 new cameras and are working on installing them. They are on-track with getting the funding for
cameras in the busses for 2007.
Rod asked if Phil would get
the word out that the routes coming up to the SR512, are experiencing a lot of drug
activity. Rod stated we started a
contract with Lakewood PD and they cover SR512, but we also want the operators to be aware
of the activity at the transit center.
Pierce Transit
Rod stated we have seen an
increase of Asian gangs in the Tacoma area; there has been a recent increase in shootings. We were a part of a “sting” operation
with the state patrol in Lakewood, which resulted in the arrest of a pedophile, and
violent crime rates are increasing.
Rod was commissioned so now
the Public Safety department for PT is an actual law enforcement agency. He stated we will probably do a full time
contract, rather than hiring our own people. We
are also working to have 7 additional facilities plugged into our CCTV system. We would hope to eventually have monitored
CCTV. If we had people listening and
monitoring activity, then we could respond faster.
He asked if everyone got the
new NIMS requirements. WE have to have AWR
500, IS 200 and IS 300, he stated he would e-mail that information to everyone.
This meeting ended
at 11:07.
If you
would like more information about this committee, please contact one of the officers or
Michelle Parvinen at WSTA 360.786.9734, 2629 12th Court SW, Olympia, WA 98502-1118, or
email michelle@watransit.com |
