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WSTA Transit Security Council
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.
Absent
Members:
Minutes Taken By:
Review
of Previous Meetings Minutes
Edits to notes notated – 8/12/08 meeting notes accepted with 1 change.
Thanks
and Farewell Standing Items:
Radio
Interoperability
·
Guest
speaker Marlin Blizinsky from KC on updates for the new tri-county radio
system.
o
Marlin works at the county on the project of the emergency radio system
for all of King County. He
stated Ron Simms and Greg Nichols thought it would be worthwhile to
reach out to Snohomish and Pierce county to try to incorporate them into
a unified system
o
He gave a Power Point Presentation covering these major topics:
§
Why talk about the Next Generation Network now? It takes 7-10 years to
build the new radio system.
§
Processes to put in place, current charter & established network
requirements.
§
Draft requirements
o
Dave asked if there has been thought regarding weaving the Transit and
Emergency radio systems together.
Marlin noted the county would be happy if Metro wanted to join,
but they don’t see any mutual benefit to this.
o
Dave asked if the state-wide project to encourage radio interoperability
has anything to do with this project.
Marlin said they work with the state regularly and see this as a
parallel process.
However, they have to operate at a much higher level than transit
agencies so their plan is to connect things over long distances based on
telephone lines.
o
If you have further questions Marlin Blizinsky can be reached at
206-263-8047.
·
ESHB
2480 Status – Updates on CT Operational Plan
o
Dave S. noted individual agencies retain the option as to whether or not
to enforce. They are still
looking into the different options of fare enforcement and whether it
should always be a commissioned officer or not.
The biggest opposition from CT is whether they would even
enforcement fare violations; they are backing away from it as is ST.
o
Jim (Amtrak) noted in Portland the public is fed up with fare evasions
and they want fare inspections.
He stated the public perception is all the trouble makers are the
free riders.
o
Sheldon said the public expects the agencies to protect them and enforce
fare violations.
o
Phil noted in San Diego they have an armed and uniformed security force
on the train and they check people for fare or a pass.
Dave S. noted that Las Vegas does the same thing.
o
Muzzy feels there is a difference between larger and smaller agencies.
He stated the smaller agencies simply don’t have the authority
the larger agencies do.
o
Rod stated part of the problem is that fare-free zone in Seattle.
They get a free ride down South and then they have to pay in our
area. We had 2 operator
assaults last week and both were because of requests for fare.
CT feels this is why they don’t want to enforce it, as they don’t
want aggression over $1.50 – Rod stated if we don’t enforce it the rest
of the public will stop using the service.
o
Dave asked to keep this on the agenda – will CT continue to pursue this
– will it be an infraction?
o
Rod stated this document has been reviewed by WSTA executives, The
Prosecutor’s office in Pierce County, and currently by WASPC.
They are currently working on version 8.1.
They will proceed to take it to the legislature at the next
session (March 2009). Rod
feels it is a very comprehensive document and it covers a lot of issues.
WASPC may call on us to do a presentation depending on if they
have any questions. This
document will be 1 of 300 pieces of legislation to be presented to the
legislature, but we can’t see any way in which it would negatively
impact the police dept.
Dave feels there may be some initial push back that this is work they
are not funded to do, but we are trying to show them that local law
enforcement has a vested interested in doing this.
·
Sharing Suspension information on a regional basis
o
We recently decided that one size does not fit all for a state wide
suspension procedure – but we did agree to share.
We discussed having a technological venue to share this with.
WSTA has agreed to host this site of information.
·
Guest
speaker from WSTIP IT on support with project
o
Andrea Powell introduced herself and noted that WSTIP provides technical
support for WSTA. Since
they are in the process of upgrading the WSTA website they would be
happy to incorporate this groups needs into the site but needs a better
understanding of what our needs are and what we want the system to do.
o
The group discussed what they would like to see on the website:
o
Rod noted Pierce County and King County deal with many of the same
people. How will that
duplication of information be handled on the website?
o
Rod noted some of the shorter exclusions wouldn’t be able to be
incorporated as it is too short a turn-around to keep the data-base up
to date. There may need to
be guidelines that state only exclusions over 30(?) days are entered
onto the site.
o
What security and legal issues surround collecting and disseminating
this information? Dave S
stated sharing between law enforcement is legal – we aren’t sure if this
includes transit agencies that do not have commissioned officers as part
of the agency. What about
sharing information on under-age offenders?
Is it the same or stricter regulations?
o
Andrea asked if there will be issues with putting personal information
on the web even thought the site is restricted.
Rod stated a SSN and Address is no, but a photo, name & alias,
age without the DOB, gender and the infraction they made are all
acceptable.
o
Andrea asked do we want a history?
Or do we want the info to disappear after the exclusion is no
longer active. Dave S. said
we want an active and a historical page; the active page would keep the
information for the duration of the exclusion.
o
Dave asked who will the tool will be available to.
It was agreed this site should be password protected and not
available to everyone.
o
Andrea stated that while they would set the site up initially, there
would need to be a representative from each agency involved who would
actually log on and update the info. WSTIP would want a data sharing
agreement and an administrative agreement.
They would choose the person and they could also grant read only
access.
o
They would need to set the parameters for pixel size for photos.
Their system accepts input through e-mail so they don’t need us
to log on.
o
Muzzy said we should make it as simple as possible – they don’t care
about fare evasion – but they want to know about violent offense.
Andrea suggested including a filter.
o
Will agencies be able to exclude individuals based on an exclusion
received by another agency?
It was decided this would be possible on a case by case basis.
·
Dave gave an example – registered sex offender – rape attempt on transit
property – determined as untreatable and will re-offend.
Metro Transit will permanently
suspend based on this alone – this is the type of info we would want to
share – this may be someone we would suspend right now based on
information only.
o
Dave suggested perhaps those with existing databases could merge them or
make it so they could be accessed through this localized section.
o
Andrea would like to see the existing databases, she asked Dave J to
e-mail her the databases:
andrea@wstip.org
o
Andrea will talk to her director – Jerry Spears – about our requests
after she has had a chance to review the existing databases.
She feels the data base should start with limited functions and
we can work up from there.
o
Rod suggested we include homeland security reports/updates.
Andrea thinks this can be added with little difficulty.
o
Jerry Spears has also offered to pay for an attorney to come and meet
with us to discuss the legal issues.
o
Rod would like us to include other transit agencies onto this site who
could not travel and participate with this group.
He would like this to be a State-Wide information base.
The by-laws say it is a 1-year term.
Rod stated this is when we were meeting once a month – when we
moved to quarterly meetings we moved to a 2 year term which was not
formally changed in the by-laws.
The elections took place and positions were voted and assigned as
follows:
·
Co-Chair
·
Secretary
WSTA
TSC Expansion
·
Spokane, Vancouver, Yakima, Tri-Cities, Wenatchee and Washington State
Ferries
o
This group would like to work on community outreach, could WSTA generate
a letter to send out to all the agencies listed above?
Maybe do a personal invitation to generate more participation.
o
Bob stated if all the meetings are in the Puget sound area we are not
going to get a lot of participation.
If we are going to include other counties we need to make sure
that we have some meetings in those other counties where it is easier
for them to travel to get to the meetings.
He suggested also having meetings in Sea-Tac – within walking
distance to the airport.
o
Rod suggested having 3 different chapters of this council and having a
once per year meeting where all chapters came together.
He also suggested video conferencing some people into the
meetings – then still getting everyone together, in person, 1 or 2 times
a year.
o
It was decided we should first identify who the others should be.
We will first send out a letter asking if they are interested –
then ask if they want to start their own chapter.
Michelle will work on drafting a letter.
o
Dave would like everyone to identify a list of key players they think
should be involved and e-mail a list to Michelle.
Round
Table
Nobody had anything to report.
It was decided that if we are going to do meetings surrounding lunch
each person should contribute $5 – everyone agreed.
Next
Meeting:
December – 17th
- Host to be determined 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 |
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