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City Council looking into security at Brand Park
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| The City Council has requested cost estimates for security measures such as video cameras and increased lighting at Brand Park in response to local residents’ demands for a long-term response to crime there. (Tammy Abbott/News-Press) |
Northwest Glendale residents vent frustration over delays in long-term response to crime.
By Jason Wells
CITY HALL — Possible security enhancements at Glendale parks will undergo a thorough vetting in coming weeks after the City Council on Tuesday requested cost estimates for everything from video surveillance to increased lighting.
The call for more detailed price estimates came after northwest Glendale residents vented frustration at the City Council meeting Tuesday over what they said were unnecessary delays in developing a comprehensive long-term response to crime at Brand Park following a drive-by shooting in June 2007 in which no one was hurt.
While they praised the city’s response immediately after the shooting, including the introduction of a gate at one entrance and a guard at the other, residents bemoaned the 10 months it’s taken to develop a detailed list of long-term fixes, like gates, a permanent guard station, more police patrols and other measures.
Given the three community input meetings and months of prep time, residents had hoped parks officials would have prepared a more detailed cost analysis for Tuesday “so you could really move ahead with it instead of wondering what kind of motion you should be taking today,” Joanna Clark, a neighbor of Brand Park, told the council.
By evening’s end, the City Council had parlayed the criticism into a plan to split up what parks officials warned would be a lengthy, complicated security report so that more immediate actions could be taken.
“Believe me, the message is clear,” Mayor John Drayman said. “There’s frustration on the part of the public, there was some form of miscommunication, or fill in the blank, but the bottom line is . . . we just don’t have enough information to act in the way they need us to at this point.”
Putting together a response that incorporates physical alterations, technology and staffing is an effort that a city report estimated could millions of dollars a require in depth planning.
From high-tech video monitoring systems that require massive storage capacity and potentially expensive maintenance to physical alterations meant to address myriad user concerns that vary widely from park to park prompted city officials to seek direction from the City Council on how they wanted the information disseminated first.
“This was going to be such a complicated report that we wanted to hold off until the budget process,” said George Chapjian, director of the Parks, Recreation and Community Services Department.
A survey taken during a February community input meeting at Brand Park garnered complaints about loitering, loose-running dogs, graffiti, disruptive sports games played in picnic areas, smoking and other activities.
The range of issues, together with the range of potential city responses, had City Council members calling for separate, more-detailed reports on what improvements could be made at which parks, at what cost, and for what problems.
“I need to know what the problem is,” Councilman Ara Najarian said, adding that installing a video monitoring system for a hundreds of thousands of dollars may not be the best answer for all park problems. “That’s an expensive use of resources for something that might not solve our problem.”
A report on possible physical improvements, such as gates for fenced-in parks like Brand Park, increased lighting and heavier pruning of dense shrubs may come back to the council as soon as the first part of May, Chapjian said.
More expensive and complicated measures, such as increased staffing or using video surveillance, will come back to the council at a later time after officials have had time to research, he added.
Tammi Reylea, a board member for the Northwest Glendale Homeowners Assn. who has pushed for the improvements at Brand Park and spoke at Tuesday’s council meeting, said she was still disappointed by the slow progress and looked forward to the upcoming reports.
“Quite frankly, I think the city can do better than this,” she said. “When they’re all on the same page, they can get things done.”
JASON WELLS covers City Hall. He may be reached at (818) 637-3235 or by e-mail at jason.wells@latimes.com.
The call for more detailed price estimates came after northwest Glendale residents vented frustration at the City Council meeting Tuesday over what they said were unnecessary delays in developing a comprehensive long-term response to crime at Brand Park following a drive-by shooting in June 2007 in which no one was hurt.
While they praised the city’s response immediately after the shooting, including the introduction of a gate at one entrance and a guard at the other, residents bemoaned the 10 months it’s taken to develop a detailed list of long-term fixes, like gates, a permanent guard station, more police patrols and other measures.
Given the three community input meetings and months of prep time, residents had hoped parks officials would have prepared a more detailed cost analysis for Tuesday “so you could really move ahead with it instead of wondering what kind of motion you should be taking today,” Joanna Clark, a neighbor of Brand Park, told the council.
By evening’s end, the City Council had parlayed the criticism into a plan to split up what parks officials warned would be a lengthy, complicated security report so that more immediate actions could be taken.
“Believe me, the message is clear,” Mayor John Drayman said. “There’s frustration on the part of the public, there was some form of miscommunication, or fill in the blank, but the bottom line is . . . we just don’t have enough information to act in the way they need us to at this point.”
Putting together a response that incorporates physical alterations, technology and staffing is an effort that a city report estimated could millions of dollars a require in depth planning.
From high-tech video monitoring systems that require massive storage capacity and potentially expensive maintenance to physical alterations meant to address myriad user concerns that vary widely from park to park prompted city officials to seek direction from the City Council on how they wanted the information disseminated first.
“This was going to be such a complicated report that we wanted to hold off until the budget process,” said George Chapjian, director of the Parks, Recreation and Community Services Department.
A survey taken during a February community input meeting at Brand Park garnered complaints about loitering, loose-running dogs, graffiti, disruptive sports games played in picnic areas, smoking and other activities.
The range of issues, together with the range of potential city responses, had City Council members calling for separate, more-detailed reports on what improvements could be made at which parks, at what cost, and for what problems.
“I need to know what the problem is,” Councilman Ara Najarian said, adding that installing a video monitoring system for a hundreds of thousands of dollars may not be the best answer for all park problems. “That’s an expensive use of resources for something that might not solve our problem.”
A report on possible physical improvements, such as gates for fenced-in parks like Brand Park, increased lighting and heavier pruning of dense shrubs may come back to the council as soon as the first part of May, Chapjian said.
More expensive and complicated measures, such as increased staffing or using video surveillance, will come back to the council at a later time after officials have had time to research, he added.
Tammi Reylea, a board member for the Northwest Glendale Homeowners Assn. who has pushed for the improvements at Brand Park and spoke at Tuesday’s council meeting, said she was still disappointed by the slow progress and looked forward to the upcoming reports.
“Quite frankly, I think the city can do better than this,” she said. “When they’re all on the same page, they can get things done.”
JASON WELLS covers City Hall. He may be reached at (818) 637-3235 or by e-mail at jason.wells@latimes.com.
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