Public Safety Committee - Regular Meeting

We are good. Like to welcome everybody to the public safety meeting for May 13, 2025. Look to call the meeting to order. Do I have a motion to accept the agenda? Motion to accept the agenda. So moved. I'll second. All in favor? I. I. Motion carries. Do I have a motion to approve the minutes from the April 8th, 2025 meeting? So move. I'll second. All in favor? I I No public comments, no ordinances and resolutions. And now we have some complaints about street in the city. Would you like to start? We have someone here tonight to talk about. Yes. Thank you, chairman. My name is Anhar Phillips and I live on 182 Clifftop Drive and I represent myself, my husband Alan and my six-year-old daughter. Uh with me to my left uh is my neighbor on uh Inlet Drive and she will be representing herself, her husband and children and grandchildren. Um I'd like to thank you for including this street on the agenda item. It is appreciated. I will use this opportunity briefly in two ways. Namely, to build and foster community relations with our elected leaders and division heads and to seek long-term solutions that will provide more safety and security for the residents of both streets. At the end of the day, we need to do whatever possible to protect our children and our grandchildren. So, if you will entertain a few examples of what I can um tell you as factually correct information that I have borne witness to most of it in the five years that I've lived at Clifftop. Um some of you may know and some of you

may not know the issues. About 2 and a half weeks ago at 3:00 a.m. a dumper truck a dump truck visited the street. Uh we believe that it came down to the street to visit one of the houses that is being built and dumped the content of the house that it had uh offloaded and came to our street to dump the house content at 3:00 in the morning to the construction site. Uh this wasn't the first time. We believe this is the second time. We have dear stalkers. Uh we have multiple trucks that come down the street at the day and at night counting deer. I know that uh this is a hobby for some people because I actually stopped one vehicle who I see daily twice a day every day for a year and a half. And I asked him what he was doing and he said he counts deer. That was 3:30 on a weekday and in the afternoon we did have a spotlighter and Hendersonville police know about this. He used to come every morning up 3:00 a.m. and he used to stop uh particularly at my house and spotlight the house into bedrooms. So one day with the help of Henderson police after this went on for nearly a year and a half um some neighbors got together and stopped the person. Hendersonville police did the heavy duty and questioning and we found out that he counts dear at night but he does it with a spotlight and he spotlight all the houses. Of course we didn't know that at the time. We thought that he might have had nefarious reasons. Um, we have a house and we think that there are nefarious uh things going on at the end of the street where cars come as early as 5:30 in the

morning. Um, we know this because we have some people walk the street at that time early in the morning before going to work to exercise and we see lots of cars outside a particular street and we can't imagine why they were there because it's an elderly gentleman that lives there. We also have a dead end at the end of one of both streets where we have uh picked up and seen people um I like to say getting cozy with one another and leaving condoms full uh at the dead end of the street. We also had uh an example about three and a half weeks ago where we had a gentleman just come down to the street um stop outside our 84 year old neighbor's home and urinate. Uh we later discovered that he actually lives in Jolton but had decided to come down the street to urinate uh in front of the 84 year old neighbor. Um last year uh during one of the construction sites um we caught an illegal alien who had only been in the country for two days. We have a Spanish speaker on the street and she leaves uh the eggs in a Yeti cooler and we just go and collect the eggs and we put the money in the eggs and she left her cooler on her driveway and he thought it was a good idea to come and on her driveway and steal the Yeti, the eggs and the money. Of course, he didn't know what was in the Yeti. He just took the whole thing. Anyway, she uh tracked him down because he came back to the construction site the following day and had a conversation with him and that's how we discovered that he had only been in the country for two days while working on the construction site, but he did return the Yeti and the eggs and the money. Um, we also have thieves as uh Hendersonville police probably knows when you have a construction site

that definitely uh um uh allows burglaries to take place because quite often they know there's going to be tools. So, um my neighbor called HPD at about 11:30 about a month and a half ago and caught the burglary uh while it was going on. uh it was going to be a trailer that was going to be stolen. Um we also have constant flow of traffic particularly in the summer months because of the one house at the end of the street that's very famous. And so we have a gold um we have many many many uh buses but we have a particular one that I see all the time. It's a gold mini bus with windows that constantly does the driveby on my street. um even though the famous person is on the other side of the street but we have a lot of traffic. I understand clearly that it's a public right of way but it is a dead end so they still continue to do the drivebys and as you know Chief Jones we um have a stalker but we also had one five years ago as well. Um so we are here to talk about my street and you have anything to talk about your street which I haven't covered yet? I think you've covered everything. Everything. Yeah. So, we're here to potentially ask you for some solutions. Cameras, license plate readers, signs. Uh I know we are increasing the patrols, but but uh which we are grateful for. It definitely makes us feel safer. Um but with more children now on the street, the street used to be full of, you know, people without children. Now the street is probably more uh full of children. Um, and I'm looking for a long-term solution since we have kids and grandchildren um, when we have potential crazies

visiting the street all the time. These are some of the examples. Thank you. Thank you for sharing. Thank you. Well, so I mean since the we originally had talked about, you know, in the emails that I got, we have I notified evening shift and midnight shift patrol to step up patrols on the street because of the issues obviously. And you know, uh the one residents, they do have their own security personnel. Um, and we have been in contact with them multiple times just as far as for stalkers and things like that. And then there's been, you know, one arrest made um and another one was just identified. But, um, so the of course the issue is, and I think you kind of touched on it, is with being a public street, there's a lot of people, it's not even a tour company. They just come through there because they want to see that house. Nobody knows where it's at. And and for us as a law enforcement agency, there's really not a lot we can do about that. The one thing um that I've I've talked to some other folks and one of the things I encourage them to do is is make sure you know if there's you know we're here 24 hours a day, seven days a week. anytime, I don't care what time of day or night is, if you see something suspicious out of the way or you see, you know, notice cars congregating in at the dead end, call us and let us know because the the reality is as much as, you know, so today, you know, we're we're talking about this one, but I have spent most of the day today uh answering emails from citizens in other areas of the city that are experiencing issues and sending those out to the patrol guys to pay more attention to those areas because we know right now those are hot spots. Okay? And so, you know, it's trying to they have to effectively manage their time to try

to go through these areas, provide extra patrols when they can, and still answer their calls for service. And obviously, I mean, you know, there's only so many of us to be able to do that. So, but we have and I don't mind telling you this, we we have on our during our roll call briefings, uh, hot list is what they call it. And so, it's problem areas that they identify and we're constantly adding to those and after a while if we see some reductions, we'll roll some off, but we kind of have to try to split that up all over town. Um, however, you know, and I encourage people, I've had people when I I work midnight patrol for 17 years, and I can tell you, you know, there's times people call us at two or three in the morning. They go, "Well, we hated the call because it was so late." We're like, "No, we're here. We're working. This is our work day." So, I would rather people call the police department a hundred times and it be nothing than call one not call one time when it is something. Yeah. You know, I would rather us go out and check it out and verify. And so, you know, you mentioned the gentleman with the with the spotlight spotlight houses. Well, that's just ridiculous. And and and they explained life to him in a way that he understood. So, you know, but as far as people just driving by counter early in the morning, spotlighting's different, you know, that's disruptive to the neighborhood and to the, you know, nobody wants their house spotlight that time in the morning. Um, but you know, people driving by and taking pictures and counting deer and you know, that's one of those other things. It's hard for us to do anything about that because there's there's, you know, it's just not a violation of the law. But, you know, but between the extra patrols and like I said, encourage any of your your your neighbors that you talk to to to call us any there's an issue. uh the lady that had her cooler stolen, I wish we would have known about that because you know we would have been more than happy to assist her in recovering that and and

and going down that road. But um you know and and especially with the even with the construction sites we try we just had a case recently where somebody had was hired to haul off debris and they thought it'd be a great idea just to take it somewhere close and dump it because then they didn't have to pay the fee to dump. Yeah, we've had an instance where the exact same thing happened and instead of hauling the debris away, they pushed it into the lake. Yeah. Well, so in an instance like that and you witness that, I mean, we we were more than happy to get the core of engineers involved because I can assure you they take an extremely dim view of that sort of thing. Yes. But our officers, you know, work that dumping case. And just recently, uh, he he took warrants out on the guy that dumped because it's illegal to do that. And so I'm sure that the house that was under construction where stuff was dumped. You know, that contractor should have called us because ultimately now he's going to be responsible for the paying for that cleanup. He's still got to get that out of there. And so I don't think, you know, just like it's not fair to y'all as a residents to have to put up with that. That guy is going to wind up paying out of his pocket now to clean all that up. And that's not fair. I mean, that's just wrong. And so, you know, I all the best I can do is assure you, you know, we will increase patrols. We will do everything we can. Um, and and encourage you all to call anytime there's an issue and let us come out and try to deal with it. Um, you know, us being in the aerial help, but when you see stuff and we make contact with people, even if at that point they're not doing anything wrong, at the very least it lets them know that that we're going to be there. we're going to show up and push them on notice. And if they are considering doing something they're not supposed to be doing, they may rethink that or go somewhere else, you know. Is can the city provide um license plate readers or just signs like signage

to potentially put people off? Like we could say for example you were being recorded or enter at your own risk or you know just something you know to potentially sort of say oh maybe we shouldn't be going down here. Well so we don't put up signage but I can tell you from a license plate reader standpoint. We have some HOAs in the city that have gotten license plate readers on their own through their HOA association. Um, and what those companies do that puts if if an HOA does that, the Greece put up a camera on their own, we still get the data feeds from those LPR cameras because of the company that we deal with and they actually have a a different plan set up for HOAs because it's a different type of camera. Um, but we don't we we just have a limited number of license plate readers that we can put out in the city because of the cost of them. And so those are usually reserved for larger intersections and major roadways, you know, Main Street, the bypass, that sort of thing. So, uh, we don't we don't put them usually in neighborhoods. Um, could we get a price for them? And if the street if the neighborhood wanted to purchase that, could they do that? We we would be happy to if they wanted to contact me, we'd be happy to put them in contact with the vendor that we use, you know, and that I will say there's multiple vendors out there. Um, but the vendor that we use does have a um I'm trying to think of, but a division of their company that specifically does uh residential areas and HOAs and things like that. That that's that's one of the things that they offer. Um, we don't we don't really deal with that, but I can, you know, the police department can absolutely put you in contact with them. Yeah. Well, that information. What about

signage? Is that a city conversation? Well, so when they normally put up signs like that, there has to be it has to be a warning that there's some type of violation. I will tell you, we do not advertise where LPR cameras are at. And there's a very specific reason for that is if somebody's there doing something, we don't particularly want them to know that their camera their tags are being captured. If we don't have an LPR, could we still put up the signs like if we Can I ask this question? What would you like the sign to say? I would like to um uh uh you know have a brainstorming sessions and and and see what you think. What other what other communities use? What's the standard? I mean could we say slow down or you were being recorded or you know what are the standard signage that we could have? Well there is standard sign and I used to have a signing graphics company for 40 years so I can speak to this subject. Yes. Um I think the best you can do is put up neighborhood watch signs and create an organization to do that. And there's somewhere a system to do that. Anything further than that I it's like if you you run into problems when you say I'm a v you're under video surveillance. Um, when I used to do it for private companies or shopping centers, things like that, the issue they always worried about was the other side of it. If they need, they want the copy of the videotape and stuff like that. And are you really videotaping or is it just a scare tactic of don't park here? Yeah. And so what you get into is sign clutter. You could say a dozen things up and down that street that create sign clutter or two, three neighborhood watch signs in an organization that does exactly what you're already doing. Neighborhood watch. I I don't mind that sign. That may be quite good because we don't have one. Um we did have more signage, but did it come down? I haven't seen it lately. You have a pseudo neighborhood watch because you're already watching what happens in your neighborhood. So

you really already have it established. Yeah. All he's saying is put the sign up and continue doing what you're doing with a watchful eye. And then, you know, a person coming down there to pee or whatever. They may see it and say, "Oh, now they're watching us and they may turn around and go pee somewhere else, which is what you want them to do." That's right. I wanted you to pee in somebody else's neighborhood, but that's that's up to their silliness. Yeah. Neighborhood watch would be a great place to start, I feel like. Is that something that the city pays for or do we have to club together as a neighborhood and and pay for it? That I do not public works would be the best place to go and ask that question or maybe I'll uh send us an email to Mark Skidmore, Eddie Robersonson, and uh who else is on public works? Martin, Mike Martin. All right. Yeah, Martin Skidmore and Robersonson. I just seen Eddie and ask them. And and that varies, right? sometimes. I mean, again, if you're if you were considering buying a camera, I can tell you right now, signs are going to be much cheaper than a camera. Yes. And if that's where you wanted to start, you're starting at ground level. And then if you want to pursue it, like chief general was saying, then he could certainly guide you to he may not have anything other than that's Yeah. Yes. Have to be recognized by the chair before I speak. Um, so I sit on the public works. We get the the roads committee and whenever there's a request that goes through public works, we'll sit down and discuss whether or not additional stop signs, lights, changes to the within the public road rightway are appropriate. Um, most likely it's going to be you requesting permission to put up your own bought purchased sign within the road right of way which would need to be approved by uh public works and then you would approve also where to put it. They'd work with you. You would you would propose a place to put it. Okay. Um it would be discussed and then a recommendation would then go forward to

the public works committee. Um and then it more than likely end up going to Bow for some kind of a recognition for that. Okay. But you're really requesting permission to put something within the road right away. Yeah. Yeah. I understand there's nothing much else that can be done because it's a public road and you want to have it in the public road right away because if you had it on private property, there are time limits on when you could actually have a sign on your private property. So you want to get that permission to have it in perpetuity. Okay. On the public. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I've even noticed um people come fishing down there on the street and um and that um I I know that the core of engineers owns the lake shore area, but you have to cross somebody's property to get to the lake shore area. And a lot of people don't know that. So there's a lot of fishermen that come down and park and they have to they don't know they're trespassing but they are trespassing in order to get to the shoreline. So we also have have that issue as well. Um and and and let me just tell you the core is real funny about that. They say you can't restrict access to the waterway. Now if they're parking in a way that's not legal then that's a whole another situation that the police can address. like say they're parking and blocking the road up or blocking somebody's driveway and we can come and address that. But um I I will tell you that it's very difficult to restrict access to the shoreline for fishing because they say that's what you know the core exercises an awful lot of control. So So you could still walk over somebody else's unless they've changed it recently then yes. I mean, you can't, you know, if you're walking like, well, I'm I'm going to give you kind of a vague example, but if if there's a house

here and a house here and they're just trying to walk down the center, you know, obviously they can't walk up around by your patio or something like that. But if they're just walking straight to the water to fish, you know, there's not there's not a whole lot that can be done about that unless they've changed that recently. the way it was that they had to have access to the waterway and even if it's not technically a public access, you know, like where they can drive down to it. Yeah. And and believe me, we've actually dealt with somebody who thought it was okay to drive between somebody's house to get and we explained to them that was totally unacceptable cuz there is a boat ramp just around the corner, but they still come to our street. Um, and also I believe we have deer hunters on our street as well. Um, and I'm not sure that that's legal. It is if with within there's a whole I mean it would take the rest of the night to go through all the limitations with that. Within certain applications, it is legal in the city. So, the city has an ordinance about discharging firearms. However, yes, the TWWR state legislation overrides that if it's hunting, even inside the city limits. Yes. And that's state law. But I mean, there's restrictions. It can't be too close to a house and it has to be done safely and I mean there's a lot of there's a lot of finer points of that but yes. Okay. All right. Uh you and have anything going down there. Anything else? Let's get it to public safety. I think we do an email there. I think it would be good to check with him about that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Um shall I um send you an email asking you to give me details of the vendor? We can just check the price. I'm sure it's thousands. It's you could you it's it's probably it's expensive. It's probably not as much as

you think it may be. But uh if you can uh if you want to send me an email and get you that if you Yeah, we I mean we can we can talk about it as a neighborhood and see if that's something that we want to pursue. And if we do, that's the cost. And if we don't, well, they don't have to. But as there are more new properties or or not new properties, more uh newly built properties, we seem to have a lot more traffic and um you know, construction people maybe um you know, they know that it's there. So, let me let me tell you too, if you're having trouble with the construction folks down there, and we work very closely with our coach department, and there's limitations on when they can start construction in the mornings. And yeah, we've had we've had problems. So, if you if you have those issues, let us know. Y and you know, either codes department will go out and put them on notice that they're they're operating outside the limits or we'll go outside them for that. So, you know, and it's the same way if they're, you know, they can't be tracking the whole road up with mud and stuff from that. If they do, they're they're required to clean it. So, you know, issues like that, those quality of life issues, you know, we'll be glad to help you address those also. Yeah. There's a the construction company, they use one of their vehicles. It's, you know, like the army tank uh what do you Yeah. And that goes up and down the street and puts a lot of mud, but I've never seen them clean up. Well, they're supposed to if they're if they're leaving debris on the street, they're supposed to come back and clean it. Yeah, because I also noticed that the streets being dug up and probably that's another email is to have our street repaved because there's an awful lot of debris. Um, public works. Yeah. Public works. Yes. Yeah. And and I've been through that in our neighborhood and it's of course they they know I live there. So, a lot of the neighbors came to me and they're like, "They're putting a new water line in.

They tore the street out." I said, "Okay, here's what we need to do." And so, you know, and public works actually, they made them fix all that. So, that's an email then after the construction because there's all this grit and rocks and everything and potholes. Yeah. And because we also have really bad drainage problem, all the water goes over the street and digs up all the uh the which asphalt. Is it asphalt? Concrete? Yeah. Asphalt. Yeah. So, I know that's another email. I seem to be sending odd emails. You'll hear from me. Sarah Block. All right. I got it. Yes. After the construction has finished because obviously there's been there's there's two houses under construction still on the street. I can get you all of the You need to send that. Yeah. Thank you. And then we can revisit. Anybody have anything else? Do you have any No. Okay. You good? You good? Yeah, that's me then. Thank you very much. Do I have a motion to adjurnn? Motion to adjurnn. I'll second. All in favor? I I thank you. should do