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The city of Billings is hosting a series of podcasts to inform residents about the Parks Recreation and Trails Bond. Well-developed and well-maintained parks have been shown to reduce crime and deterrence in neighborhoods. Engaging youth with parks and recreation programs can help break the cycle of violence and create positive environments. The police department is implementing the Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) principles to make parks safer. Improving lighting and visibility can help deter criminal activity. Evaluations of parks are being conducted to identify and address safety issues. The focus on parks is not meant to ignore the need for a jail expansion, but to divert people out of the justice system and address underlying issues such as addiction and mental health. The Parks and Rec department is also providing activities for youth to keep them engaged and away from crime. Installing lights in parks can help prevent criminal activity and allow law enforce you you all right hello and good morning this is Victoria Hill a public information officer for the city of Billings and we're hosting a series of podcasts this week focused on the Parks Recreation and Trails Bond ballots are going to go out on the 18th so coming up here in two days and we want to go over a variety of topics to inform folks so they know what they're voting for they can make the best the best decision that they think what we should do next on this Parks Recreation and Trails Bond and so today we have two guests with us we have sergeant Nate West and I also have Chief Rich St. John with us and he's here to answer some questions on public safety Nate's here to talk about the public step test so crime prevention through environmental design and so let's go ahead and get started with some questions that we have first of all chief I want to know overall public safety how does public safety connect to our parks recreation and trail yeah I get that question an awful lot there is a direct correlation to well-developed well-maintained and activated parks to public safety there are numerous studies that have taken place across the country with those results that show reduction in crime deterrence of crime in neighborhoods that are surrounded by well-maintained and well well developed and used parks and so really the message is very simple is that they know we're struggling with with some crime issues here and one of the strategic objectives that we have at the police department is to try to alleviate some of our jail issues by getting people deferred and directed out of the justice system and one of the best ways to do that is through the well-developed parks so on the on that end of it that's that's where the correlation is on the concept of connecting children and our youth with parks and recreation opportunities how that will have an impact it's not immediate than later on yeah absolutely domestic violence accounts for close to 50% of the assaults whether it's misdemeanor or aggravated that we saw last year and a lot of those are learned habits in a dysfunctional family setting we know that there are no father figures we know that they learned it somewhere and if we could eliminate or minimize those incidents and our crime at least on the assault side would just drop off the table and so you know certainly we need to break that cycle and one way to do that is to engage the youth of our community with programs with facilities things that are going to really occupy them in positive ways not you know running around at night without supervision because that as we know nothing good comes of that and of late some pretty serious incidents have come just that situation so tip steps have been around for a while it's not it's not new in law enforcement but it is new in our in our community so a group of not just police personnel but people from around city departments got to go through SEPTED training about six months ago and it kind of really opened our eyes and started planning of how we could use this in our community so we actually put together a committee it's made up of multiple departments throughout our city and ultimately we're kind of starting to plan how we're going to implement that into our community right so we talk about natural surveillance and that's a big deterrent is whether law enforcement driving by and we'll just talk about parks because we're that's what we're talking about so law enforcement driving by and being able to see criminal activity or even people citizens in that neighborhood able to see that park and we can do that by cleaning up trees shrubs and one of the biggest problems that all of our parks have in our city is lack of lighting right so there if you go out after dark and you drive around these parks they're beautiful in the daytime but at night they're completely dark which invites criminal activity people know they can't be seen one of the picnic shelters there it does a comparison of before lighting and then after lighting and applying those steps head principles so that's just one example of the difference that people can expect to see around our parks do you have any other any other things in the works so actually tomorrow or not Wednesday this week myself and Nick Miller from parks we're going out and we're going to do evaluations on the skate park and then we're going to do an evaluation on Optimist Park and those are going to be our first evaluations that we go at find what the problems are and then we have a an awesome crime analyst with the city of Billings and we used her to pull numbers on these parks so we can actually focus on what problems that we have in those parks and guide how we're going to fix those problem well I think one thing that needs to be pointed out is that when we look at the violence problem was obviously just talking about Billings here we need to look at it from a public health standpoint as well I mean truly if we can get a handle on that we are presenting opportunities to find solutions to create healthy spaces for our citizens and really that's what this initiative is all about what Nate was referring to is really the nuts and bolts on how we get there to make those parks safe and make them you know easy for us or easier for us to police and you know get some social buy-in and stock from the community that this you know people care about what the parks look like it speaks volumes when when you have you know facilities that are well-kept well-maintained and really used and you said you mentioned the words getting there people want answers now they want solutions right now but what is the reality when it comes to public safety and I mean getting there certainly well parts apart I mean it took us 10 years of slowly getting where we were at to probably all-time worst numbers ever in 2020 and so with the the implementation not one but two safety levies we were able to apply resources and strategies which have systematically turned those numbers the other way however it's taken a couple years and we're not where we need to be yet and so I think it's the same concept here there's a lot of parks there's a lot of projects and there's a lot of you know overarching concerns about safety so as we you know implement all the things that Nate's talking about what the parks want to do with things that then we will slowly start seeing those improvements which are going to affect public safety to the positive but you took a little while to get there and so it's going to take a little while to get it where we want and there's also questions right now around why why be parks recreation and trails bond right now when we have so much more going on in our community and one of those talking points that people bring up is the jail why are we not investing in the jail well partially the city was just happens to be ready right now to pursue this parks recreation and trails bond and so chief why not put our focus on the jail right now well our focus is on the jail right now and we are in very active conversations with our community partners specifically the sheriff and the county commissioners looking for solutions and again a big part of that is to divert people out of the justice system I want to make it very clear and on the presentations that I've been on that we definitely need a jail expansion we are grossly under jail cell if you will for a community this size and there are some really bad people doing bad things that need to be in jail I will never discount that however one of the strategies is to keep people out of there that shouldn't be we have people with co-occurring addiction issues mental health that are clogging up the system other agencies Department of Corrections for the state of Montana has a fair number of inmates there these are things that we can work on to reduce the capacity issues there but the one big thing that we've always talked about is let's divert people out if we can so like I said there's people that need to be there but what we're looking at here are young families kids that if we can engage them early on and we won't have to deal with them down the road and then that will help our issue with the jail bottom line we need both at this point it's almost like a puzzle piece I mean there's multiple parts to making a safe and healthy community and so this would be one part or one piece that we are trying to tackle right now and this past summer Parks and Rec hosted for the first time Rec2U so that did give kids some activities to do over the summer when otherwise they might be sitting home playing video games not being mobile so that's one of the attempts that we're making to give the youth some options out there so while we're having this conversation I also wanted to ask we have you know people are questioning that Ted and how helpful it could be to our community so I know one of the questions I came across was are some lights really going to stop people from doing something bad in the park or in the neighborhood? And so people we have ordinances people aren't supposed to be in the parks at night but they know they can get into parks they know they're dark they know that the police are busy and they're going to go into parks and hang out and do criminal activity and more than likely get away with it we spend some money we make those parks well lit whether it's a neighbor in the area see something suspicious or it's maybe an officer driving by on his way to a call and he sees people in the park that shouldn't be whereas he wouldn't know that they weren't well lit he can stop and enforce that and get him out of And we had a conversation last week about SEPTED and building these things right off the bat so if we, if the bond passes and these plans come together with SEPTED in mind it's more cost effective the first time around rather than building something and then trying to go back and build with SEPTED principles. Correct and we were talking about parks right now but there are communities around the nation that actually have implemented this into their state codes so like when they start a building plan for a new building or a school like SEPTED principles are introduced to that to make it more safe from the get-go and really there's not a bunch of extra cost that goes into it when you do it as part of your planning and development so well I can't say we're going to go that route it's we've talked about it in our planning but I think it would be it'd be more beneficial in the long run and we thought we're talking about parks right now but you can use it for businesses you can use it for residential so it's the concepts are beneficial and useful in every aspect of our community we do have some checklists and we'd be more than happy to send send somebody out and go go over a residence or just answer questions so they can contact me here at the Crime Prevention Center you know we wouldn't be trying to use this if we didn't think it was going to be beneficial and I know the public perception in our community is that crime is out of control and crime is it's here it's going to stay here and the bet that if you think about law enforcement or officers on patrol they're out responding to call so they're being reactive to crime right well this is our opportunity to be proactive and try to act like try to prevent crime so statistically around the nation communities that have implemented FEPTED into their community have seen a decrease in crime from 30 to 80 percent from the issues that they're trying to fix so it's proven beneficial that's why we want to use it I've taken some steps at my home to include some more lighting that stays on overnight and clearing all the brush from back out behind the alley because if you think of it, that really would give somebody an opportunity to hide and maybe do something that they're trying to hide from the public so again the ballots will go out on October 18 they are due by November 7th so anyone watching this live stream they have some details there on their screen there's 16 different projects locations and the overall goal is to enhance the health and safety of Billings and so we have projects just entirely across the city of Billings that we're also going to have some more guests on this week we have later today coming on we have our city administrator and our finance director we're going to have conversations about public health we're going to have conversations about parks and rec themselves and and the impact that it will have on business and so if you're looking for any information you can visit the website that's on the screen or scan the QR code you can visit BillingsMP.gov slash parks bond 2023 and 143 million dollar bond is the app that you'll see on your ballot overall it's 173 million dollars in total projects but with contributions from members of our community and organizations we're able to bring that total down in the app to 143 million dollars well I wanted to thank both of you for joining us today and if you have any questions anyone's watching this after the fact and has any questions you can submit them in the comment section or you can send a message to the inbox you can visit the questions form on the parks bond web page that we have and submit a question there and we will get you an answer thank you so much for being here with us and listening and watching and we'll get to next time. Thank you guys, appreciate you rolling with the munchies. Nobody commented for a second. Yeah, I've done them before. Yeah, we usually wait until after. Last time we did this, I think maybe one question came through. On this topic? It was on... The last time I was in here with you and that... We went over the annual report. Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you both for... Yeah. Getting through this thing. Who's up next? We have Chris and Andy this afternoon. Stick around and figure this out a little more. No, we're good. Thank you, Victoria. Yeah, thank you both, appreciate it. They're not so locked into time as we are. See ya.