 - The Riverton City Council held a work session last week to discuss several potential areas of focus aimed at further improving community and public safety in town.){kind=link}
(Riverton, WY) – The Riverton City Council held a work session last week to discuss several potential areas of focus aimed at further improving community and public safety in town.
Mayor Tim Hancock said the council planned the meeting “because of concerns expressed by members of the community.”
“People wanted to know what (we can) do to improve public safety in Riverton,” Hancock said. “Tonight is a chance for us, as a council, to talk through that question.”
Ideas that were discussed during the meeting include:
- providing more resources for mental health and substance abuse treatment
- enhancing criminal penalties for repeat offenders
- increasing lighting and surveillance throughout town
- creating more stipulations for liquor license holders
- increasing code enforcement, specifically for weeds
- stricter enforcement of curfew rules for minors
Treatment
The work session began with an overview of current court processes by City Attorney Rick Sollars, who outlined the local judicial strategy for addressing drunken driving and public intoxication convictions.
In those cases, Sollars said, “what the court attempts to do is try to get the individual defendants some help” – because incarceration alone tends to lead to recidivism.
“You can throw them in jail for five (or) six months, but … there’s no treatment aspect,” Sollars explained. “They just sit, and when they’re released, then tend to reoffend fairly quickly.
“So the court strives very hard to get people into treatment.”
That process can be challenging, however, Sollars said, citing a lack of substance abuse evaluators and treatment facilities in the area.
Plus, he added, some defendants don’t want to participate in treatment – even if they are offered a bed at an inpatient facility.
“A lot of them walk out,” Sollars said. “(Or they have) declined any help that was being offered. You run into quite a bit of that. … Not all the individuals are wanting to change their lifestyle and get the help that you want.”
Despite that challenge, Hancock said it would be “worthwhile” to consider ways to increase access to substance abuse evaluations for people convicted of alcohol-related crimes in Riverton.
He also recalled earlier community discussions about potentially developing an inpatient treatment center in town.
“That could be incredible,” Hancock said. “It would make it much easier to get people there.”
If the Wind River Job Corps Center closes, the city could consider turning that property into a mental health and substance abuse treatment facility, Councilmember Karen Johnson suggested.
“I really think that that’s something that we should explore (as a) long-term solution,” Johnson said. “I know that there’s other entities and things that are looking at the use of it, but when we look at it as a whole, we have to be making decisions that keep our citizens safe and what best benefits the community, and I think that’s something that we should seriously look at.”
The city could form a tax district to help fund the project, Councilmember Eric Carr said, pointing out that the Job Corps Center is “an enormous facility” that would “cost a lot of money” to operate.
Another option is to “build our own facility,” Carr said.
Either way, Councilmember Mike Bailey agreed that “this is a very, very expensive road to go down.”
“I’m not saying there isn’t room out there,” Bailey said. “(But) the mental health regulations that come down from the federal government make it very challenging.”
Criminal penalties
Bailey said he would like the city to focus on enhancing the criminal penalties for defendants found guilty of the same crime on multiple occasions – particularly theft and assault.
“I think we need to be aggressive in prosecuting those,” he said. “It needs to be uncomfortable to not follow the law in Riverton, Wyoming, and in my opinion the more we get people when they first begin and make it painful, the less crime we’re going to have long-term.”
Johnson and Councilmember Karla Borders agreed
“I think we do need to make it incredibly uncomfortable,” Borders said. “We need to do whatever we’re capable of within our means to hold people accountable.”
“We need to hit them hard on their first charge, (and) set a precedent,” Johnson said.
Lighting
Carr brought forward the idea of improved lighting and surveillance in town during the work session, referencing a “negative experience” a constituent had recently on the Riverwalk pathway.
Hancock said he has been approached by constituents concerned about lighting at certain intersections in town, too, and he also noted that the council previously talked about new lighting and surveillance options at City Park.
“We kind of discount sometimes the importance of lighting (and surveillance), but … it tends to deter crime,” he said. “(And) sometimes we run into issues where there might be some difficulty in proving an offense. … Surveillance can help with that.”
Lighting and surveillance upgrades could be incorporated into the city’s capital improvement plan moving forward, Hancock said, suggesting that staff could conduct a comprehensive survey to identify the “areas where we can improve lighting” in town.
The idea received support from every member of the council.
Liquor licenses
Carr also cited a constituent comment when he asked if the city could “add stipulations” to local liquor licenses to “make people buying alcohol jump through more hoops” in Riverton.
“The constituent that wrote specifically mentioned drive-up,” Carr said. “We’re handing it to them in their vehicle.”
The council plans to have a work session with local liquor license holders in October, Hancock said, and they could discuss that topic then.
Johnson said she would also like to talk about ways to create “more accountability as it relates to our liquor license holders.”
For example, she said Riverton could implement a “point system” that tracks liquor license violations, or the city could incorporate background checks into the licensing process.
Weeds
Johnson also asked about ways to address the “overgrowth” of weeds on private properties throughout town.
“It really gives criminals the best hiding spots,” she said. “Aside from that, it draws rodents. It devalues not only that property, but the property around you. It’s a major health and safety issue. It hurts our economic development, and it’s dangerous for traffic.”
Bailey agreed that “we need to get a little more aggressive on our code enforcement (for) the weeds,” and Hancock said “being able to have that as a topic going forward is a good one.”
“We’re getting a lot of heat up here for weeds,” he said. “That’s a good topic of discussion to figure out.”
Curfew
Johnson mentioned the city’s curfews for minors last week, too, recalling that “we have seen, recently, juveniles that are involved in some serious stuff” in Riverton.
“I think we really need to crack down and hit that hard,” Johnson said. “We can’t just have kids running rampant. … They all have a curfew, and it’s time that we enforce it.”
City code currently prohibits minors from being out on “any of the streets, alleys, or public places in the city” between midnight and 6 a.m. unless they are accompanied by a parent or guardian, performing an “errand or duty directed by” their parent or guardian, or working, Hancock said.
The council plans to continue exploring the community safety topics that were identified last week during their upcoming business meetings.
Hancock said they could also consider re-forming the local Solutions Committee to “discuss some of these things more at length.”
For more information, call the City of Riverton at (307) 856-2227.