OKLAHOMA CITY – Pedestrian safety, an overflow shelter for the homeless, and a new maintenance contract on the latest police helicopter surveillance equipment were addressed by the Oklahoma City Council Tuesday.
All Council members were present.
Vision Zero passes unanimously
The goal of Vision Zero is to improve pedestrian safety in Oklahoma City. The staff for this program have been working to secure funding and create a concrete plan.
It was the final vote that would decide if the resolution would be adopted. The vote passed unanimously and moved plans into action by implementing more projects across Oklahoma City.
The council voted 9-0 for the measure.
“We have standards around bike lane design and access management. I think the access management and bike lane standards will probably be updated in the first half of this year,” Justin Henry, transportation planner, told Free Press after the vote.
Vision Zero has a long list of plans and ideas that they have processed with neighborhood meetings throughout the city. Bike lanes and access management, like driveways, are just a part of what Vision Zero hopes to achieve.
Henry gave some insight into the experience Vision Zero has had with the City up to this point. “We’ve had a really good collaboration internally within the City and we have had a lot of public input.”
St. Paul’s Cathedral receives funding to support homeless families
St. Paul’s Cathedral approached the council to secure funding for an overflow shelter to provide beds to homeless families on nights when the temperature drops below 32 degrees for three or more consecutive days assisting the City Rescue Mission, City Care, and the Homeless Alliance in the effort to provide a collective 400 beds.
Jamie Caves, Homelss Strategy Implementation Manager for the Key To Home Partnership, said, “St. Paul’s is specifically for families. We have other winter shelter responses for single adults and other people.” St. Paul’s is hoping to do their part in housing homeless families.
St. Paul’s will be providing things like food and sleeping arrangements for the people they bring in.
Caves said they will need, “staff support, food, sleeping pads, and other supplies they will need to support people in the community who are experiencing homelessness.”
The council approved $10,000 for St. Paul’s for this effort with an 8-1 vote.
FLIR Ultra 380HDc support helicopters
The Council voted on service maintenance plans and warranties for the FLIR Ultra 380HDc Air Support equipped OKCPD helicopters that patrol the City typically at night and assist officers on the ground.
These are state-of-the-art FLIR-equipped support helicopters in service over Oklahoma City when needed. They feature visual, thermal, low-light, and short-wave infrared (SWIR) cameras.
The sensitive equipment is capable of finding someone running from officers or someone missing in the woods.
MSgt. Gary Knight, assistant public information officer with the Oklahoma City Police Department, explained the purpose of the equipment to Free Press. “I think the most common way people think of is catching criminals and it certainly has that role. But it also helps us locate missing people,” said Knight.
Improving dramatically over the years in its heat visualization, this is the kind of live camera that can find even a bullet casing that was recently fired, because of the thermal cameras.
It also has low-light capabilities allowing officers to find someone running from them or someone who went missing.
The next meeting of the Oklahoma City Council will be on March 11th at 8:30 AM.
Michael Luis Farrell is a freelance journalist covering city governments in the Oklahoma City metro. He has lived in OKC his entire life and has been a reporter for The Pioneer newspaper at OCCC.
