MORGANTOWN — The Morgantown Civilian Police Review and Advisory Board is considering if and how it would like to weigh in on the citywide camping ban coming to an unspecified future agenda of Morgantown City Council.
The issue came up during Thursday’s regular monthly meeting.
It was initially suggested the board could draft a statement laying out its position on the matter.
Robert Cohen offered another suggestion.
“I’m not sure about issuing a public statement from the board. What I do think is the board could play a very-positive role here in doing research on whether there really is an increase in crime attributable to people who are homeless,” he said.
“We have authority to do this; to look into records and make findings and report it to the public. It would take some work. We’d have to delve into the records, but I think that would a useful thing we might want to consider.”
Cohen referenced comments made by Police Chief Eric Powell during the July 2 city council meeting in which the chief said the number of property crimes and violent crimes haven’t really changed much year over year.
Ultimately, the body formed a three-member work group comprised of Bryan Church, Catherine Fonseca and Robert Cohen to work out if and how the board would like to contribute to the discussion and provide that information for consideration at the Sept. 12 meeting.
“I just don’t want to see it delay past our next meeting just because this is a very-timely issue,” Megan Gandy said. “If we wait until October, it may be too late.”
In other news, the advisory board is gearing up for a series of focus groups to be held at the Morgantown Public Library later this month.
The group would like to hear the public’s thoughts on safety and policing in the city.
Focus groups will be held from 3:30-5 p.m. on Aug. 14; from 9:30-11 a.m. on Aug. 24; and from 5:30-7 p.m. on Aug. 27.
There will also be a session conducted via Zoom from 5-6:30 p.m. on Sept. 3.
Gandy said she would like to limit the size of each session so that everyone gets a chance to be heard.
“So, I really need people to RSVP to me so that I can get a head count and ask folks to go to certain meetings if they have the availability,” she said.
Gandy can be reached at megan.gandy@mail.wvu.edu.
The information gathered through the focus group process will be used to inform questions on a future survey.
The board has requested $10,000 from the city to conduct the survey, which would use a randomized sample of mailing addresses to request feedback from 7,500 homes.
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