 Hi everybody, Mayor Betsy here. It's great to see you for, for our 37th National Night Out. We have some special guests today and of course masks always get hung in your ear rings. I hope you're enjoying your neighborhood and that you can get engaged on a zoom call or however social distance you do it. But I'm going to jump right in. Today I've got Assistant Chief Charlie Ramirez with us from the Police Department. Charlie, welcome. Thank you Mayor. I appreciate the invite. It's great to have you with us. It's a strange way to be doing national night out. It really is. It really is because you and I are both people persons and we love being out there. Yes we do, but we'll make it work. Yes. But it's a big community building night for families, for neighborhoods to really get to know the police department. So tell us a little bit about what y'all are doing or how people can connect with their police department better. Well you know this is a great opportunity. National Night Out has always been that annual campaign that the police department can out there and really reach the neighbors and allow neighbors to communicate with neighbors on that night as well. But what we're doing a little bit differently I think because of COVID is we're asking the citizens of Fort Worth or anybody to join us on a virtual the National Night Out. I know it's a little bit strange but again we really wanted to let the residents know that we're here for them and even though we can't be with them in person we are here for their needs and you know as they we move through this all together. It's different but you know COVID has changed the way we do a lot of things and I really think that this is just another example of how neighbors are going to have to learn to get out and social distance from each other and do things and what about their NPO's? Are their NPO's still out doing their job? Of course you know they're they're still doing the the events they normally do but just for smaller so smaller crime watches smaller forms that they're trying to get and a lot of things virtually so we're really using technology to help us still communicate with our with our co-blue members and our neighbors. So yeah we continue to do the job but it has changed and we just have to adjust and I think you know once we get through it we'll be we'll be fine. Fortunately we'll have most of our kids back in school shortly. Oh yes. That'll free up but one of the beauties of of this COVID thing I've seen my NPO a lot more he's out driving around has a little more time it seems like and more neighbors are outside walking riding running riding their bikes running are you guys seeing some connection? Oh I agree I think even in my neighborhood we're walking more we're not being able to get to the gym like we used to so we're taking advantage of the great weather that we're having and communicating that way so yeah neighbors getting to know neighbors again people getting out of the house from behind that you know the doors and open them up so yeah we we are trying to take advantage of but again our neighbor police officers have always been in that community and they're always making sure they contact their the folks they know on their beat. And what are a couple things you can name that police departments have done in the last two three four years to really improve community connections? Well you know there's there's a lot of things but more importantly we've I think you know early on we've always been known for our community policing but some efforts we've really tried is training that we've included that our community to come in and experience we've actually invited them into our police academy classes as well to talk but more than anything being more transparent in what we do and using social media to really push anything that we have come coming through the calendar or invite people in and as we continue to do forums virtually as well so again just the constant communication the the thinking out of the box really when it comes to how we look at how we we maintain the trust or earn the trust of our community moving forward. And we have Code Blue and Citizens on Patrol and how do people volunteer for that if they want to and what do they do? Well that's you know it again we have it's a little bit different with COVID but we're we're still asking folks you know we're doing our Citizens Police Academy virtually so even though you can't come down to the academy experience a lot of things that you normally would we're still able to communicate that way. Code Blue is the same way we do have our citizens who are still willing to go out there in patrol they're staying in their cars and staying safe distance away and making sure they they you know adhere to the to the CDC and of course the governor's order when it comes to meetings and stuff so there's always opportunities to volunteer there's always opportunities to get involved in all that's listed on a website but a few again our police academy and for our youth we have our PAL program which we started back up we have the gyms open but at a limited capacity and PAL is. PAL Police Athletically and so we do the boxing and we do the football basketball and all those events for the kids and now you mentioned they were going back to school that's exactly what we're going to use it for again so there's still lots of ways to get involved we may be limiting on how many we can use this time but you know as soon as we can we're going to get back into it we have a police department that has done a beautiful job reaching out in the community and getting connected are we perfect no but none of us are perfect but we're making great strides in that direction and I'm pleased that under chief Krause and his executive team up which you remember you guys have done great leadership particularly trying to engage our neighborhoods so we have we have tried and we'll continue to do so and I know you know it it is tough um from the national sentiment around with law enforcement but I think you know our department is is different in a lot of ways because we've always done community policing community policing since I've been here and that's going on 30 years now so again any opportunity we can to develop those partnerships and and regain regain that trust and we listen to the community and their concerns and we've made major responses in this time's budget and in some of our repositioning on uh ccpd dollars to try to address some of that but this this is a community that supports our police department you feel that oh yes and we saw that when we did the ccpd uh renewal uh it was amazing that the community really overwhelmingly decided that you know the department and the city needed this to move forward because you know a safe city for everyone is is is really a key and it's it's just where we are right now yeah you guys are doing a great job thank you charlie well thank you for being with us you guys get to know your npo and all your officers that you see find out who they are tell them who you are and get engaged volunteer for code blue citizens on patrol or take your kids to the police athletic league and let them play basketball or box they might even let us do it right we will if you come down there thank you thank you you know covid has really changed the way we connect to our neighborhoods and what's going on and national night out usually we're out and about today i've got a friendly face with me for tonight still it's brandon been at our city code compliance director and city health official brandon i've had you on facebook live several times yep yep thank you for having me tonight also it's great to have you in this warrior it is 2020 is a strange year anyway so you know in fort worth we're so used to hugging and and and and having barbecue on national night out and and all the other fun things and we'll try to make it just as enjoyable virtually this year and your crews like me you're usually out at five or six different neighborhoods as many as you can make and be all over town yeah absolutely so it's it's strange to have it so tell us a little bit about during covid what y'all have done and what families can do for their family we talk about this a lot but i think a national night out is a great time for us to talk again about kids going back to school more sports gatherings more outdoor gatherings what really would you say they need to be doing you know i i am every day i get more and more impressed by the things that people do and particularly in neighborhoods and this is an awesome opportunity uh for people to reconnect in their neighborhoods i know when you're talking with the police chief you mentioned that a lot of your neighbors are out walking and and so are mine and there are neighbors that i've never had a conversation with and now i have a conversation with them all the time and and and and that is uh if there's a silver lining to all of this one of the best ones it'd be better for our health yeah but you know neighborhoods what we're seeing is uh uh them being creative uh not too long ago we had a neighborhood not too far from me where um all the neighbors sat out in their front lawns at these foldable card tables and they played bingo they had a speaker at the end of the street and so it kept the families together the units that live together it kept them separated from the other families but then also connected people in a fun way and and i think national night out from a a health perspective um there's a lot of things that people can do from uh scavenger hunts get in the car and drive around and have a contest to see who can see uh you know a number of things from from their car doing it safe uh and connect of course through zoom and and and some of the other uh connections uh but i can't say enough from a public health perspective about the wearing a mask no matter no matter what you're doing that that you know we haven't talked about this a whole lot but you know when you really think about um the messages that we got back in the day about don't drink and drive right because we knew that if you if you drank you could kill yourself or you could kill and you drove you could kill yourself kill somebody else we did the same thing with smoking we said stop smoking because you're going to kill yourself and quit smoking around people because you could kill them yeah and you know the wearing a mask is no different that you know uh our population's done a really good job of late of of really getting into uh compliance and now is not a time to to to give up on that we don't we don't give up on drinking and driving we don't give up on smoking and we don't give up on wearing seat belts we don't give up on the mask yeah just wear your mask i mean they're not they're not always comfortable but be reasonable about where you wear it i mean when you go out to eat you once you seat it you don't have to have it on but you should wear it in between and you should wear it when you go out in your neighborhood now if you're vigorously exercising do you expect people to wear their mask they're not going to be wearing a mask no it's almost impossible yeah yeah and it's you do the best that you can you know six feet of separation is good 12 feet is better right so when you exercise pick times when there's not as many people if you do it on the trail when they're not on the trail pick you know maybe run around your neighborhood instead of running around the track you know there's lots of things that people can do to be safe yeah people in my neighborhood have gotten pretty good at avoiding each other and still being far enough going to the other side of the street you know let their dogs they say hello and still keep themselves safe for that way and a lot of people just wear their mask pull down and put it up when they approach somebody yeah but we also have hand washing and social distancing and now we're into flu season that's right and you know early on we were really worried about a double whammy so again i want to compliment fort worth and its citizens because we have done a fabulous job of wearing masks and not only was that going to help us with covid it's also going to help us with the flu uh but the flu is inevitable it's going to happen and we're going to have an impact on our healthcare system uh that's going to be tremendous because we know that in the fall coronavirus will tend to spread more easily uh for a number of reasons one is people are indoors one is because of the cooler uh less humid temps and that's the same thing that happens with the flu during flu season so we we know that that's going to be an impact so if you're sick stay home yeah right you know don't don't go out about don't be around sick people right uh and if testing's available and it's available quickly for you to get quick results and you got to know what those results are to make decisions about whether you go to work or don't go to work um take advantage of the testing and we have good testing people can get tested and you don't have to have your nose swabbed you can now do a saliva test that's much easier absolutely we have the saliva test and then we're on the cusp you know of getting the quick 15 minute uh habit tests and you know there can be high demand for those uh but you know hopefully by the time we get into november and early december we'll have a sufficient number of those yeah i hope by the time we get to holidays where people really do want to gather that we'll have those quick tests or when people begin to return to their offices that their bosses their business can test them you know every week as they go in and i think that'll help us a lot absolutely and hopefully we're not too far away from the vaccine that's right so because it's national night out and people are not out but they will be out some remind them again what to do to protect themselves from west now yeah west now again there's a silver lining to all this people you know are not outdoors as much this year if they were we'd see a lot higher infection rate because we have a very probably the highest on wreck river had um viral transmission going on between birds and mosquitoes and once those mosquitoes got it and they they buy it a person they transfer the virus so people need to make sure that if they are out and about at any time not just national night out that that you wear deat or some other repellent skin so soft go to epa.gov and give you some really good recommendations that try to stay away from outdoors at dusk and dawn that's where mosquitoes are the most active and then drain source pools around the house don't let it you know have water in buckets and tires and and plant plants and things like that these are lazy mosquitoes they don't go real far so if you got a bunch of mosquitoes around your house they probably you know have have these source pools where you have the larvae that become mosquitoes you drain the water you'll have fewer mosquitoes they also maybe five houses each direction from where you live because they're lazy go talk to your neighbors about doing the same thing it's a good idea so because national night out is supposed to be about connecting cities and city services with neighborhoods and code is not out this year how can people connect with y'all if they need to have a code violation you know if they want to report a violation still the the best way to do it is the my uh fort worth app and it's available on google and apple at at the different stores you can go and you can use the online uh version to report but we think one of the most helpful tools we have there is is right off of the the city's webpage for the the code compliance department is there's actually a link where you can type your address you can either use the one address link or the code officer link you type your address in and it'll tell you who your code officer is and you know you're provided their cell number their email and you know even in this day of of covid we can have a connection to the citizens we serve uh in a very safe way because it's not a large gathering of people it's two responsible people um you can talk on the phone so we just really encourage people to do that and and i'll tell you again you know talk about national night out that there's a correlation overall uh between crime and crime and and the more you clean up a community the less crime you're going to have and i will tell you that we continue to see a record number of visits to our drop off stations so people are taking advantage of this time to clean up their properties and clean out the basements and the attics um and we're also seeing collection at the curb at a much higher rate so um that is correlated into less activity for the code officers because there's less mess uh that that gets reported to us that and that's awesome brandon thank you for being with me you guys code has everything and brandon has everything from public health which is west nile covid the hurricane that we had and then they have solid waste which is your garbage pickup recycles and bulky as well as signed violations oh yeah at that time of year thank you for what you do we appreciate it and national night out next year hopefully we'll be back in our neighborhoods where we belong visiting with people face to face absolutely thanks with me now is our fire chief jim davis chief mayor thanks for having me we're glad to have you national night out 2020 it's a little strange isn't it it is it's a little strange but we're all going to try to do this and get out and be a part of the community you were with us last year for national night out you know it's the 37th anniversary and footwork does a big national night out you take fire trucks and firefighters yes ma'am every community in fort worth is represented by the fire stations that serve that community they're engaging with the neighborhood associations as they move through the evening and we we try to engage them in what what we offer and what they need from us to make sure that we're reporting back to the city leadership and making sure that we're working cohesively to move our community forward and really people think about firefighters and fire department being largely keeping them safe and putting out fires you do so much more than that you go from medicine to drownproofing tell us a little bit about what all your firefighters are asked to do yeah mayor thanks for asking that because you know the the term the fort worth fire department you know it's a generation's old term and a lot of cases it's a misnomer you know a large percentage of what we do is is medical related and responding to the needs of the medical needs of our community with and in the support of medstar and making sure that we recognize from a public safety and public health standpoint of where we can bridge a gap that occurs in the community with everything from drowning prevention infant mortality in our community our folks are invited into homes upwards of 150 160 thousand times a year and when we're in there we we encourage folks to just be aware and be mindful and and help the neighborhoods make sure that their homes are safe that the smoke detectors are working that they have carbon monoxide detectors that if they find unsafe sleeping conditions for children that they help to to correct that through either education or from some type of referral to get a crib and those things we're not we're not in the discipline business we're not looking to do that we're just looking to make sure that you know we we like you pointed out we do so much more than fire and we're very proud of the work that they do our folks do to support this community you should be proud and i don't think anybody really realizes that when the firefighters are called if they're called on a medical say and they look around and see unsafe conditions they will help a family correct that yeah they do and we have a bunch of resources that are available to us in the event that folks are unable to afford those resources we work you know right now the the COVID-19 has put such a strain on everybody but the one benefit that the Fort Worth fire department has really been able to to see out of it is the relationships that have developed between the the county health department veneetan asian his team and the city and making sure that you know we're communicating we're making daily conversations about what each other need and how we can support each other and it's all in the best interest of trying to keep our community safe across Fort Worth because you've had a whole COVID team who volunteered to test people and to go into nursing homes where there was COVID yes ma'am one of the things earlier that you know in this whole COVID problem was recognizing that the need for accurate timely testing was available in the communities especially our most vulnerable communities and so working with public health we stepped into that gap and made sure that it was filled in a way that we could get folks tested get it turned around timely make sure that it was accurate and that we could you know work like i said before cohesively with other city agencies and county agencies to make sure that the public knew that you know the Fort Worth fire department when when we're needed we're problem solvers and and our folks like to problem solve and this was a problem it was a wicked problem to our community and and we're happy to be a part of the solution to it so unlike police where people have an npo who patrols their neighborhood we have a fire station somewhere in your neighborhood yes ma'am and can citizens go absolutely you know i've been here two years and one of the things that i've really encouraged our folks is to make sure that the public feels welcome in their facility public funds put these facilities up they put the firefighters in the community what i'm encouraging our folks to do is you know when the weather is appropriate doors are open we should invite the public to come and see the the resources that are available in their community they should ask questions about them and they should really feel free to have a honest conversation with the folks about what the needs of the community are and do so in such a way that they should expect that these uh officers and in firefighters get that information back to me so i can get it to folks like mr cook and yourself so the policy can and the future needs of the community are identified and um and decisions are made fire stations are really fun anyway i always took my kids i've taken my grandchildren i had a couple of different boy scout groups in a campfire group and the firefighters are always welcoming show the kids around the firehouse show them the truck talk to them about safety yeah and sometimes and it's just kind of a fun thing uh mayors i'll tell you sometimes that you know it's i'm not sure if it's the kids that have as much fun or the parents and the parents drag the kids there as it's their idea because mom and dad really want to see the fire trucks but we're happy to entertain folks that's that's what we do these this is their community this is their firehouse their tax dollars pay for this we want them engaged with us we want them knowing that we are an inviting presence for them in our in the community so out forward i thought the other day i've got a five-year-old and a three-year-old that i haven't taken yet it's a good excuse to go back and take away absolutely anything else you want people to know about engaging with you and your department and what you can do in neighborhoods no you know you mentioned the police earlier and we're so fortunate here we have a very good relationship between in public safety between police and fire and and the thing about it is what we need the public to do is is to realize that we're all in this together moving forward in the best interests of our community and we need the public to be mindful and when they see something they need to be comfortable with saying something they they need to make sure that they teach their kids that firehouses are safe places in the community that they know that they can go there and that the public has confidence that we will do right by them and their children when they when they seek help there be it air for a flat tire on a bike or if somebody in the community has um tried to harm them they need to know there can be safe there and haven't helped us you don't have it very often but it is a safe place for people to take babies it's a safe place and and about a year ago there was a just an amazing story that happened in north fort worth where that happened one morning you know we we have a policy for that we train our folks for that um and one morning these guys um were checking their trucks and and and it unfolded in front of them and i was amazingly impressed by the um the empathy and the compassion of our folks on the in the engine house but then how they continue to follow up with children services and and made sure that that everybody was taken care of and and there there was a complete wraparound approach to the health and the wellness of that child that day and while i'm really impressed by the way our folks responded to it i'm even more impressed that the mother um who did not feel that she was in a place um to adequately take care of that child was comfortable enough with a fort worth fire department that she went there and sought help and so from a community that was a win mayor that was a win that day and i'm very proud of that for our community speaks volumes about your firefighter sure does well it speaks to the community too it does speak to the community we've got a great community next year gee you and i'll be out we'll take a fire truck we'll go see some of these neighborhoods i'll take you anywhere you want to go mayor 2021 we're going to be out and about yes ma'am so thank you for coming on today i appreciate it all that you've got going on we really appreciate your time all right let's get out guys go out enjoy the rest of your national night out talk to your neighbors put your mask on and be safe thanks