The City of Winslow’s animal shelter is dealing with overcrowding as the facility is housing 41 animals in a facility with 27 kennels, Police Chief Ernie Cano told the Winslow City Council last Tuesday, a count roughly 52% above what the building was designed to hold. The shelter had 35 dogs and six cats when the quarterly figures were compiled. “The numbers fluctuate daily,” Cano said. “Pretty often we are above what the capacity of the shelter is and we work with it.”
Mayor Birdie Cano said she and Councilmember Darcey McKee had just returned from the Rural Policy Forum in Kingman with information from nonprofit organizations that work on dog and cat overpopulation and that the material would go to animal control. She said the programs described there run on volunteer and donor support rather than city money. “The idea is that it’s all public based,” the mayor said. The chief said that if the department cannot act on the information itself, “We can share with members of the community that might want to pursue trying to create something like that to help with that ongoing issue.”
Animal control investigated six bite cases during the quarter and logged 23 incidents through the department’s system, a figure that does not capture walk-ins or calls placed directly to the shelter.
Cano then informed the council that the police department is also using software that reviews every hour of body camera footage its officers record. Chief Cano said the program, called Truleo, has been in use since last July and analyzed 10,234 hours of video this quarter, flagging 25 events involving non-compliant subjects, 22 events in which officers maintained composure under pressure, 105 instances of high professionalism and eight expressions of thanks from community members. “It’s kind of like a quality control,” the chief said, noting the department does not have enough staff to review that volume of video by hand. Flagged clips are still checked by him or a commander, because the software cannot tell who is speaking. “So we have to go back and check it and verify”, he told council. If an officer used profanity inappropriately, he added, “then we can address it.”
Elsewhere in the report, patrol handled 1,471 calls for service, 359 traffic stops and 300 criminal cases, part of 2,134 total patrol incidents that produced 266 misdemeanor and felony arrests and 124 citations. Code enforcement carried 62 open cases and collected 15 shopping carts and also helped an elderly resident clear debris the resident could not remove alone. Cano said he pushes that division toward that kind of work. “It isn’t just about getting out there and writing tickets,” he said. “I want them to be a little more community-based and community oriented, especially when there’s a need there.” The department added a community service officer, an animal control officer, a transport officer and two cadets now at the police academy in Snowflake. Cano also thanked state prison Warden Eduardo Barragan, who has since been transferred, for a security assessment of the holding cells, a donated bench for the break area and an ongoing project to replace the cell doors.
The council voted to cancel both of its November meetings and to add a special session on Wednesday, Nov. 18. City Manager David Coolidge called it “a little bit of a wrinkle” in the usual practice of dropping one meeting around Thanksgiving. The scheduled Nov. 10 meeting falls the day before a holiday and, more importantly Coolidge note, “It’s also only seven days after the election. And so we don’t believe the canvass will be ready at that time.” The Nov. 18 date allows about 15 days for the canvass and is a night the meeting room at the Winslow Visitor’s Center is available. The council also canceled its second December meeting, which falls during Christmas week, leaving the Dec. 8 meeting as the only regular session between early November and the new year.
Relic Road Brewing Company, located at 107 W. Second St., will move from a restaurant liquor license to a bar license after the council pulled the application from the consent calendar and approved it separately.
Stephanie Armstrong, co-owner of the brewery, told the council the bar license was purchased for a planned Third Street location and that “because it’s not opened yet, that timeline is expiring.” The business has operated under a restaurant license for its nine years and does not intend to change how it operates. “We don’t plan on becoming a bar,” Armstrong said, adding that the company expects to return to the council to transfer the license once the Third Street building opens.
The Friends of the Library will hold their annual book sale Sept. 17-20 at the Elks Lodge auditorium, opening with a members-only night Thursday from 5 to 7 p.m. Public hours run Friday from 12 noon to 6 p.m., Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Sunday from 12 noon to 4 p.m., with memberships sold at the door.
Head Librarian Brandee Leary suggested a strategy for anyone hoping to get first look at the stock. “Best way to pick your books out is to come volunteer that Wednesday the 16th and help unload the books,” she said, “because then you can set anything you want aside.” Leary, during her quarterly report to the city council, reported that 467 people signed up for the summer reading program and read 567,000 minutes against a community goal of 400,000 and that 41 programs drew more than 1,330 people. The library also won a grant from the Arizona State Library and Archives, in partnership with Penworthy, for about $2,500 in educational kits spanning a wide age range. “A lot of people go, STEM it’s just for kids,” Leary said. “A lot of these are actually really good for elderly people who might need a little bit of hands-on.” Next summer’s reading theme, she said, will be mystery.
On the consent calendar, the council approved the check register and previous meeting minutes, two Circle K liquor license applications for the 1702 N. Park Drive and 317 N. Williamson Ave., locations. Also approved was a memorandum of understanding with the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office that allows the Winslow Police Department to share and access law enforcement data through the Peregrine software platform, an agreement that requires no matching funds from the city.
