The Odessa City Council spent nearly 30 minutes during its work session Tuesday talking about safety in light of the Uvalde shooting that took the lives of 19 children and two teachers.
Odessa Mayor Javier Joven said he asked the item be placed on the agenda because he has received calls from concerned citizens who expressed an interest in having the city assess just how well prepared the community is should another active shooter situation arise.
“What are we doing to assess our community because we know as human beings we wind up becoming complacent and I thought that was a very valuable discussion to have and to see if anyone on council had any thought processes,” Joven said.
Joven recalled back in the late ’90s the council asked for Odessa police officers to begin attending council meetings when the Republic of Texas group made some threats against the city and officers now regularly attend their meetings.
The Odessa Police Department offers Civilian Response to Active Shooter Events trainings and perhaps the city can coordinate with other entities to make sure everyone knows it’s available, Joven said, noting there are other, similar active shooter-related trainings also available.
The mayor also brought up the possibility of exploring a community-wide alert app. The city did have a mass alert system during the 2018 Odessa mass shooting but it was not used as a turnover in personnel left no one able to utilize it. Also, not that many people signed up for the alerts prior to the shootings.
Council member Mark Matta and Joven also spoke about the need to educate the public on what is expected of them when they arrive at an active shooter crime scene, pointing out one mother in Uvalde was handcuffed for awhile and ended up going into the school later anyway to rescue her two children.
Council member Denise Swanner spoke about the need for additional signage at Odessa Municipal Court regarding banned weapons, noting the signs are currently located on the courtroom doors, but not near the entrance. That topic led to a discussion on having an armed police presence in all municipal buildings, the cost factor and the manpower it would take.
“You can’t put a price tag on a life, but it is very expensive,” to have someone assigned to every building, Council member Mari Willis said.
Matta also pointed out that lately there have been unsettling incidents at municipal pools.
Odessa Fire Chief John Alvarez said since Uvalde there have been discussions between his department and OPD about making sure his paramedics work closely with police officers during such events. He noted we are now hearing some of the children bled to death. In some instances, paramedics may be able to get into “warm zones” to treat and evacuate patients while officers are still dealing with the “hot zone,” Alvarez said.
When he entered the fire service nearly 30 years ago, Alvarez said he never would have dreamed of the day when firefighters would have to have ballistic shields on their engines, but that’s where we are now.
The council agreed the key is to get the word out about what trainings are available and to encourage people to attend and not get complacent.
A recent training sponsored by Medical Center Hospital and the city, Stop the Bleed, received scant media attention and was ill attended, Joven noted.
The council agreed their discussion Tuesday was a good start.
Following the meeting, Joven announced in a news release the formation of an active shooter training task force.
The mayor said it has become clear that an “inadequate response from local law enforcement combined with poor training of school staff and a failure to adhere to simple school safety protocols contributed to the unspeakable loss of life of innocent children and teachers” in Uvalde.
No official report has been made public about what went wrong in Uvalde. It will likely be months before a comprehensive report is complete/
As mayor, Joven wrote it’s his responsibility to make sure the community is able to respond “quickly, precisely and skillfully to any threat.”
Toward that end, Joven said he is “requesting the involvement and cooperation of all local law enforcement agencies, schools, churches, and business owners to participate in a comprehensive and ongoing training program to prepare our community to react quickly and decisively to any threat posed by an active shooter.”
The trainings will be regular and consistent and consist of real life simulations, Joven wrote.
He’ll be reaching out to Sheriff Mike Griffis, ECISD Superintendent Scott Muri, Medical Center Hospital President Russell Tippin and other community leaders to form the coalition in the coming days, Joven wrote.
“No one knows when an evil person bent on death and destruction will unleash the darkness of their heart but we, as a community, can respond quickly and forcefully to minimize the damage wrought by such evil and can save lives if we are prepared to do so,” Joven wrote.
In other matters, the council heard from Utilities Director Tom Kerr about proposals to replace waterlines on Crane Avenue that were placed in the late ’40s and a 7,000 waterline in an alley near 56th Street and El Paso that was put in in 1956. The designs for the former project will be nearly $121,000 and the latter is expected to be about $168,475.
The council also learned the ODC would like it to approve a $2.4 million grant for a company that plans to build a carbon capturing facility in the Permian Basin.
Occidental Petroleum and a group of partners is considering building a new $810 million facility in Penwell that could help reduce the area’s carbon footprint.
The plant would remove 500,000 tons of carbon dioxide directly from the air, in what would be the world’s largest direct air capture project. According to a Houston Chronicle article, the facility would join 70 direct air capture facilities that are expected to become active by 2035.
