No old business.
Treasurer’s report: we have $1,905.32 currently in our bank account. There are no outstanding charges or deposits.
No new business.
Education committee:
Tom Miller and Mary Ann Gerdeman presented at Liberty Benton about a “life after graduation course,” including information on buying vs renting etc. They used to do this at Findlay High but no longer have a contact there.
Legislative update:
- Thin blue line flag – having its first hearing, expected to pass. Some HOAs ban non-American flag banners, so they would be required to allow the thin blue line flag to honor law enforcement.
- Bill to ban foreign adversaries from owning real property
- Lead testing bill (HB 280) – 3rd hearing, will get an update on Friday
- Expedited removal of unauthorized occupants (squatters) – 2nd hearing, also a senate bill on the same topic
Russell Cunningham and Kurt Bishop met with the mayor, regional planning, and zoning to try to make sure the group’s voices are known and heard. She asked them to put a plan together for how to move forward.
Observation: working with state legislation is very different than working with our local legislation. The state is very receptive to hear what the people have to say.
Ad hoc meeting with Mr. Palmer, Mr. Hellman, and Mr. Garnett – opportunity to intercept some of what they’re doing. They actually put in about 90% of our initiatives, so they are trying to listen to us and have less confrontation. We’re trying to do more of a congenial back-and-forth. We’re getting some fruit from the initiative process. They agreed to give 4 minutes for anyone to speak at city council meetings for anything on the agenda. At the end of the meeting, they’ll give the public 60 minutes to voice their opinion on anything.
Maumee did pass a landlord registry. They’ll have a fee per rental unit, and you have to register, so this is creeping into our area. Fostoria attempted this but it did not pass there, so we need to remain vigilant. We’re going to come up with ideas on how we police ourselves rather than having the government do it.
Kurt Bishop: Housing for migrants / Immigration Task Force: there are lots of challenge and few solutions. There’s very little we can do; there just aren’t enough rooms for the number of immigrants pouring in. Some suggestions are to translate things into people’s native languages for all the different cultures. The mayor says 300-600 immigrants, but it’s probably more like a few thousand. The mayor is compassionate but also realizing that this situation is frustrating to a lot of people in the community.
Are all the immigrants legal? Lots of fake documents and multiple people applying who have the same social security number. A temp agency promising employment is bringing them to Findlay, but no healthcare, no housing, no transportation, etc.
New folks:
Tanner Journey with Firehouse Insurance – invited to the group.
Jeff Hunter, HVAC guy – joined a few months ago.
New members Ron and Belinda – members years ago but have rejoined.
Motion to adjourn: 1st and 2nd
Featured Speakers: Members from the sheriff & police joint task force focused on drug and human trafficking
Human trafficking biggest thing to look for is a substantial age difference, like a teenage girl with an older guy. The average age to start in prostitution is 14 years old.
Task force deals with drugs, prostitution, massage parlors, and illegal gambling. They’re short-staffed. It’s all the same issues all across the country, but the amount of trafficking is increasing. It’s a young agency, so they rely on patrols to send them information and tips. Landlords are also a great source for tips.
The biggest indicator of a drug transaction is a short stop, where people are there for 5-10 minutes and then move on to the next one. High traffic at houses is also a big red flag for drug activity. They sometimes do surveillance from neighbors’ properties.
Sgt Brian Dale – started at the Hancock County Jail in the late 90s then came to the police department. Lots of retention issues in law enforcement. Other agencies can help each other out. Three detectives under him. He gets a lot of calls every day; some situations are quick but others take a lot longer to investigate. They can’t just come in and kick people out for a suspected drug situation, it takes time to gather information to investigate – patrols, informants, etc. Often, drug activity will reoccur at the same property. A lot of landlords just let it go as long as the tenants are paying their rent.
They build a case then get a warrant, and when they go in, now it becomes a possession case, which is what they use to lock up the dealers. But they usually get released on a bond within a few days, so sometimes they go right back to selling.
Some tenants may notice some drug activity, and the task force will take that information and start to work the case. Drug activity is a lot more prevalent than human trafficking.
Get the word out to look for the signs of drug activity, human trafficking, etc. Get ahold of the task force if you see suspicious activity.
Tip: have neighbors take pics, especially of license plates for vehicles involved.
Don’t get involved directly; observe and note anything that could help law enforcement.
Q: When you say “kick in the door,” do you mean literally, and how much damage do you cause?
We’re not trying to do damage or make you forfeit your property. We have not taken any property, just vehicles. Kicking a door is actually kicking a door. We can’t crack down on marijuana now since some of it is legal. We’ll give them the chance to open the door, but if they don’t, then we do force entry.
We don’t want landlords to get involved and open the door for the police for safety reasons.
Sometimes they use those convicted to go in and gather more evidence against the bigger dealers.
Not getting a lot of confidential informants lately. They know how to play the game. They know they won’t go to jail, so why take the chance to even work with the police to inform on others?
Locally, opiate overdoses are down since last October. For a while, there were 20 deaths per year, now we haven’t had one since October. There are still overdoses but not as many deaths. Lots of meth in the community. We haven’t seen a lot of meth labs lately, though they’re still getting calls about potential meth labs.
They brought drug paraphernalia to look at, including pipes, things they’ve found that had drugs hiding in them, etc. Some look like regular products but have secret compartments for drugs.
Look for things in plain view. Digital scales are a big thing, especially on a coffee table. Stacks of Keno tickets to fold up into paper bundles for powder; they’re the right size and free. People will get packages at Airbnbs, which is a red flag that it may be drugs.
Bottle caps and Q-Tip ends are another sign. Syringe caps are another one, though that could be for medical reasons. Metal caps are another piece of paraphernalia, which are sometimes handed out by the Health Department. They try to cover it up, but this task force tries to fight it. They give out some supplies to keep it “safe.”
The paraphernalia is not illegal until there are drugs with it. You can legally carry all this stuff until you actually have meth or whatever with it. It’s just a pipe or whatever until there are drugs in it.
Just because you find needles doesn’t mean it’s drug related; people use them for insulin and other medical reasons. Finding one needle in a yard is not going to be a big thing, so you don’t need to call the task force for that. They will come out and take them, but they’re not going to get any evidence from something like that. If you have an eviction and find evidence, you can call the task force if you find paraphernalia, but it’s hard to convict based on that because they don’t know if it was the tenant’s or others who visited.
Manpower is limited, so if you have tenants or neighbors you trust, use them if they want to keep an eye on things.
Top things to come to mind how landlords can help: get license plates, time of day of the activity (people operate on patterns), be diligent for who is and isn’t on the lease. Repeat offenders don’t care who comes in.
Know that it’s not a fast process. Don’t hold off an eviction process to wait for drug charges because it can take a long time.
The dealers come here for the money. Lima is the easiest place to buy drugs, but in Findlay, you have to work harder for it. Because it’s more work, they get higher dollar values for the drugs. This is a fairly safe community; we don’t just have people standing on the corners selling drugs.
The immigrants may make tracking drugs more challenging, but they’re using the same hotels as drug dealers. Mission Possible has been helpful since they work directly with Haiti. But they don’t expect this will get out of hand in Findlay.
The dealers watch the cops just like the cops watch the dealers, noticing their shifts, patterns, etc.
Some of the informants have been previously convicted, but others have turned their lives around and want to help solve the problem. Sometimes they pay money to informants for their information.
The price per ounce is down significantly in the last 14 years; it’s a lot easier to get it than it used to be.
Immigrants will often get picked up for underage drinking, traffic violations, etc. There is not yet a big influx in drug trafficking because of the migrants.
Q: Why are opioid deaths down?
Awareness is a big factor, but we don’t know for sure. There’s a lot more help and a lot more word of mouth, and people seeing the devastation. But that also means those people are probably using other things.
There’s lots of money in medical marijuana now, but meth is the big thing in this community now.
Drugs.com is helpful for identifying what pills are if you come across them.
Meth is usually a clear, hard, crystal-like substance.
We’re a safe community, but there is still a lot of stuff going on here. They do a lot of work in the Walmart parking lots.
“If you guys want to come up, we got some meth up here!”