Omaha World-Herald. November 3, 2017
Disclose why law enforcement officers quit
Members of the public need to have confidence in the ability and integrity of their law enforcement officers. Nebraska lawmakers could help bolster that confidence by removing the secrecy around officers’ resignations.
Under current law and practice, a law enforcement officer who is facing the possibility of being fired can resign first.
The state doesn’t require law enforcement agencies to disclose the circumstances surrounding resignations to the Nebraska Crime Commission.
The commission, which is tasked with vouching for whether an officer remains qualified for a state license to enforce the law, also lacks the power early in its investigations to compel law enforcement agencies to provide complete information.
Tweaks to state law could help, by requiring that the Crime Commission be notified of the reasons behind resignations. Another possible improvement: giving the Crime Commission limited subpoena power to access licensees’ personnel files.
Current state law hamstrings the Crime Commission’s ability to decipher which law enforcement licenses warrant more scrutiny and which should be renewed. Gov. Pete Ricketts is right to seek disclosure.
It’s encouraging that the president of the Nebraska Sheriffs’ Association, Lincoln County Sheriff Jerome Kramer, supports reasonable, balanced changes.
Jim Maguire, a Douglas County sheriff’s deputy who is president of the Nebraska Fraternal Order of Police, also said he would accept such changes as long as there were a mechanism for proper appeals.
If lawmakers consider changes, they need to ensure they afford officers the ability to contest allegations.
Outrage should accompany the example cited recently by World-Herald reporter David Hendee: A Thurston County sheriff’s deputy resigned after allegedly exposing himself to a woman and then secured another law enforcement job in Fremont.
The change-of-status form sent to the Crime Commission by Thurston County Sheriff Shelly Perez states only that the deputy resigned to accept a job with another agency. It doesn’t mention the allegation.
The Fremont police chief asked the officer to resign after learning about the public indecency allegation. After the officer resigned, another allegation of public indecency surfaced, this time in Fremont.
A state law that requires agencies to reveal the circumstances surrounding such resignations could help law enforcement agencies avoid hiring “bad apples.”
No law enforcement officer who is allowed or forced to resign under questionable circumstances should be able to pursue another job without the separation being properly vetted during license review by the Crime Commission.
The Nebraska State Patrol and other agencies have seen how their credibility can be damaged when officers are allowed to resign quietly and save their reputations.
State law already requires notification of the Crime Commission whenever an officer in Nebraska is hired, promoted, resigns or dies. The state should also require that supervisors specify why someone resigned.
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The Grand Island Independent. November 2, 2017
United Way donations make impact
When the Heartland United Way held its official kickoff for this year’s fundraising campaign Oct. 20, volunteers and businesses throughout the community had been so hard at work in promoting the pledge drive that 45 percent of the $1.4 million campaign goal had already been pledged.
Each year, the United Way seeks to raise as much as it can for its community partners. The fund drive is a major source of income for each of these agencies, which meet a wide variety of needs in Hall, Hamilton, Merrick and Howard counties.
The United Way itself is being restructured to be more responsive to people’s needs and continually looking to establish new partnerships to address issues as a community. The list of community partners has expanded in recent years to now include 21 agencies:
Adult Education, American Red Cross, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Boy Scouts, Boys Town, Central Nebraska Community Action Partnership, Central Nebraska Council on Alcoholism and Addictions, Crisis Center, Friendship House, Girl Scouts, Heartland CASA, Hope Harbor, Legal Aid of Nebraska, Literacy Council of Grand Island, Lutheran Family Services, Multicultural Coalition, Nebraska Children’s Home Society, TeamMates of Grand Island, Third City Community Clinic, YMCA of Grand Island and YWCA of Grand Island.
These agencies serve diverse groups and meet diverse needs, but they have something in common. They all have goals that align with the Heartland United Way’s mission and they operate within the four-county area.
The United Way has set three concrete goals in education, income and health that it is seeking to accomplish in its four counties by 2018:
Improve early grade reading levels and cut the high school drop-out rate in half.
Cut the number of low-income families that are financially unstable in half.
Increase the number of people who are healthy and avoid risky behavior by one-third.
The community partners are all working to address education, income and health needs in this area, but the United Way specifically has put a bull’s-eye on childhood poverty, aligning its activities with the bold objective of reducing childhood poverty in Hall, Hamilton, Merrick and Howard counties.
A poverty summit to continue the community discussion will be from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Friday, at Bosselman Enterprises at 1607 S. Locust St. in Grand Island.
One specific thing the United Way is doing is modeling a local program after the Working Families Success Network that is seeking nationally to help people find jobs, establish careers, build assets, and improve their financial security. The idea is to develop innovative local solutions to help break the cycle for those caught in the welfare system.
Fundraising campaign chairmen this year are Tom and Becky Gdowski, Hall County; Kurt Johnson, Hamilton County; Donna Jorgensen and Jill Purvis, Merrick County; and Linda Kezeor, Howard County. They lead a large group of community volunteers who are the secret to United Way’s success in our communities.
By December, they and the 21 community partners of Heartland United Way will know how much will be available to keep their work going in 2018.
We urge everyone who hasn’t yet made a pledge to carefully consider how they can help the Heartland United Way achieve its goals.
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Lincoln Journal Star. November 1, 2017
Lincoln, Lancaster County take wise steps to protect data
Each day brings more government documents and information into servers and databases - and a more expansive trove of data for hackers.
With a rise in cyber-attacks against governmental entities, the Lancaster County Board of Commissioners took the right step in purchasing a cyber insurance policy to guard against the exposure of its data. By joining Lincoln, which did so this year after two years of self-insuring, the municipal governments added another weapon to their arsenal in a silent, ever-changing war.
Both Lincoln and Lancaster County have avoided such cyber-attacks thus far. To date, they’ve been fortunate - but one buys insurance before, not after, circumstances dictate the need for added protection, as other jurisdictions have discovered.
When a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, shot and killed unarmed teenager Michael Brown in 2014, hackers responded to a perceived injustice with force. As a result of coordinated cyber-attacks, local and state websites experienced outages, and officials’ private information was released. Protecting its networks cost Missouri an estimated $150,000.
Though some hackers breach databases in hopes of extorting money, governmental servers are often attacked out of revenge. So-called hacktivists - those who hack in response to a cause - have shut down or compromised a variety of databases to dole out punishment for events they don’t like.
And this behavior is on the rise, hence the need for the insurance policies sooner rather than later. The federal Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center tracked 160 hacktivist attacks in 2016, a nearly 150 percent increase from the 65 in 2015.
To date, it appears that Nebraska has avoided or deflected attacks directed at cities and states elsewhere in the country. But, when it comes to the expanse of information city and county governments have on residents - and the far-reaching nature of the services they provide through digital means - cyber insurance is a worthwhile safeguard for residents of Lincoln and Lancaster County.
In the end, members of the general citizenry - whether through the disclosure of personal information or the loss of a particular system needed to deliver a certain service - would feel the brunt of the problem if such a cyber-attack pierced the defenses.
But the efforts of officials in Lincoln and Lancaster County are encouraging, showing that elected leaders are taking this threat seriously and adding a shield to their defenses. Plans to look into a possible joint agreement, since both municipalities share an information technology department, further indicate the lengths to which these agencies will pursue this sound strategy.
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McCook Daily Gazette. October 30, 2017
We’re in the midst of the most dangerous deer season
Hawaiians say aloha, Italians arrivaderci or ciao, Germans say auf Wiedersehen and the French au revoir or bon voyage.
Get ready to leave the home of a friend or relative in Southwest Nebraska, and along with a plate of leftover dessert, you’re likely to receive the admonition “Watch out for deer!”
There’s good reason.
State Farm Insurance’s 2017 deer-collision study shows Nebraska drivers have a 1-in-134 chance of hitting a deer. (Technically, elk and moose are lumped into the statistics, but we would guess those types of collisions are in the single-digits.)
The Cornhusker state is actually in the middle of the pack when it comes to state rankings for deer collisions; West Virginians face a 1-in-43 chance of hitting a deer with their cars.
Alaskan animals apparently have plenty of room to roam away from roads, since drivers their have only a 1 in 407 chance of hitting a deer, while Hawaiians have only a 1 in 6,823 chance of such a collision. (Yes, they have deer in Hawaii; they even have a hunting season.)
You’re more likely to hit a deer in all other adjoining states except for Colorado, where drivers are nearly half as likely to do so than Nebraska drivers.
In Iowa, where drivers have a 1-in-69 chance of hitting a deer, the Department of Transportation felt compelled to issue a clarification on Facebook for a common question:
“Why don’t you put these signs where it is safer to cross?”
“Deer can’t read signs. Drivers can. This sign isn’t intended to tell deer where to cross; it’s for drivers to be alert that deer have been in this area in the past.”
We did notice that Iowa’s signs have deer depicted accurately with “points forward” on their antlers; unlike some other states where the antlers are apparently on backward.
State Farm says the average car-deer collision claim last year was $4,179, up from $3,995 the year before.
Most collisions, in descending order, are in November, October and December.
You can improve your chances of not hitting a deer by simply slowing down, especially at dusk and dawn, and paying special attention to the road.
Other advice:
(asterisk) If you see one deer, be prepared for more.
(asterisk) Pay attention to deer crossing signs, especially now that you know deer can’t read them.
(asterisk) Buckle up on every trip, every time.
(asterisk) Use your high beams to see farther, except when there is oncoming traffic. Watch for shadows of deer in the headlights of approaching vehicles.
(asterisk) Brake if you can to keep from hitting a deer, but avoid swerving, which can result in a more severe crash.
(asterisk) Don’t rely on products such as deer whistles, which are not proven effective.
(asterisk) If riding a motorcycle, always wear protective gear and keep your focus on the road ahead.
If you do hit a deer:
(asterisk) Move your vehicle to a safe place, preferably the side of the road and turn on your hazard lights.
(asterisk) Call the police and alert authorities if the deer is blocking traffic and causing a threat to other drivers.
(asterisk) File a report and document the incident, including photographs if it’s safe to do so.
(asterisk) Stay away from the animal.
(asterisk) Contact your insurance agent immediately.
Perhaps, one day, all deer will come with microchips to alert our self-driving cars in time to avoid a collision.
Until then, as long as we’re still in charge of driving our own cars, the local farewell remains the best advice: Watch out for deer!
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