Latest news with #EastTexasInFocus
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Yahoo
IN FOCUS: The Longview Police Department's work to address homelessness
LONGVIEW, Texas (KETK) – In this edition of East Texas In Focus, KETK's Nolan Hoffman continued his conversation with the Chief of the Longview Police Department Anthony Boone about addressing homelessness in the city, along with training and hiring staff. IN FOCUS: The future of Longview Police Department Boone started the second part of his conversation with Nolan by discussing the department's training and hiring procedures. When Boone started as chief in the summer of 2022, the department had 25 vacancies but now they have only one open position. 'I think over the last couple of years, we have really attracted people that are tied to service and want to help and want to be a part of something bigger than themselves. That has really helped our staffing levels. I am very proud to have just one vacancy,' Boone said. For Boone, the Longview Police Department's hiring standards are different than other departments. That means their tests are more personal so they can make sure they get the right person for the job. 'Our standards are a little bit different than the rest of the world. So, right off the bat, after somebody comes in and does their initial testing and there's a physical test and a written test, we give them a packet that's probably about 40 pages thick of basically their whole life story. So it gets very personal, very quick,' Boone said. 'We also have psychological exams that are required through the state but we also go beyond that. We do polygraph examinations, a very in-depth background investigation, which goes much deeper than just a reference check for most other jobs. And so just the the length of the process, that alone eliminates some people from even wanting to go through it.' Boone said if around ten people show for one test only around one of those ten people will be hired. He also credited their training success to their new police academy which they started during the COVID-19 pandemic as a collaboration with Kilgore College. IN FOCUS: Preparing for the East Texas storm season Then Nolan and Boone's conversation turned to the subject of the unhoused population in Longview and the work Longview PD does with them every day. 'Dealing with unhoused individuals, that's something that probably we deal with every day,' Boone said. 'Sometimes we have people that end up either sleeping somewhere or they're they're at a location where that business owner may not want them. So that will create a what we call a criminal trespass call, where they want us to come out there and then remove that that person from the location.' According to Boone, some of these calls will be dealt with by patrol officers but they also have a Police Outreach Services Team (POST) that started in 2018. Boone said that in 2024 alone the two person team was able to place 95 unhoused people into housing or rehabilitation. Along with getting people into housing, they've also been able to help people get back home after getting stuck in Longview. 'Sometimes folks, they've come to Longview for, maybe initially it was for a job, maybe it was along the way they followed somebody else and they've just gotten stuck here, and we've had 41 individuals that we're able to send back to wherever home was,' Boone said. 'Now on that we don't just put somebody on a bus and send them to wherever, but we actually contact family on the other side and make sure that there's a family member, a friend, somebody that's willing and ready to receive them when they get get back to home.' IN FOCUS: Following the legacy of Pope Francis Boone also discussed their ID program where they can help people who've lost their identification get new state ID documents. 'Sometimes we've learned that these individuals, they're eligible to receive benefits, but they've lost their ID along the way,' Boone said. 'If we can prove who they are and we can help them get a state ID, that's the first step to then let them get their Social Security card again.' While Boone hopes their work is helping to decrease the homeless population in the area he also stressed that this is an issue all across the country. 'I hope that helps decrease it in our area, but I do think that it will continue to be an issue. I think, until we figure out how to tackle mental health as a society and solve our drug abuse issues, I think we will continue to see some of these trends,' Boone said. 'I do definitely believe it's a much larger problem than just law enforcement. I just think law enforcement's received the bulk of 'hey y'all, y'all take care of this.' But this is definitely a community problem, this is as a society problem. And we're all gonna have to put our heads together and may have to spend some money together to figure out how to to really make this work and truly help people.' In the full second half of their conversation in the video above, Nolan and Boone spoke about the department's community outreach efforts and Boone's hopes for the city. To view the first half of their conversation, click here for last week's episode of East Texas In Focus. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
27-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
IN FOCUS: Following the legacy of Pope Francis
TYLER, Texas (KETK) – In this edition of East Texas In Focus, KETK's Nolan Hoffman spoke with the Bishop of Tyler Greg Kelly on the death of Pope Francis and what's next for the Catholic Church. The loss of Pope Francis mourned across the country Pope Francis, born in Argentina as Jorge Mario Bergoglio in 1936, died of a stroke on Monday just a few hours after celebrating Easter Mass at Saint Peter's Square. Bishop of the Diocese of Tyler Greg Kelly recalled learning the tragic news about Pope Francis' death in his conversation with Nolan. 'It really came as a surprise,' said Kelly. 'Because he seemed like after being in the hospital so long that he was doing much better and that he was very active on Easter Sunday, he met with the Vice President. He went around Saint Peter's Square. He looked like he was resuming some of his normal activities.' Francis' election as the new head of the Catholic Church in 2013 marked the first time anyone from the Americas and the southern hemisphere had ever been chosen as pope. Kelly recalled part of what's made Pope Francis so charming to people around the world were his big gestures like his first official trip abroad as pope. 'He would do these dramatic gestures. Like when he was first elected pope, he wanted his first trip to go to the island of Lampedusa, where a lot of immigrants from Africa coming across the Mediterranean in insufficient boats were drowning,' said Kelly. 'And he had such a heart for immigrants, the people who had to be on the move for whatever reason, and he wanted to go there and his staff kept kind of putting him off. One of them got a call from the Italian airline saying that they had received a call from a Jorge Bergoglio booking four seats on a commercial flight to Lampedusa. He was just going to go himself and so that's where they went.' Kelly met Pope Francis when he was appointed as the Auxiliary Bishop of Dallas in 2015. 'One of the requirements for a new bishop is they go to Bishop School. And so it's a week long formation process in Rome and on the Friday of that week is an audience with Pope Francis,' said Kelly. 'Each bishop gets to walk up and actually meet him personally. So that's the only time I actually met him in person and he was just very warm, ingratiating, beautiful smile.' Pope Francis' funeral: Photo gallery Later in 2024, Francis confirmed Kelly as the new Bishop of Tyler. As the College of Cardinals prepares to elect a new pope in the next few weeks, Kelly offered his insight into what kind of pope they might select. 'I think it's someone that can build on the legacy of Pope Francis,' Kelly said. 'He was the first pope ever to come from South America, from the global South and so much more of the church, a lot of the numbers, the energy of the church is in South America and Africa. And I think somebody that's sensitive to the to the needs of those local churches as well as the church throughout the world.' The Papal Conclave is expected to start the process of electing a new pope who will lead the world's 1.41 billion Catholics in the coming days. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
20-04-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
IN FOCUS: Preparing for the East Texas storm season
TYLER, Texas (KETK) – In this edition of East Texas In Focus, KETK's Nolan Hoffman spoke with KETK Chief Meteorologist Carson Vickroy about helping East Texas prepare for severe weather which is most common in the spring months, particularly from April till June. IN FOCUS: Fixing East Texas' weather radar 'dead zone' Nolan and Carson covered several topics in their discussion including this season's potential for severe weather, the radar dead zone in East Texas and even artificial intelligence. Much of East Texas sits in the middle of a coverage dead zone for radar stations, the closest of which are in Fort Worth and Shreveport. This dead zone means it's even more important for KETK to have storm watchers in the community looking out for weather close to the ground like tornadoes. 'So when we are forecasting the weather, when we are tracking the severe weather here in East Texas, we typically use two radars, the one that's closest to us is Shreveport, which is about 80 miles away from Tyler,' Carson said. 'And the radar beams, Nolan, they shoot up into the atmosphere. So what we are seeing is not at the ground level, but what we are seeing is about a mile up into the atmosphere, and we're not seeing the low level features like tornadoes, the hail size, which is why it's important that we have storm spotters on the ground to report anything that's going on at surface level and Fort Worth doesn't get much better either.' Continuing their discussion of meteorology tech, Carson and Nolan discussed the potential introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) into weather models. 'What we are seeing a lot of now is AI's introduction to weather forecasting. So there are some forecast models out there that are scary good, some of the time,' Carson said. 'And then some other times, there's still some work that the scientists have to do.' Residents in Henderson preparing for storm season Their discussion then moved onto forecasting severe weather events like tornadoes and hurricanes like East Texas saw last year with Hurricane Beryl. 'So when Beryl was coming through, we had tons of tornado warnings because we were in the messy side of the storm,' Carson said. 'The storm made landfall on the central Texas Gulf Coast. And that's what we're looking out for in the summertime, because any time we're on the east side of a landfalling hurricane or tropical storm, you tend to see issues with one flash flooding to the wind.' To learn even more about this storm season and weather forecasting, watch the full episode of East Texas In Focus at the top of this article. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
02-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
IN FOCUS: Inside local government with Longview City Manager Rolin McPhee
TYLER, Texas (KETK) – In this edition of East Texas In Focus, KETK's Tyler Henderson sat down with Longview City Manager Rolin McPhee to talk about his role in local government as a part of our new series on East Texas city managers. IN FOCUS: A conversation with Texas Agricultural Commissioner Sid Miller McPhee took the time to sit down with KETK to explain what he does on a day-to-day basis for the city and what the city's plans look like going forward into the future. As Longview City Manager, McPhee is the head of the city's administration and operations. This means he's almost like a CEO in that he's appointed by the city council and mayor like a business board appoints a CEO to manage a company on their behalf. A city manager like McPhee has to manage all the city's departments and he must propose a budget to fund those departments. The city's departments oversee things like water, streets, parks, public safety and maintenance. All of these departments have to do their best work within the city's limited budget and that's what city managers like McPhee help make happen. Proposed food truck regulations could affect how Longview business operate 'I believe city manager's jobs are actually supposed to make the departments within the city successful, and make sure they have the resources needed to do their job, in spite of the limitations,' McPhee said. McPhee actually got his start as an engineer. He went to Texas A&M University in College Station and received his Bachelor's of Science degree in civil engineering. He worked with water and sewer lines and then as a licensed engineer in Longview before becoming the city engineer of Marshall. 25 years ago in Dec. 2000, the City of Longview hired McPhee and he worked as utilities engineer. He then went on to work as an engineering manager, assistant director of public works, director of public of works and he was appointed by the mayor and city council as city manager in 2022. With all the things the city does manage like sanitation, water bills, maintaining the parks and the streets, it may make residents wonder just what doesn't the local government maintain? McPhee explained how the city has partners like SWEPCO which provides the city's gas and the various hospitals and businesses that keep Longview running have relationships with the city as well. Longview City Council buys land to expand Heritage Plaza 'We have relationships with people who invest in our community, but we don't dictate where they invest and we don't dictate the policies of those respective organizations,' McPhee said. 'We do a terrible job talking about the things we do,' explained McPhee. For a city of more than 50,000 people, Longview's city government has to do a lot of stuff which goes unnoticed. McPhee told Tyler about how the city has to mow all the lawns in the parks, help clean litter, time all the traffic signals and they also provide housing and information services for other communities outside of Longview. McPhee is optimistic about Longview's outlook going forward because of the community's reinvestment in infrastructure and the services that the city provides like water which is a hot topic across Texas. Newly purchased shopping center indicates continued growth for Longview 'Longview has had a continued reinvestment within the infrastructure over the last 20 years. In fact, when they brought me in back in 2000, we were building a new plan and securing water rights. And actually based on our current growth, if you look out 50 years, which is what the regional water planning groups plan for, Longview actually has enough water for the next 50 years,' said McPhee. He credits the city's fortunate future to the thoughtful planning of other city government leaders who came before him. 'So Longview's in a really fortunate position. A long architect before me, I was not the one that should get the credit for it, but there was a lot of action put towards reinvestment in that infrastructure,' McPhee said. 'And actually, the City of Longview utility system is actually in fantastic shape and real close to retiring its debt. So in a great position for the long term, for the next 50 years, there's a lot of good stuff coming out of Longview.' Tyler also asked McPhee several questions sent in to KETK from Longview residents. All those questions and more can be seen in the full episode of East Texas In Focus above. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
