01-22-18 Council Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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REGULAR MEETING January 22, 2018 the officers walking the beats to knock on doors and become more approachable. Third, this cycle of violence has to be broken. It is like a disease. Once someone is affected by it they are likely to transmit it and we need to make sure that doesn't happen. I was impressed by the unity of purpose expressed by everybody who was gathered tonight as this happens almost every time something like this happens. There are a few things the City is doing with support from the Council that I would just like to reiterate for the record. First of all, the Council has funded the Street Outreach Personnel. That has hit the ground and their function is working through Goodwill as a more community-based position as opposed to law enforcement. They have the potential to break that cycle of violence by focusing on prevention rather than response. We have more police officers coming online. We all have a role to play as we seek to recruit good people into the police force. This is not just a police concern. One (1) could argue that we are fortunate that the number of shootings that happened last year did not lead to more fatalities than it did. I think most of us can remember what it was like in the 1990s when we sometimes had more than twenty (20)homicides in a year in South Bend. We have to do everything we can to make sure that doesn't happen again. That is all I have to say about that tonight. Mayor Buttigieg continued, Our Streets Department was able to take advantage of the warmer weather and has subsequently been attacking potholes. Unfortunately, we are in the middle of a very intense freeze-thaw cycle which means moisture gets into the street, freezes,then expands and that results in cracks in the pavement and that is what creates these potholes. We haven't fully patched the potholes because of that cycle but we have gotten two (2) crews out to do as much patching as possible. They try to cover the community in quadrants first. After that, they then are directed by 311 calls. It really is useful to log your complaints with 311 because the Department uses that data to prioritize those potholes. We have received many calls about State Road 23 and many people neglect to realize that is, in fact, a State Road. We know INDOT is aware of the conditions of the road and has committed to addressing it in the year to come. I also had the chance to visit the FUSE Project which is currently providing permanent supportive housing. We are upward of twenty (20)people now who are housed there. I recognized at least a couple folks who have been in Project Warm before and that is definitely encouraging to see. I really appreciate the partnership with the Heritage Foundation which has made that possible. We think there is a need for, according to the report from the Working Group on Homelessness, as many as fifty-four(54)beds for permanent supportive housing but this is a big leap forward. We are especially looking for reducing pressure on the emergency warming centers. Mayor Buttigieg went on, The City's Parental Leave Policy is available now as of January 1St 2018. Anybody who is expecting can take advantage of that pro-family policy. I don't know if we have had any takers yet but as soon as we do, we will be able to take care of them. The Four Winds Casino opened last week and you can really tell,just by talking to the people working there, how much of an impact the jobs have had. The day we cut the ribbon sort of started the clock as we have a year to begin seeing the revenue come in. Under the negotiated agreement, it is a minimum of$2 million split evenly between Redevelopment and the General Fund or two percent (2%) of the net-win, whichever is greater. Also,there are 93,000 more seats per year in airline availability going to Detroit and Charlotte on American Airlines. We have been missing American Airlines for about a decade in the South Bend markets. They are one (1) of the big three (3) legacy carriers we didn't have. Having them back is a big deal and is exciting. We are now, as a community, trying to encourage people to use those flights we have at South Bend Airport. I know there has also been a lot of interest in the South Shore updates. We are less than one (1)month away from obtaining the revised study that contains both the economic and engineering impact. We hope that will help point the way toward a good answer that we can all come together around. After the Council passed the resolution asking the Administration to leave no stone unturned, that study was initiated. We are getting pretty close. It looks like all of the options that have been mentioned are at least technically feasible but now we are waiting on the economic side of the equation. Mayor Buttigieg continued, I encourage everyone to look at the Diversity and Inclusion Report. The Annual Purchasing Report was also just published to the City website. We are at$773,000 in City purchasing spent that goes to Minority-owned Business Enterprises and $1.2 million going to Women-owned Business Enterprises. Those numbers are out of about $100 million total in City spending. The good news is we now know what that baseline is but that baseline is also 2