09/17/07 Council Special Meeting Minutes

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SPECIAL MEETING SEPTEMBER 17, 2007 disorderly house ordinance, important as it was for the neighborhood and the City it does not stop these violations of public indecency. Last Spring's 30 kegger on Washington Street and this year's many citations during the Georgia Tech weekend are cases in point, and that's all there is too that. Many people are once again calling for dialogue; it's been tried over many years, meetings between the landlords and the NENC, between landlords and individual groups of residents, between students and residents, back to school parties, letters from permanent residents to transient students. All of these types of dialogue should continue. But, it must be recognized how little effect these attempts at dialogue have had. Many reasons for this, the dialogue in groups are almost incommensurate, established resident and resident who will only reside in the neighborhood for 7 'h months. Permanent residents having to make contact with completely new groups of transient residence each year; does anyone realize how much energy that takes? People invested in the neighborhood paying taxes and upkeep and the transient residents not at all invested, and by the way shouldn't be since they will be leaving in a matter of months. Mr. Sniegowski stated that he is not trying to by satiric there, they needn't be and he doesn't see any reason that they should be. And then there is the fact that both groups are just busy, permanent residents with jobs, family, civic responsibilities and the transient residents with their studies. Even when real dialogue can take place between these two groups given all these factors, it carries with it no accountability whatsoever. With all due respect he thinks that it is naive to think that this kind a dialogue is all that is needed. They need to codify what constitutes neighborhood civility for everybody. That will make everyone consciences what it takes to live in a neighborhood both transients and permanent residents, this ordinance does codify a standard of behavior, this ordinance also sets up a way of dialoging that is the proposed CCAC Community Campus Advisory Coalition that will go far beyond and dialoging that exists at present. Because this committee will include people with knowledge and authority in their separate spheres and because it will answer to the Common Council it will have clout and it will be held accountable. He agrees with Ms. Taylor that a bill can be committee to death, but if this is the way that it is going, then we need to get behind it. As far as he can tell this new ordinance will give the police department simpler and therefore more effective guidelines for enforcement than the disorderly house amendment was able to do, however important that amendment was. It is too bad that it has had to come to this, but when you have a significant amount of minority residence in a given area that do not know or do not care to know what it takes to be neighborly, and then an ordinance like this is a good thing! Mr. Dick Nussbaum (no address given), stated that he is an Attorney practicing law in South Bend, Indiana, and stated that he is speaking in favor of this bill because of the dialogue that has occurred over the past couple of months. He stated that the changes that have been made are both in the letter and in the spirit of what has been talked about. That was to promote dialogue in a meaningful way about this problem and to delay the implementation of the registration portion of the ordinance which seemed to be the most controversial and was the area of the bill that caused polarization between the Community and the University. He stated that he is very proud of the way the Council has acted over the past couple of months and very proud of the way Liz Brown and Maris Braun , University of Notre Dame Student Body President and Vice-President has acted over the past couple of month Ms. Brown's statement by being the very first speaker tonight in favor of this bill speaks volumes about the efforts that she has put into this particular ordinance. He stated that he can't help himself by making a few suggestions. Mr. Nussbaum stated that he agrees wholeheartedly that the COPS document is the basis around which this particular ordinance has been drafted and the discussions have taken place. One thing that he thinks is a hallmark of the COPS document is that it suggests that time is needed to figure out what is best for the community. He quoted "Depending upon the complexity of the problem you should be prepared to spend perhaps weeks or even months analyzing and responding to it, carefully study a problem before responding helps you design the right strategy, one that is most likely to work in your community. You should not blindly adopt the responses that others have used; you must decide whether they are appropriate to your local situation what is true in one place may not be true elsewhere." He stated that he thinks that this is the real purpose of the CCAC, and that is to examine what the issue are in this particular community. Because as you find we do have problems here, there is disruptive behavior, but our problem is far less egregious than what other communities have faced. There is documentation in other