Laserfiche WebLink
10CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK <br /> i <br /> Chief Ruszkowski replied, Absolutely it does. <br /> Committeemember Voorde followed up, Is there still a pistol team? <br /> Chief Ruszkowski replied, Yes,that is run through the FOP. <br /> Committeemember Voorde then asked, Are they as good as they used to be? <br /> Chief Ruszkowski replied, Pretty. If you ask the one running it, they would probably say that. <br /> Councilmember Jake Teshka stated,Thank you for what you all do. Your officers, on a daily basis, <br /> put their lives on the line for us and I just can't say enough how much that means to me and my <br /> family and I'm sure our entire community. Obviously, the $2 million is a significant number. <br /> Mr. Cocanower stated, I will say that does include the adjustment that we had to do in March. <br /> Councilmember Teshka followed up, Ok, so that makes a little bit of a difference. But, that being <br /> said,there are limits on how many people that can go through the academy every year.If the reason <br /> why you reduced the number of officers was to make this look better for us, I would say put them <br /> in there because, by God, we need more good officers. If there is any way we can get them, let's <br /> do that. To budget for less officers makes me a little worried but I understand we can revisit that. <br /> Councilmember Scott stated, It would be a good vote we would have to take if we have to do an <br /> additional allocation for more officers. That is a concern of mine. I wonder if there are other <br /> positions in the department that can go to civilian. <br /> Chief Ruszkowski replied, That is exactly what we are doing and we are looking at all of those. <br /> Councilmember Scott followed up, With that purchasing position,where does that fall in line with <br /> the overall concept of consolidating purchasing in the City? <br /> Ms. Hockenhull replied, When we talked about the consolidation, from the get-go, our thought <br /> was never that we were going to buy bullets for the Police Department. A lot of the purchasing for <br /> the Police Department is a very specialized group of things. We are centralizing more of the things <br /> everyone uses. It's not to say we aren't here to help but we think that is something we shouldn't <br /> manage. <br /> Councilmember Teshka stated, $357,000 from the University of Notre Dame, does that not seem <br /> light? <br /> Councilmember Scott replied, We'll have that conversation off-line. <br /> Councilmember Sharon L. McBride stated, I would be remiss, in my professional field,to not say <br /> thank you, personally, to the entire force for working with us and answering all the calls you <br /> receive. There were like five (5) or six (6) out there today of issues we had. I understand the <br /> overtime and the response time. But if you have, for instance, fifty-one (51) homicides or <br /> shootings, you're going to have people out all night. I get it. I always want to see more but you <br /> EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION ( EMPOWERMENT <br /> 455 County-City Building 1227 W.Jefferson BvldI South Bend,Indiana 46601Ip574.235.9221If574.235.9173ITTD574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov <br /> 13 <br />