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CITY OF SOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK r
<br /> Police staff and a lot of things that are happening now. I think it's a good ordinance, but I'm
<br /> concerned about the timing. And to look at having the data in regard to the previous ordinance that
<br /> we have passed just to see it. I don't know how that would work because you have Police Officers
<br /> that have to see them (the cell phones), right? And so, what would that look like and what is the
<br /> process? I did see that you have in your ordinance all the fines would go back to the Police
<br /> Departments for training educational purposes. My concern is enforcement, the timing and also,
<br /> we have a lot of discussions now and maybe we need to pull all this in.
<br /> Committeemember Ferlic replied, I'll speak to it from more of an anecdotal perspective, and I'll
<br /> hand it over to the Chief for more of the technical things. From my own perspective, any land or
<br /> community that has a hands-free ordinance, I don't make calls. And when I'm in a community that
<br /> doesn't have one, I typically make calls. It's not good. It really isn't. Because it is distracted driving.
<br /> And I think ultimately whether or not we're catching every single person, I think ultimately this is
<br /> more of, I think there's part of the enforcement mechanism. More importantly though, it's just
<br /> something that disincentivizes somebody for doing it. So again, for myself I would stop one
<br /> hundred percent (100%) if there was a law in South Bend that said I could not talk on my phone,
<br /> I would stop doing that.That's just an anecdotal perspective. But from an enforcement perspective,
<br /> I'll turn it over to chief who can talk about that a little bit more. But again, I'd like to think of this
<br /> more as not something where we're going to go out and target and have a huge effort behind finding
<br /> people who are talking on their phones. I think it's more just to discourage folks from distracted
<br /> driving. And then hopefully improve.
<br /> Scott Ruszkowski, Chief of Police, 701 West Sample Street, South Bend, IN stated, Just two (2)
<br /> things, I would love to hear the Council's perspective on this. Are we looking to be punitive as a
<br /> police department or awe looking for voluntary compliance? So, I'm very curious to verbally hear
<br /> your responses to that. This is for any ordinance or any traffic offense or any crime for that matter.
<br /> Are we doing it as a Police Department to be punitive and then maybe receiving those funds to put
<br /> our training account?That's what a lot of people will presume is going to happen if there's an influx
<br /> of tickets. And one of the questions I know that had come up, because I know you addressed it
<br /> with me is, are we doing this for revenue purposes? And the answer to that is, "No." On the same
<br /> side, no directive has ever been given to not write tickets for any offense. So, I guess what it boils
<br /> down to, not just this, but with anything, somebody doing thirty six (36) miles an hour in a thirty
<br /> five(35)mile an hour zone, does the Council want the Police Department to write tickets for that?
<br /> Rhetorical. Every officer has the discretion whether to write the citation or not and that is up to
<br /> each officer to make that decision. Whatever happens afterwards, happens afterwards. So, this
<br /> would be absolutely no different.
<br /> Committeemember Gavin Ferlic stated, Again, if a delay is necessary to have a broader
<br /> conversation regarding some of these topics, we can certainly do that, but this is more just this
<br /> particular issue. And I think again with the texting thing it can help a little bit as well just because
<br /> I think now folks are using the phone, texting and thinking, okay I can text it because I can say it
<br /> was potentially just a phone call or whatever it might be. I think this will not only discourage
<br /> handheld phone calls, which is distracted driving. Or even worse distracted driving, which is
<br /> texting or watching videos or whatever you drive by and see sometimes.
<br /> Mr. Ruszkowski replied, I think previously Mr. Ferlic, to one of the points of contentions that we
<br /> did have was proving that somebody was texting on the phone and the only way to legally do that
<br /> is to obtain the search warrant. So, we can have reasonable suspicion or probable cause to make a
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