08-12-19 Health and Public Safety

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CITY OF SOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK going on about that because most of my work is done via me driving, on the phone and taking care of calls that I couldn't do sitting at a desk or as opposed to even coming on my way from work to here when I'm done with Council tonight, no more calls can happen until tomorrow. So, on my way from work to here, I was making other calls. So,me going back and forth. I mean it definitely is very annoying seeing people irresponsible. You're behind them where they are on their phone and texting and it's horrible. It's very distracting and unsafe. So, I am in total support of the safety piece. But at the same time another issue is that the car I have now, it doesn't have the good old- fashioned CD in it. And so, all my music is on my phone. So, my thought would be, okay, if I'm switching the phone to music, what does that look like compared to whether an officer thinks I'm texting. So those are little things to have to discuss and work out. So that was just my thought on that as well. Committeemember Gavin Ferlic replied, I think within the ordinance, I think there is a, touching a phone once to initiate either the start or the end of a call is acceptable within the ordinance. It's having it in your hand, scrolling through it or doing whatever, that's what we're looking to avoid. It's looking to just raise awareness and hopefully have a lot fewer people doing it. Again, driving from Indianapolis you have a long stretch of roadway where it's legal to talk. Committeemember Ferlic went on, But no, I do think there's enough options out there. My car doesn't have blue tooth in it, and you can buy a twenty-five dollar ($25) little device you can put on your windshield or your visor, and you can talk through that. Committee Chair Jo M. Broden stated, A couple pieces. To the chiefs comment about voluntary or punitive, some changes that you might want to consider would be expanding the failure to make payments to either sixty(60)to ninety(90)days. A thirty(30)day window could miss somebody's paycheck. And when that hits in their abilities. So that might be good,just to look at an expansion of that. The other suggestion is maybe to have a reset opportunity. You have that subsequent violations are $25-$250. But maybe there should be a reset opportunity figured into this so that if someone is violation free for a five (5) year period or, whatever. Make it up, but something that actually gets somebody out of this cycle. A diversion type element to this.And I even put the word, is there an education video or something that could educate people about the overall dangers that could be interjected into this whole process so that we're not just slapping people and they're not getting the lesson because of the fine. But they got the broader understanding of the overall danger. Another question is, is there any contemplation about when we expand to the whole area of the City, every City street, is there any concern that our school zones may become less protected because of workforce inability to cover? You know what I'm saying? We're asking the same static number of officers to patrol everything. Is there any concern about the actual school zones possibly becoming less safe? Mr. Ruszkowski replied, No, And I think that's relegated specifically to school zone. Whereas if this ordinance were to go into effect, any officer on patrol, whether on or off duty, would witness a violation to be able to make that traffic stop. Right now, it would only be in the school zone during those specific hours. Committee Chair Jo M. Broden asked, And is that piece, it's $250, this is not a change? Mr. Ruszkowski replied, No. EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION I INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f574.235.9173 TTD574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 5