07-08-13 Common Council Meeting Minutes

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REGULAR MEETING JULY 8, 2013 Council Portion: Councilmember Scott no questions. Councilmember Henry Davis stated that he is really disappointed with a number of things and it has to do with the culture of poor people fighting poor people. There is a great opportunity for someone to invest loads of money into an area that sorely needs the investment. But we clearly are not being supportive especially because of this issue right here since November of being or adopting a plan for Western Avenue. I thought maybe Scott Ford would have done something a lot faster than what he did today, however, we are here again looking at and saying no to an investment. What bothers me about all of this is that this really doesn’t have to be. Western Avenue is not vacant; however, it needs some investment. There is always opportunity to allow those investments to happen and in an area where it is more conducive. One example was again Western Avenue and Sheridan Street where you have an old 7-11 Store, the City always participates and you know getting people to move to a certain location because they are trying to expand their business through the betterment of the City. And what we have here it’s almost like a situation where no one wants to touch this and see it crash or have people come speak against it and it becomes politicized. That is my biggest disappointment because there is a community and nd I serve directly the 2 District and it is crying for investment and you have two groups one is saying no and the other yes and now instead of providing a win/win scenario the administration comes up short in the whole situation and this has been since November. This just shouldn’t happen and so it bothers me that we are not here for the people that are my issue, we’re not here for the people, we need the investment and the services are needed in the area. On the other end, I think Mr. Hughes and have been meeting with a group of folks that have clued him in and he has said this out loud before about how we do need stricter regulations on some of these Mini- Mart stores. If you go into any of the other ones like the ones close to LaSalle school, one in Dr. Ferlic’s area on Howard Street you have things that are being sold in those stores again that are promoting the lifestyle that we don’t want any of our kids to be involved in, and so how can we continue to allow those places to exist and promote a culture of destruction. So, again I’m disappointed again because it seems to me that we don’t want to work at these improvements we just politicize them and don’t want to help them figure it out, let’s try to add this and add that to it, it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. I am sorry for Mr. Singh; I have told him prior to this meeting that if the neighborhood organization required him to vote against it, then that’s what he would do. I have been in conversations with them from the beginning of time with this situation. So, I want to do my job for the people that I work for, however, if we want to continue to have the City of South Bend suffer, then we are going to continue to make these bad decisions and not plan out. If we want to see South Bend flourish then we need to go buy in such a way that it makes sense. And that requires the Mayor to be involved, his department heads to be involved, and the Council people that are sitting at this table to be involved in a more positive manner. We can’t continue to take a back seat to this stuff. This is going to hurt our community. Either way it goes. Councilmember Dr. Fred Ferlic: I commend you for investing 500 600 hundred thousand dollars in an area as Mr. Zappia states that certainly needs investment. The businessman puts in businesses to make money. They have to have (inaudible), schools, that’s were businesses go. Where you have a safe environment and I commend you that you are willing to invest that amount of money to help the citizens of South Bend. Councilmember Oliver Davis: A couple of things that I would like to address. He is a little concerned and this not the nature of full discretion in my regarding the corner gas stations. I don’t like the premise of that because of the fact in my “neighborhood” we may have some stores that are (inaudible), they sell alcohol, they sell cigarettes, there is a lot of Wal-Marts, K- Marts, and every other place they sell it at all different places. You see where the liquor is in those stores and it’s sometimes right next to the party stuff. Over the last few weeks I have looked at the concept around used cars versus convenient stores and I have been thinking about just the tone this sets. I see this but I can go down a whole a list of things with every single store, so just to single out the convenience stores I hope that the Minority Health Coalition will broaden their thought and not just deal with it because that could be the area that we are used to that kind of stuff. (inaudible) But back to this issue I feel Councilman Davis is right on this one 8