07-13-15 Common Council Meeting Minutes

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REGULAR MEETING JULY 13, 2015 Councilmember Davis, Jr. — Our issue is not our youth not having anything to do. Our issue is the adults that are in leadership are not paying attention to our kids that are invisible to us. The other issue is the Parks department and Code Enforcement can't handle, which is the biggest issue, we have had three (3) Code Enforcement directors in three (3) years how can this city do anything at a high level when leadership is constantly changing, nothing against Randy. Then we have a new code enforcer director in a high volume area, why would you put a rookie in an area that requires an all -star. Those things start from the top to the bottom. It is not about the youth component, I get the youth component. Over 50% of African American youth are unemployed that look like me, I get that. One (1) out of three (3) black males has a high chance of going to jail, I get that as well. If our kids and our youth are so important to us why can't every company that comes before us just like they come before us earlier today, have a standard on how things are going to be done that's if they are important. There is an opportunity right now to put in a standard. Put the standard in there. I would be more comfortable to vote with a criteria in place rather than just saying aye and hoping that it just might happen. My last point is that a request for quotes goes through the Mayor's office, if I'm correct. If there is a quote under the amount of $250,000 that means the request for quote can be subjected to whatever the Mayor's office thinks is the best quote. I could be wrong.... Council Attorney Kathy Cekanski- Farrand interjected Mr. Davis, at the committee meeting this afternoon we went over the process. Legally the council can only make recommendations that Mr. Wilkerson would be drafting according to the state law and title V. Councilmember Davis, Jr. asked so again in that case you get three (3) quotes, who gets to say yay or nay? Council attorney Kathy Cekanski- Farrand stated that upon all three (3) meeting the criteria set forth in the RFQ, then they will have them on a rotating basis. Upon completion of a job a picture will need to be taken of the before and after. Councilmember Davis responded so we still don't have any criteria on this and that's my concern. (Councilmember Schey stepped out of the meeting) Councilmember Dr. Ferlic —This isn't rocket scientist we have a great program to clean up our city. The only way to get people to move to South Bend is by cleaning up the lots and cleaning up the houses everyone wants to live in a well -kept neighborhood. I don't think we need the government involved in this. I ride around with my code officer every Thursday, he points out code violations and I call a couple kids and if there is a person there I ask if I can help you clean up your yard. I had an elderly neighbor pay $40 to clean up his yard and we had some neighborhood kids mow the yard; that was easily solved. Let's get a reality check, lets clean up South Bend, lets adopt a good mentoring program, and we can move South Bend forward. Let's not complicate it, this isn't' brain surgery. Again I compliment Karen White and Tim Scott. This is going to make a better South Bend and this is going to be better for our youth because our youth can do all of this. Councilmember Dr. Varner — I see this as a resolution intended to start a process which will give us an outcome. If the outcome isn't perfect, we will modify it. It is already July 13" and we are in the middle of the first round of cuts. If we keep talking about it, it will be September where we don't need to mow anymore and it will be an even bigger mess. I hear this from many people let's find a way to get something done and if it's not perfect the first time around let's improvement. Mr. Tim Scott's resolution is a way to get that started and we already know where the funding will come from so we don't have to argue about that. Councilmember Davis — First of all I don't believe this resolution is the reason why something has to get started. We make budgets and once it's gone the Mayor's administration can put together a program and do what they can to keep it within the law. What we are doing in this resolution is not funding or defunding it, it's something I call good political theatre. If they wanted to do this, they could have done this already. When we set up the budget it is ingenious. When they say we don't have a good budget, we don't have enough capital, but you initially came to us with the budget, so that's a problem. The criteria is not set and so you can have 25, 30, and 40 years old working it. You have to be very cautious about setting up jobs that are age specific, that are race specific, or gender based. You have to be very careful using federal money on how we set those up. I wish it was rocket science, then we would be a lot more cautious and logic- based. When you sit back and say we will just try it out and see what happens is not a great way to do business like that. That's not great judiciary responsibility, as it has gotten us 32