07-13-15 Common Council Meeting Minutes

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REGULAR MEETING JULY 13, 2015 Muller joining our community as our Chief of Staff. He is going to start in two (2) weeks from today on the 27 ". He is someone who has grown up in our community. He has spent the last two (2) years working in the United States Senate. I look forward to introducing him, as we wish Kathryn Roos well as she goes on to begin her studies at Harvard. First, as you may have seen in recent news coverage the initiative to address 1,000 vacant homes is on track to hit in November; of those 442 have been demolished, 125 are under contract, and 62 have been addressed with federal funds. The best number of them all, that exceeded our expectations, is that 332 houses were repaired. They were addressed not by being torn down but being repaired, thanks to the comprehensive collections process. The year one update on the Group Violence initiative: we saw a 31% drop in criminal assaulted gunshot victims in the city over that period. Now that isn't 100 %, so we don't get to sit back and rest easy. In cities that have applied this strategy successfully and those that haven't this is a critical period for locking in that strategy and early results in retaining what is working. We have real results in saving lives and keeping people out of jail through the intervention of law enforcement and social services as a true community effort. That would not have been possible with our leaders in the community. Feedback on SMART streets: on Lincoln Way West is nearly complete. We understand from feedback that the biking lanes are confusing. There will be biking icons painted in the lanes to clarify the difference between the bike lanes and buffer zone. Overall we are receiving great feedback on the sidewalk, streets, landscaping, and curbs. The traffic flow seems to be working quite well. I would like to thank the Council for your support on this initiative. In economic updates: since we are half -way through the year, we have seen $92.6 million in private investment and 586 new jobs announced; those counted are the ones that have gone through the public process not including any job creation that we will be discussing tonight, those will be in addition to the numbers quoted. We are seeing unemployment below 6 %, at 5.9% for the last month reported in May, which is down from 7.8 %, a quarter from a year ago. We still have our work cut out but we are seeing unemployment down to a level that we haven't seen in more than five (5) years and that is encouraging. We are positioning ourselves to compete in the Regional Cities initiative, championed by our governor. Some of our existing businesses have grown Lippert secured a six (6) year, $11 million contract, the company in the old AJ Wright building. We will begin to see more people go back to work on the south west side. AM General has secured a $372 million contract. We have seen at least 200 workers called, the plant is in Mishawaka, but many people who work there live here in South Bend. I had the opportunity this weekend to roll out the Veteran's Community Connections initiative. We were acknowledged by the Secretary of Defense at the National Associations of Counties meeting on Saturday as one (1) of three (3) communities in the country taking this approach. We think it is a chance to go beyond saying thank you for your service by activating a network of local volunteers who can help retiring and demobilizing members of the military. We think it fills a gap and I look forward to sharing more in the near fixture. Stay tuned for more job efforts for summer jobs for youth partnering with America's jobs for graduates. We have many challenges in front us, at the U.S. conference of Mayors, many were concerned about the escalating costs of the long -term control plan imposed by the EPA when it comes to our compliance with the Clean Water Act. I would like to thank Dr. Varner on the Utilities Committee and Dr. Ferlic for containing people in the community who are concerned about this issue too. We will continue to monitor and look for ways to save on the plan and open the door to a more affordable fixture. We had a presentation this morning to my cabinet on the issues of poverty on how we can make our decisions more intentional on the effect they have on low- income people. We are somewhere between 25 -30% poverty rate, when in reality we are closer to 50% of people. As for those living at an asset limited rate or in other words, the working poor. We are beginning to have our budget meetings, and will coordinate with the Council once we have our rough outlines in place. We are preparing for flat line revenues, we will have a tight year and looking to budget conservatively. So we will have some tough decisions to make but I'm confident with working together with the Council we will arrive at a balanced budget that reflects the priorities of our community. I welcome any questions from Council. Councilmember Davis, Jr. —Thank you so much for responding to my letter I sent regarding the grass cutting. The question I would like to ask, Lippert Components they have good numbers.is there a way the city can promote their job openings through a local temp agency versus one in Elkhart County? The conversations that I am having with workers from the local area is that they have to go to Elkhart County to sign up for the jobs, obviously travel then wait to see if they were successful. My second question is about the poverty issue, I want to extend an invitation if M