01-23-12 Common Council Meeting Minutes

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REGULAR MEETING JANUARY 23, 2012 PRIVILEGE OF THE FLOOR COMMENTS FROM MR. JAMES LEE REGARDING TRANSPO ROUTE CUTS James Lee, 1906 Delaware, South Bend, Indiana, thanked Councilmember’s Oliver Davis, White, Scott, and Ferlic along with the Mayor’s Chief of Staff Mike Schmuhl for attending the meeting at TRANSPO. Mr. Lee advised that the Mayor in his first speech stated that we need to come together as a city and not to be divided by a west side or a south side problem or what ever side problem. Mr. Lee stated that it was sad that the rest of the Council didn’t show up to speak to the concerns of the citizens regarding TRANSPO. He stated that this does affect the community as a whole. He thanked other community leaders and citizens that showed up. He thanked the Sister’s of the Holy Cross, Little Flower Catholic Church, Bridges out of Poverty, and a variety of small business owners to just plain citizens who were being directly affected to citizens who have never used the bus before or understand how the bus helps the community. Mr. Lee stated that he wasn’t sure if the TRANSPO hearings were even legal? He stated that the hearings that were held, the students of the Universities were out on winter break. So they had no input in which one of the routes is directly being affected by them. So are we to say that St. Mary’s and Notre Dame do not matter. He stated that if you polled the citizens of the community most of the community would say that they love Notre Dame sports, but Notre Dame as a whole they could care less about them. Because they feel like the City caters to Notre Dame and so does TRANSPO, by providing not one (1) but two (2) buses to Notre Dame. The Notre Dame suite runs every twenty minutes, while the rest of the community is lucky to get thirty. On Friday and Saturday this bus service runs until 2:00 a.m. while the rest of the community gets 9:00, 10:00 on a Friday, and 5:30 on a Saturday. Those buses are considered party buses for that Notre Dame area. Mr. Lee stated that he sure would like to have a party bus supply him he would ride it. He stated that with the economics of this other businesses won’t come to our community if we can’t get the people there. Most communities of our size or larger that have factories that cover three shifts the bus service covers three shifts or at least until midnight. COMMENTS FROM MR. GARY KING REGARDING TRANSPARENCY Gary King, 730 N. Hill Street, South Bend, Indiana, stated that there was something that happened at the last meeting that bothered him. It was done in the name of transparency and he hoped that he could keep him remarks to two minutes. There was a lengthy discussion outside of the normal format of the committee of the whole. Which involved some comments between some Councilmember’s and the Council Attorney and then there was a motion made to continue the motion for another about five or six weeks. Without talking about the specifics he also noticed that there were a couple dozen people who would have liked to say something about that issue, but the affect of the motion being made at that point to continue and the motion being approved deprived the citizens and other concerned people of their opportunity to actually present their comments, questions and information in the Public Hearing. Now whether it was a good idea or not to proceed with that particular issue he would have liked to hear the comments, but was deprived of the opportunity to hear the comments, they did not become part of the public record that would have been in the minutes. The media got to hear everything and if he really wanted a summary of what was going on he had to go to the television stations and the newspaper to find out basically what was said, but not everything that might have been said in the Public Hearing. He would have like to seen the minutes of that meeting however he understands that they cannot be publish the minutes until they have been approved and that takes almost a month from the time that the actual meeting has taken place. Mr. King asked the Council to have the minutes published with a subject to approval watermark. Maybe they could be on the website stating that here are some things that came, it might not be exactly word for word but a summary of the main points also, so that he could see what items were referred to committees and he could see it he might want to participate in that meeting or the media or whoever will know oh, this is what is supposed to come and lets be ready, do our homework, have their comments in good order. As far as transparency is concerned as long as it goes through the Clerk’s Office and it’s in the packet and it is available on the web we should all be happy. 14