05-29-12 Common Council Meeting Minutes

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REGULAR MEETING MAY 29, 2012 invite people to write in with their thoughts on what is especially important. We may also find that something more structured like a community would be appropriate. Councilmember Henry Davis asked what the timeline on this is. Mayor Buttigieg advised that he stated previously would be abusing Chief Hurley’s willingness to serve if we went passed this calendar year and his hope is to be interviewing finalists with a view toward a decision late this summer early this fall. Councilmember Henry Davis stated that his concern is not necessarily the Police Chief as it is the other ranking officials and officers within the Police Department. He stated last time we were here he made mention of the numbers of 260 maybe give or take a few officers that are within the department and the number of minorities that are actually out of that number which is 28, which it is actually 30 because he is including all of them. So it’s 230 Caucasian men women and there is 30 are just African-Americans; American-Asian; American-Indian. So when your structure is such like that, its just one position, one person, one chief and it’s clear that we need that but his concerns is dealing with ranks that is inside the police department where you have more officers serving at different capacities, such as lieutenant; head of the detective bureau; as so on, and those are things that he thinks are a lot more important that just this one position and is speaking for where he is at. He stated that he could be off-kilter with this, but he thinks that when we begin to really look at what we are doing and concentrate solely on one position that doesn’t help out with the other 259 officers that are on the police force or 260 officers, he doesn’t know what that number is right now, he doesn’t have his paper in front of him. He stated that when the administration begins to concentrate on rank and moving people to the head of the detective bureau, being head of any other uniform chief and so on, we need to really start looking at those numbers more so than just that one and making sure that it is representative of the entire city rather than just one segment or sector of this city. He stated that he read in the newspaper and thought that this was a very very good thing. The Fire Department is going out and saying that they are going to recruit more minorities some of sites that they said nd are within the 2 District. The question that he has about it because he does applaud the efforts, how soon will these people is hired. A lot of people are looking for jobs right now rather than a year from now, two years from now, three years from now. He suggested it probably will be more than six (6) months from now and so when we are out here saying that this is what we are going to do, we are going to get a lot of people amped up, hyped up, happy that this is going to happen and it maybe something that is going to never happen. He asked if the Mayor was following him, because when it falls back this way and people say this is why we don’t trust you politicians or you elected officials when you say one thing and do another. A lot of the application process becomes a wish for people rather than just a day out in front of the news camera’s saying this is what we are doing and doesn’t measure out at the end of the day. He stated that he thinks that same commitment that the Fire Department is making should be made on behalf of the South Bend Police Department as well, going in the ranks but also recruiting in, because those things are quite valuable, it is just not this one position, you know you can’t win or lose on this one position but you lose on the other positions or you win on the other positions. Councilmember Oliver Davis asked Mayor Buttigieg if he had any comment on what Councilmember Henry Davis said. Mayor Buttigieg stated that’s right it would be wrong for us to promise that over night the make- up Fire or Police Departments can come closer to where we want it to be which is of course a composition that reflects the community at large. He stated that he will say that the Fire Department is committed and you will notice that the approach that the Fire Department is taking is really to begin at the beginning and to make sure that they are doing everything they can to reach out to people at the very beginning of the process so that they get more people coming in, in the first place. He stated that they are looking everywhere they can to try to attract more applicants. These is the same strategy that has been in place in the police department and spoke with former Chief Boykins and have stressed with Interim-Chief Hurley and will certainly emphasize with whoever the future chief is. He stated that once again to really succeed in this, 8