05-14-12 Common Council Meeting Minutes

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REGULAR MEETING MAY 14, 2012 between the administration and the school corporation and he stated that can’t happen without leadership also from the Council. He stated that he may ask the Council in the future to work with him to visit areas where they might want to consider pro-actively committing resources to that effort. He reiterated nothing formal or articulated at this time. Councilmember Oliver Davis stated that with all the recent challenges that they are facing, what is going to be done to reassure the people of South Bend that the City of South Bend is still safe. Mayor Buttigieg stated that for one thing, they can demonstrate how much of the community cares about the safety of our city. The number of people who have spoken up, organized, pulled together in their way, in various different ways to come together shows at least that we have no problem when it comes to awareness or passion or commitment around the commitment of safety. He stated that he is not satisfied with the level of violence that they have observed so far. He stated that they have not yet got to summer and will have to see whether the spike in violence that was observed in the spring is going to be a pattern that carries through the year or not. He stated that they cannot be content to wait and see what happens. He stated that they are ensuring that they double down on the city’s commitment of community policing. One thing that just happened today was a part of the Weed & Seed Program. He stated that he has spent some time at Muessel Primary Center, where there is a really inspiring partnership between Police Officers and kids, trying to make sure that the kids often in the neighborhoods most effected by this issue, unaware that they can regard police officers as their friends, that the officers are they to help them and try to build a level of trust. He stated that he will also be participating in the Walk with a Cop effort. The idea here is to make sure that police officers are spending time outside of the car and actually engaging in the neighborhoods in the areas that they are sworn to keep safe. In order to signal mild support for this program it’s something that he will get out and do himself with an officer. It might be something that Councilmember’s might find interesting. He invited all to participate. He stated that it is just not only law enforcement, it’s a community effort, an all hands on deck, but those are some of the areas that they are most concentrating on. Councilmember Oliver Davis asked how are all going to be treated fairly when it comes to policing. Mayor Buttigieg stated that they cannot police their way out of this problem. He stated that it is really a community wide issue to make sure that we are safe. He stated that they are all trying to make sure that trust between the police department and the citizens are reinforced. He stated that he does believe that the effort to increase traffic enforcement will bear fruit when it comes both to traffic safety and a broader sense of police presence. He stated that if there are any indications that there are even any appearances that this policy is being applied unfairly, he would like to know about it right away. Councilmember Henry Davis stated that there was a program in the State of Michigan called the Michigan Job Works program that would probably work really well here and asked Mayor Buttigieg to look into getting something like that here. He stated on another note that he expressed his discontent by walking out of the committee meeting earlier today. He stated that he is looking at a document and another document as well and stated order, he stated that he said that word about seventeen times earlier today “order” He stated that as a Councilmember there is a level of respect and thinks that all of his colleagues expect to have and receive when they are approached by a member of the community or in this matter a department head. He stated that when they have an opportunity to a fluid dialogue between a department head and a councilmember, he being a Councilmember doesn’t expect a department head to question him on what is he doing to police the community. He stated that he is not the Police Chief, that is the Police Chief’s job, now he can participate in a conversation and give ideas, or perhaps situations, or even perhaps even like advocating for more dollars if there is a program that needs more funding, but his job is not to police the community, he does his fair share of mentoring, knocking on doors, community service projects, the whole nine, but that’s not 6