So, people have weighed in through several newspaper articles, the Mayor sends staff off to work on various tasks, some emails to alders are sent, and Blaska weighs in on his blog about what might be solution to Westside crime. Forward our Motto beat me to it in the Blaska underwear critique, but all this talk makes me think that there are some things missing or some of the solutions miss the point, so here’s my additions and suggestions:
NEIGHBORHOOD SUGGESTIONS
From the Wisconsin State Journal article on residents calls for action
Ernie and Joan Horinek, who own apartment buildings near the site of the fatal shooting last week, are organizing tenants, landlords and homeowners to brainstorm ways to change a troubled street, Balsam Road, in the Meadowood neighborhood.
Florenzo Cribbs, the new president of the Allied Drive Neighborhood Association, is reaching out to leaders in other neighborhoods with a message of personal accountability, cooperation and community involvement.
And the Rev. David Smith of Faith Community Christian Church is trying to get churches and schools to help give kids more options to keep them off the streets.
and
Other residents and business owners in Madison and Fitchburg demanded more police and city services — and taking a stand against trouble-makers.
“As a community, we facilitate freeloaders and bad lifestyles,” said Dennis Lochner, who owns a hardware store in the Meadowood Shopping Center on Raymond Road.
Thumbs Up: My favorite is Rev. David Smith’s efforts. A very close second is Florenzo Cribbs solutions. I even support the landlord’s efforts to have brainstorming sessions, but have a few concerns. And I think I support more city services, depending upon what that means, hopefully it means building inspection enforcement (inside and out), supporting inclusive community center programming and after school activities.
Thumbs Down: Stereotypes and blaming. More police.
The key to the brainstorming efforts is making sure that everyone feels included, that their ideas are equally considered and do not feel like they are being targeted by others suggestions. It can be done, but I haven’t seen it done well in Madison.
Calling people freeloaders isn’t helping.
With the “more police” I support it if they mean police should focus their efforts on crime in the area, implement meaningful neighborhood/community policing practices and use their resources wisely. I don’t support it if it is a blanket call for 30 more police officers. This isn’t about the number of police we have, its about what they do.
MAYOR’S SUGGESTIONS
Also from the Wisconsin State Journal article on residents calls for action:
The mayor asked Madison Police Chief Noble Wray to create a task force on gun violence. He also urged Community Development Director Bill Clingan, Department of Civil Rights Director Lucia Nunez, and Neighborhood Preservation and Inspection Division Director George Hank to bring proposals on what the city can do.
Thumb’s Up: Looking for solutions
Thumb’s Down: Having the solution process be an internal staff process and not including the community or Council in the discussions of the solutions.
If Nobel Wray creates a task force on gun violence, the meetings are unlikely to be publicly noticed. And the Clingan/Nunez/Hank proposals should be discussed by the committees that they staff (Community Development Block Grant Commission, Community Services Commission, Senior Advisory Commission, Early Childhood and Education Board, Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunities Commission, Housing Committee). We should use this opportunity to create a true community dialog instead of hatching plans in private.
BLASKA’S SUGGESTIONS
Thumbs Up: “Police Surge”, train neighbors on safety precautions, promote positive values, supporting libraries and schools, enforce current ordinances, neighborhood clean ups, safe schools.
Thumbs Down: Appoint Pham-Remmele to the Public Safety Review Board and Community Development Block Grant Commission, Stronger Curfew laws, renew and aggressive use Chronic Nuisance Ordinance, train neighbors to physically intervene, politicalization of victimization language, mandating specific books to be read, criminalizing free speech and underwear, violating fair wage laws, repealing fair housing laws, attacking immigration status and denying people housing based on it, month-to-month leases for people on probation and parole, Mayor moving to Meadowood.
This’ll take some explanation. On the thumbs up, I may not support what Blaska would like to see per se, but I do support neighborhood/community policing, safe schools, promoting positive values via Florenzo’s efforts, funding our libraries and schools adequately so books are available and neighborhood pride and community building activities like neighborhood clean ups or whatever other activities the neighborhood residents might like to see (job fairs, health service fairs, etc.)
On the thumbs down, the brief story is this:
1. Appoint Pham-Remmele to the Public Safety Review Board and Community Development Block Grant Commission. Appointing one alder to any committee rarely does anything, unless they know how to get things done and have the time and energy to fight the bureaucracy (the entity, not the people in it) to get it done. Pham-Remmele hasn’t demonstrated those skills – all she does is whine/complain and tell others what they should do, without helpful suggestions about how to address the issues she is concerned about. I have yet to see any constructive solutions, an outlined plan or a proposal to address the issues she complains about in the press. Additionally, the Public Safety Review Board has been emasculated, we should give them some real authority and include them in the policing studies, budgeting and management of the police department.
2. Stronger Curfew laws. Criminalizing kids doesn’t make sense. Enforce the laws on the books and the criminals will get caught, and kids being kids will not be punished for being somewhere at a certain time. This also goes back to enhancing out community efforts.
3. Renew and aggressive use Chronic Nuisance Ordinance. I’m ok with this, if the tenant protections are in place and the recommendations of the Equal Opportunity are considered and adopted. They were first completely blown off and they adopted the ordinance before the EOC considered it and then 1.5 years later when the recommendations made it to council, they essentially refused to consider them because the sunset of the ordinance was coming up.
4. Train neighbors to physically intervene. Wow. Talk about increasing violence, putting innocent people at unnecessary risk and being completely irresponsible and exposing the City to liability. This is an insane suggestion.
5. Politicalization of victimization language. See Forward Our Motto.
6. Mandating specific books to be read. I say, let the teachers do their jobs and determine how their students will best learn. Of course, we also need to adequately fund the schools as well.
7. Criminalizing free speech and underwear. See Forward Our Motto.
8. Violating fair wage laws. $3/hour? How about funding youth job programs instead to teach kids job skills.
9. Repealing fair housing laws. Just because someone gets Section 8 does not mean they are causing troubles in the neighborhood. In fact, half the households are elderly or disabled. Instead, we should have mandate landlords get training in appropriate screening practices and license them if we have to.
10. Attacking immigration status and denying people housing based on it. Immigrants are productive members of our community who are doing jobs, paying taxes and being good community members. Denying them housing will just lead to overcrowding and violations of leases in other areas of town. This is just short-sided and the unintended consequences will just create additional problems. Plus, its probably a disparate impact violation of local, state and federal Fair Housing Laws that will just keep our taxpayer funded attorneys tied up.
11. Month-to-month leases for people on probation and parole. This one is just silly because these are the people who least need to have month to month leases. If they do something wrong, their back in jail. Month to month leases should be used for tenants that don’t meet all of the screening criteria of the landlord but have financial issues only but are likely to pay or have taken steps to rectify past behavior issues. I think this gets back to mandatory landlord training.
12. Mayor moving to Meadowood. You know, we were challenged several years ago to do this at Allied Drive, Todd Jarrell and Tom Powell joined me a few nights and I stayed out there by myself a few nights as well. I’m not sure what that was supposed to prove an it didn’t really teach me anything. I think this one is a waste of time and a cheap political stunt.
Finally, Blaska started out his action plan by saying that human services were important too, but I didn’t see any of his solutions dealing with that. His agenda is a “punish them” instead of getting to the root of the problems and figuring out how to change behaviors and support people in a positive way.
WHAT’S MISSING/MY SUGGESTIONS
1. The city should support efforts of Rev. David Smith and Florenzo Cribbs.
2. The city should help make sure that the Horinek brainstorming sessions are inclusive and respectful.
3. Focus policing on community and neighborhood policing efforts, more neighborhood officers and partnerships with the community.
4. Use the 30 new police officers for patrol, instead of 12, or whatever number it ended up being. I think that was the final number, but the police presentation on this was very confusing.
5. Create some sort of community dialog, education or discussion to address the “hater” mentality of many who just want to blame “freeloaders”.
6. Use the city committees we have to make recommendations that the Mayor will consider.
7. Include the council in the Mayor’s recommendation process instead of having it be a budget message announcement.
8. Empower the Public Safety Review Board to play a larger role in guiding the police department and having community dialogs about policing and how our police resources are used.
9. Empower the Public Safety Review Board to have some actual authority.
10. Adequately fund libraries so they can be open more hours and provide more services to the community.
11. Adequately fund schools.
12. Support neighborhood and community building activities by adopting a workable funding mechanism and allowing the neighborhoods to determine what activities are appropriate and have a streamlined funding mechanism. (i.e. Fix the Emerging Neighborhoods Fund and fund it adequately.)
13. Adopt Equal Opportunities Commission changes to the Chronic Nuisance Ordinance or let it sunset.
14. Beefed up funding of youth job programs.
15. Mandatory landlord training.
16. Landlord licensing.
17. Adequately fund Joining Forces for Families.
18. Adequately fund housing case managers.
19. Create affordable rental housing in the city that is well managed by providing operating expenses so services can be available.
20. Get serious about career ladder job development instead of high end biotech jobs when we support economic development.
I could go on about adequate funding for the District Attorney’s office, adequate funding of County Human Services and City of Madison Community Services activities, economic development, funding our schools, the landlords role in all of this and criminalization of activities . . . but I’ll stop here. This is just a list of things I thought of in the last hour and I’m sure there are many more answers and suggestions and I hope that all are considered and that the final package of solutions is an equal balance between services and community policing efforts.
p.s. I make it a practice not to respond to Blaska’s blather . . . but this time, he actually had concrete suggestions and although I don’t agree with them all, I appreciate the effort to be relatively constructive in adding to the conversation instead of spewing political crap.
