Neighborhood Planning Council 2 - North Central

NORTHCENTRAL NEIGHBORHOOD PLANNING COUNCIL #2 Meeting Minutes—July 9, 2018 SMCDC 47 N. Washington Avenue Battle Creek, MI 1. Call to Order & Welcome: Pastor Joe Hooper, Chair, called to order the NPC#2 meeting at 7:00 p.m. 2. Attendance: Members: Rev. Hooper, Ron Sweet, Kitty Hillian, Prentice Thompson, Commissioner Lynn Ward Gray, Kristin Denison, Geraldine King, David Draper, Larz Martin Bey, Linnea Mobley, Nicholas Virgil (Guests: Ofc. Brand Gentry, Tracie Tomak, Linda Ellis, Kelly Dillman, Shanay A. Settles, Richard Bolek-City of Battle Creek Building Inspection Chief. 3. Approval of Minutes: Mr. Larz Martin Bey motion to accept minutes and seconded by Mr. Sweet. 4) Correspondences: Councils on Summer Vacation Announcements: Commissioner Lynn Ward Gray Safer Day for the Internet Summer Festival coming up and First Presbyterian Church is having Heart in the City Health and Fun Fair, Wednesday, July 25, 1-5p.m. in the fellowship area. 111 Capital Ave. N.E. They will be doing a variety of health screenings, BP, glucose, basic dental, Sports Physicals—students up to age 13, hearing and vision testing, school immunizations for young children---low cost vaccines for the uninsured or insurance billing available. Those people completing health fair screening stations will receive a free health-kit gift bag. Passed out save-the-date magnets for hand-outs. Some discussion before presentations with some assistance for the Byrne Grant Person, Adam to help assist with NPC2 light project. 5) Guest Presentations: Tracie Tomak for District Judge: Thank you. I am running for District Court Judge. We have a judge, Norlander who is retiring at the end of this year. Once you turn 70 you can’t run. I am one of two candidates running for the November election. I wanted to introduce myself. I was born and raised in Battle Creek. I went to Post Elementary School and ended up graduating from Harper Creek in 1985. I’m 50 and married to a former paramedic and now a computer nerd and we have a son of seven years. We live in Lakeview and have been an attorney for 11 years. I went to Law School as a second career. I used to be a business analyst. And then decided at age 36 to go to Law School. I am more than just an attorney. What the district court does is oversee misdemeanor crimes, Landlord- Tenant Issues and Code Compliances. Those are all topics that are very important to me because it touches so many people lives. I represented landlords and tenants. One of my ideas is to assist with and there is a movement right now to start an eviction diversion specialty program. So, we can not only help the Landlords to get their fair rent and keep their homes build but help the tenants who are having trouble making the rents. There other programs that communities are doing and I’d like to help spearhead that. The other idea I have is very important is a misdemeanor or district clerk drug court If you are familiar with the felony drug court. It’s a good program. About 60% of the people are able to get free from drugs and not come back. But we don’t help them or we don’t give them special counsel or special attention at the felony level facing prison time. I really want to do something especially for our young folks. The first time they get caught up in drugs. The first time they have law enforcement contact. So those are just a couple of ideas that could help our community. I want to help each other. People get in trouble but that shouldn’t ruin their life. We need somebody who is going to put in the extra work to help develop these programs. That’s going to invest in our community in our people and get them straight again to be productive citizens. So, I am asking for your support. I have passed out my brochure that tells a little bit about me but please if you have questions let me know. I can talk to individuals, groups or even come to your home. I want people to know me and know who this person is running for judgeship. Shanay Settlers—Calhoun County Health Department. Thank you for having me. In the Health Department I work in the Environmental Health Department. We deal with licensing whether its bars, restaurants, temporaries, tattoo parlors, well-accepted programs, we inspect pools. We do a lot of inspections. I wanted to share with you what’s going on now. There are a lot of festivals and food events. There are many opportunities for people to have temporary food licenses if they want to do fundraisers for their groups. I brought some information. There are times when you do need a license to sell and serve to the public, and then there are times when you don’t. It’s kind of important that we know those times ahead of time before we see someone out selling something, and we have to put on are hard hats on. Laughter…. she shut Prof. T’s tea stand down. We are a resource. We want to be educators instead of regulators. There are so many opportunities to promote your product but we want to make sure that you are being safe when it comes to the public. I brought copies of licenses and application with a check list. If you want to be a restaurant then there is a guide. Even if you give food away, then you still have to be safe. I have seen quite a bit of food born illnesses and complaints. Then I have to go out and to do an investigation. If we can be safe as possible; it is more than just washing your hands. It is keeping your surfaces clean. It’s about keeping everything safe in your outdoor environment. If there are any additional questions, I brought my cards. I also brought a brochure for senior services if you need help buying glasses or hearing aids. It is income-based. A waiting list on hearing aids right now. Ms. Hillian: If I go to a restaurant and get ill, do I call you and tell you. We want you to call us. If you to be ready to file a complaint which allow us to go and investigate. We don’t give your name or your information, but we still need that information. We can tell by the complaint that someone might have just lost their job. We can’t go based on emotions. If you got sick, we really want to know. We won’t test the food; however, if you go to the hospital and they test you and you have a food born illness then we will immediately go to do an investigation based on that information. There are only 3 inspectors for this whole county and we have about 400 restaurants within our county. By law, we can only inspect twice a year. Rev. Hooper: If we have a block party and we have hotdogs do we need to get a permit? Settlers: Yes, you need to get a permit. There are times when you don’t have to. See brochure: Do I need a license? Fundraisers you can kind of slide off of fundraisers of not needing a lot license, if the stuff is not cooked on the site. Look at your chili cookoffs where everyone is bringing their chili from home, but its for a fundraiser and so you can charge for that. You just make everyone aware that none of the chilies were prepared in a licensed facility, like a consumer advisory: eat at your own risk. Just let people know its cooked from home. We have to look at temperatures of storing, ice, and other things that could be compromised. Rev Hooper: Do you coordinate with the city because they have inspectors too. Settlers: They don’t inspect food. P. Thompson: What’s the penalty? Settlers: I hope you don’t make anyone sick. It wouldn’t be a great starting relationship with us. I can’t arrest or cite you! We’ll work together. I can only shut you down. Ron Sweet: What about block club? Settlers : I don’t know. That’s a good question. As long as neighbors and not made public to sell anything. 6) Committee Reports: Police Department—For March 1-31 and April 1-30, May 1-31. June 1-30 Ofc. Brad Gentry gave report for incidents, foot patrols 92, 100, 155, 118; Traffic Stops, 75, 69, 87, 62 Assaults 21, 16, 17, 27; Burglary 3, 7, 4, 3;Larceny 8, 13, 10, 4;Damage to Property 5, 7, 1, 11;Drug Offense 7,10, 12, 7; Obstruct Justice 12, 23, 15, 17 We are doing pretty good in getting out into this neighborhood. Larceny’s are down. We don’t have a lot of breaking and entering over here. I traffic stops are down from last year. There are a lot more stops in Verona. I am not sure if its due to the weather. As everyone knows we have had multiple shootings in the last month and half. The city has had somewhere around 37 shootings. It’s not a single problem in this NPC2 but it’s all over the city. We had guys from this neighborhood going into other neighborhood because I have seen pictures of them over there and know they live up here. We are in the community talking to the youth about choices they make. I’ve been taking calls at home regarding the shootings; people who know me. So, feel free to contact me if anyone has more questions. R. Sweet: On the Stat Track Sheet, you don’t put where the address is or around where it is. Gentry: I get the sheet the way it is. I stat track for 115 and 117 West because that’s my micro hot-spot area for the Byrne Grant. I have to go around during specified times. R. Sweet: When you say west Michigan does that mean all of West Michigan. Gentry: No. The little numbers correlate with the way the computer system tracks. And I think we are going to get away from that. It’s a new system. As you know we are moving into a new building and we have all these other things. They wanted change our Stat Tracking to something that kind of mirrors what I have presented to this NPC2 but then it will be more particular. I don’t like the sheet at all the way it is. But that’s the way the computer does it. I would have to go through each one and find the corresponding addresses. N. Virgil: On the map here, it looks like aggravated assaults why are there so many circles.? Gentry: I have no idea what the circles mean. I get the legend same as everyone else. P. Thompson—is there a program that will show the specific location for the computer program? Gentry: I wish it would say the specific address. Ms. K. Dillian: Battle Creek Safety Project (Byrne) Thank you so much. I just want to remind the NPC there were some questions left unanswered for neighborhood project, and we didn’t quite get to where we needed to be which is filling out the grant. I want to assure you that the Battle Creek Community Foundation, Tiffany and Alvin and also Annette… (inaudible) NPC3 and NPC4 have contacted me regarding their projects. Tiffany and Annette can meet with NPC2 anytime. So, they are awaiting NPC2’s response to help. So, there is more help if needed. Cmr L. W. Gray: Mr. Sweet asked if Adam was coming and I left a voice mail and he text back and said no one got back to him with the specifics, so he is doing something else right now. He is willing to come and help. He just needs to be confirmed with the particulars. So, Adam is willing and ready. Kelly D: BCPD still have positions of neighborhood ambassador. 10-15 hours a month. $15.00 hour. If anybody is interested in that. B) Neighborhood Services: Ms. Kristin. Ms. Yvonne reported last month on the grants. The Grants project has been closed. 6.4 million dollars through Michigan and Indiana has been dispersed. Here in Battle Creek we got just shy of $250,000 so we are super excited about that. I can’t remember but it was 28 or 29 families that we were able to help, so that’s great. Cmr. Lynn Ward Gray: Can you take back, there was some conversation around the porch project and the accounting around the porch project. I don’t know if people got it or don’t remember getting it if they did. Maybe you can bring back again…as far as what came in (how much money?) what came in and then all the expenses and what was sent back. I understand we had to send money back because we didn’t have enough families, is that correct. Kristin: Right. If you could provide that to Pastor Hooper so he can e-mail it to all of us, I think that will alleviate a lot of anxieties that people have had around how the money was spent, who was helped, where the expenditures were, and then what the balance was at the end. Ms. Krisitin: okay. A print out. Cm Lynn Ward Gray: Electronically, so it can be shared with all of our members as a way to close out that particular grant because there was a lot of discussion around that as we were talking about the Byrne Grant and fiscal sponsorship and things like that. Members were saying we needed to know how the last fiscal sponsorship (NIBC inaudible) turned out because we never physically got anything that said, how that went. So, there is hesitation to do again, when there is a feeling that we didn’t get an accurate reporting the last time. Ms. Kristin: Okay we can do that. Cmr. Lynn Ward Gray: Anyone can dive in. R Sweet: More or less we want some accountability of the money that was supposed to have been spent. I have never known nobody to turn to no money from a grant and sent it back in. I ain’t never knowed that. Ms. Kristin: So, we don’t get the money upfront, just so you’ll know. We don’t get the money we don’t turn it back in. We got funds for funds we had porch projects that people came in ask for money. Yeah, we could have spent a lot more money but we did not physically have the money. R. Sweet: What I was thinking, when we asked about how much money we had left if we could just use that money as far as porch project amongst helping some more or helping some that couldn’t. I was told no. Ms. Kristin: Right. Because there was a time frame on it. It was a beginning point and ending point. R. Sweet—I believe you not getting it. What I am saying is. We got to this point, where we going to send this money back. But we had more people we could help with the money we suppose to have sent back, but you wouldn’t let us use that money…Cmr. L. W. Gray because it wasn’t within the time frame which was set by the state. You have use the money and work on the projects from this point to the end point. And we did not have enough applicants to utilize the money in the timeframe. You asked for an extension from what I understand—we did—and that extension was denied—Yes—then there is no additional left- over money to use on other projects because the end date has come. Ms. Krisitn: And the other piece is that that the neighborhood that you guys chose was from this point to this point to that point to that point. I know at one point, we had hope to oh my god we did not get enough people, but when we wrote the grant, everything was specific inside that grant and there was no leeway to change that…Cmr. L. W. Gray…per the state. Per the state. Also, can you clarify again how that was requested and did we just send in an e-mail and ask for an extension and they replied back via e-mail or did they send us a letter that denied our request. Ms. Kristin: I don’t know, I don’t know that Lynn. I’ll look into that. Cmr. L, W. Gray: So, if there was a letter that denied the request or something you can show where it was asked and denied, I think they will appreciate seeing that too, because that conversation came up too. Ms. Kristin: I’ll look for that. Linnea Mobley: I just want to say that tomorrow July 10, 2018, is the job fair for Clemons that’s going on at the Urban League, so if you know anyone who is looking to start a new career with Clemons in Coldwater. They will have open interviews as well as physicals. I will be there for a portion of the day. Also, what I am offering to individuals, if they do enroll inside of the neighborhood employment hubs, I can assist with Gas for the first two weeks until they receive their second paycheck. I hoping to have a good turn out tomorrow. I’m not really sure what to expect. I know that it is a distance we have talked about that. Roughly, I’ve been travelling back and forth from Coldwater for the last couple of weeks and it is a bit of a hike. And I actually done some of the math, like I said before, so Clemons is offering $14.00 dollarish for a person that does not have a lot of experience. So, if you took a mid-size car, you’ll probably take home about $12.35- $12.50 an hour. That is still far better than what our temporary services in Battle Creek are offering as well as the fact as Clemons is direct hire. I have no connection to the plant itself. But I have placed of couple of people there. I stay in connection with them just to see how it is going. They say they actually like the plant. There are a lot of incentives going on now. Stay on for 90 days and they give you $250.00. Bring someone in if they stay 30 days you get another $250.00. Thus far the relationship with Clemons have been going well. They corrected the shifts. So therefore, the shifts were far too long. Whatever time you have to be there, you no longer have to work any later than 4:00 p.m. Then it is only 5 days of work and not 7 days like some temporaries. Currently there are no corporate openings yet. I spoke to people randomly outside of the company as they were getting off and got some solid feedback unsolicited by the company. Transportation I believe is coming. I think they are talking about $5-7 roundtrip. They have not finalized the prices, but Clemons want to contribute toward that cause. Open interview times were 9-5:45. Unknown: It’s a great company. I have been to some of the meetings. Richard Bolek —City of Battle Creek Chief Building Inspector rebolek@battlecreekmi.gov. Some of you I have met already others I haven’t. I got here about 7 or 8 months ago here in the city. Now it is my turn of hitting one of the NPC groups every month or so, and this is the last NPC to get to. I brought the reports tonight for the Code officers and the things they were doing this month. From me, you will see that this time of year where weeds are a big deal. Report on weeds. Rental Registration Renewals are those is another big time spent on the Inspectors. If there are any concerns you would like to bring to my attention. Rev. Hooper: We have your information. Lines of communication are always open. R. Bolek: My phone is always available. I may not answer it immediately, but I will return all calls by the end of the day. C) Beautiful Battle Creek Awards—None. Cmr. Lynn Ward Gray. I just want to say that NPC2 are on it in terms of recommendations. Generally, we do have NPC2 house or business to recognize at the City Commission meetings. There is a lot of NPC’s that routinely do not put names up. Kudos to you all for being consistent. D) Membership: Rev. Hooper says the council is always in need of members, so if they are some able bodies from the community to help us on projects we love to have more members and let their voices be heard. E) Committee Report: Engagement Committee: R. Sweet. We haven’t had a meeting yet. I think the Engagement Committee should be Larz, Kitty, Lynn-when able, me, and Betty, since we are the only ones showing up at these really important meetings that we need to know about to bring back to the body. I just feel that we should just go ahead and take over this instead of waiting like we have been. And start getting some stuff involved and look forward to what we want to do. I am only suggesting. Linnea Mobley stated that she never received a call. We are not getting enough presence at these meetings to do anything really. I just that think we should be able to do what we want to do with the ones who come all the time regularly. Cmr. L. W. Gray: Who’s the chair? Jeffrey Dinkins. I would say call a meeting and people can work out the details that has been missing. R. Sweet: Can I handle this? We are dragging our feet. There are no meetings to be called. We either going to get the engagement committee together right now I don’t care who is here or not here. Cmr. L.W. Gray: Are we talking about the Byrne Grant? The engagement committee is its own committee. Rev. Hooper: Who’s second? R. Sweet? There was no second. Rev. Hooper: Who wants to be the second? R. Sweet: I’m going to take over period if the NPC would allow me to. Larz going to be my second if no one has any objections just let me know. Cmr. L.W. Gray: I have never been to an engagement committee meeting. Rev. Hooper: So, Jeffrey Dinkins will be the chair. R. Sweet: How can we have a chair…what I’m saying is…. we can wait till Jeffrey get here. R. Hooper: Jeffrey has been a chair for two months. Rev. Hooper: Do you want to call a meeting right now. I would not want to call one behind her back. Rev. Hooper: Its not behind her back. Cmr L.W. Gray: May I offer this question. So, you’re talking about let’s get to some action instead of meetings if I’m hearing you correctly. I remember offering last time that we had a connection that was interested in helping us do back to school activities I think that is one of the things that this NPC wanted to do again. So, if that is still the interest, I think we would need to start by contacting her to see if the offer still stands and then build around that. R. Sweet: What I’m saying is: Where we need to start is, we need a committee. We need a standard, dependable committee to start, then we can do whatever we want to do. The Back-To-School thang, we should be working on that now. We should have been working on that. Cmr. L.W. Gray: What do you want to do. Do you want to ask the members that are already here to set a meeting to engage in a specific project? What do you want to do? R. Sweet: What do I want to do. I’m ready to change this engagement committee. Cmr. We’re following your lead. L. M. Bey: What he wanna do, he wants to change the name and make it something else and get the people who are willing to work work. R. Sweet: Thank you Larz. L. M. Bey : So, we can change. The engagement committee can be, because its not moving anyway. Let’s create a new name and get new people and keep it movin. Ok do it. What’s the name? R. Sweet: The NPC2 Improvement Committee. Larz Martin Bey: I moved that we accept the NPC2 Improvement Committee: Second by Aman . L. M. Bey: All in favor. The I’s passed. It has been approved to have a NPC2 Improvement Committee. Rev. Hooper: So, we have two committees? R. Sweet: No…we have one committee. Cmr. L. W. Gray: There was no dissolvement with that Engagement but created a new. He created a new committee. L. M. Bey: So, there’s two. Rev. Hooper: I don’t think he can do that. Cmr. L. W. Gray: He can, by the vote of body. Any member can put a motion on the floor to create a committee. He put on the floor to create a committee. He can do that. R. Sweet: I want to hear what the Chair has to say about this first. Rev. Hooper: Sounds like a mutiny to me. R. Sweet: Pastor Hooper if we are going to stay with the Engagement Committee you already had, its been two months, and we have not had a meeting yet and we should have had a meeting in between those two months. So, I guess what we are trying to say is more or less can we dissolve the Engagement Committee and make it NPC2 Improvement Committee. Rev. Hooper: My concern is the Engagement Committee is to take on all the different events and activities that the larger body wants to get involved with. So now we just creating another committee to do that same thang. So, if we abolish the Engagement Committee and change the name, then we need to do that with the Engagement Committee. P. Thompson: There is only one person missing. Unknown: The whole point is that the Engagement Committee isn’t doing anything scrap, he wants to get things done now. Rev. Hooper: We just put somebody in charge to call a meeting. R. Sweet: Who? Rev. Hooper: You. R. Sweet: No,no,no,no. Rev. Hooper: I don’t think we can abolish a committee, without the committee meeting and saying it’s a wash and we are all done. R. Sweet: Ok. When are we going to get a meeting with the Engagement Committee? Rev. Hooper: When, you R. Sweet, as second person in charge tell us too. We can meet every certain day of the month or we can meet whenever you call a meeting and we can take care of all the issues that you want with the Engagement Committee without adding…. R. Sweet: Number one I was not a part of the Engagement Committee and you just said you going to put me in charge of it. P. Thompson: You just said you wanted to be in charge. R. Sweet: I wanted to be in charge of the NPC2 Improvement Committee. (Laughter in the Background) R. Sweet: Ok we will wait. Rev. Hooper: I can’t deal with starting up something and dropping something and still doing the same thang with what you started with. What are we doing? R. Sweet: Ok we’ll just wait until and see if we can get a meeting with the EC…I’m not on the Engagement Committee. I don’t know who is on the EC. I was never put on the EC. J. Dinkins asked me and I told her no. I made it point blank that I was not going to be on the committee. Cmr. L.W. Gray: Larz are you on the EC? The previous committee: L. Martin Bey: No, I’m not. Cmr. L.W. Gray: Who was on the EC? L. Martin Bey: I’m not a member of the EC but I engage in activities that NPC2 make possible to do. Rev. Hooper: So, whatever the pleasure is of the NPC2 Council. If you want to say you already did it. Its find with me. R. Sweet: I suggest that we wait and have an EC meeting so everybody will be informed of what the Body is suggesting that we do. L. Martin Bey: wait, wait a minute, we gotta rescind a whole lot of stuff. We got a motion to the floor and voted in. R. Sweet: I know what you saying. Chair overruled it. Rev. Hooper: I’m in an agreement. If that’s what the council want to do, then we’ll go with it. Cmr. L.W. Gray: Can I get some clarity on the committee we just voted in what was the intention of the NPC2 Improvement Committee besides changing the name. Is there a different direction you wanted to go? Or they still in charge of community events or was there some other thought you guys had. Kristin: A direction. Cmr. L. W. Gray: Just a direction. Kristin: I think that is what he is talking about. Cmr. L. W. Gray: So, creating the different committee to get some movement with different leaders in that committee. Is that right? Kristin: So why don’t we just have the one committee and you just join the committee. No, that’s not what you wanted. R. Sweet: I just suggested it since we are not getting anywhere with this EC. We have not had a meeting in what 60 days. It looks like it going to be 90 days now, because no one is going to talk to the next EC. Now we went how long without anything going on in the EC before we brought this up again? Almost a year. Cmr. L.W. Gray: It’s been a year and two months. R. Sweet: Last time we had anything to do with the EC, was when Sam was Chair of the Back-to-School. We have had nothing since. We should have had the same thing going on or something else. We should be looking further than we are. We are behind way behind. I’m not trying to be crazy or nothing, I didn’t come back to NPC. I was here before when it was all chaos. I didn’t come back for this. Cmr. L.W. Gray: So, tell me this. Could those who just said they were interested in being with the NPC2 Improvement committee briefly meet after this meeting and set a time before we walk out the door and get something moving. So, we that don’t take up other people’s time to further discuss this. R. Sweet: Can we get Pastor Hooper on some page where he understands what we are trying to do. R. Hooper. What do you mean, I’ve already gone on? Cmr. L.W. Gray: I’m saying let this committee meet. Let them go with it and then whatever Jefferies wants to do with the EC, she can say I’ll join you guys, or I’ll have a meeting with a different charge. We don’t know because she is not here. R. Sweet: We will work with the EC. Cmr. L.W. Gray: Right, so we are not eliminating it. We are saying we want to move. So, she can say she wants to align or the other various options one has in committee work. NPC2 Improvement Committee will consist of: Ms. Linnea Mobley, Ron Sweet, L. Martin Bey, Cmr. Lynn Ward Gray, Rev. Joe Hooper, Ms. Kitty Hillian, and Ms. Betty Robertson. F) School Board: None G) Elected Officials: Commissioner Lynn Ward Gray. Press Release: Can I Get a Witness? Community Meetings Announced regarding the June meeting and unsolved murders. Channel WWMT agreed to help promote the event by interviewing Cmr. Lynn Ward Gray. If you were there at the June 19th City Commission meetings where families came forward concerned about unsolved murders and there was a lot of griefs and pain. The room was definitely, you could feel the tensions and just the feelings around the subject matter. I made a promised at that time that I would start some community meetings that we had started in 2016 to try and get at this issue, which is individuals not coming forward with what they know. Clearly police and community relations, establishing those relationships, and just what it means to be a witness-what may or may not happen from law enforcement; judicial side; media. People don’t know in general what happens and that there is a fear that there would be retaliation and sometimes that’s a very real fear. Or that they won’t be protected if they come forward or there’ll be some other type of scrutiny, etc. around them coming forward being a witness. So, we thought we would first bring people up-to-date with where we are currently in 2018 with shootings/shooting related incidences in Battle Creek. They have been on the rise since June 20, is it 7 or 8 now. 8 shooting incidences. Is it eight? Ofc. Gentry: It’s been a lot. Cmr. L.W. Gray: So, with that we wanted to put that information out there what law enforcement is doing around those instances and how they responded so far. And then talk about: Can I Be a Witness as far as If you see something, say something, you hear that all the time. But what’s involved with that. We’ll talk a little about that. We’ll talk about evidence. A lot of people will say. I know who did it. It’s so-n-so cousin. I know he did it. I know. I know. I know. But what you know and what you can prove are two different things. And so, we really talk about evidence, I think there were two acquittals here recently because the evidence just did not support the case, we thought we had a good case but they did end up in acquittal for whatever reason. So, what does that look like and just the difference between cold cases and unsolved murders. Different numbers were being bantered around, I think during that meeting, there was like 90 something murders, as far as the police department they have I believe 77, and so our numbers are off and so we need to be talking from the same playbook. And so, I’ve been working with the Nunnallys, because they lost a member of their family, their son is an unsolved murder. And so, they are trying to see what list they are working from, compared that with what Bishop Smith has and what law enforcement has so we can get to the same number. And then let people know that there’s different ways that people can be engaged through the Byrne Grant, through Next Door, we have, I don’t know if we still have some of the crime booklets but they help you record information of what you see as far as recording license plate numbers or unusual activities on your street, block or what have you. Crime Diaries says Ms. Kristin. Also, Ms. Dillman mentioned NPC Ambassador another opportunity for people to get engaged. The meeting dates are Thursday July 19, 6-8 p.m. New Level Sports Ministries, 400 Michigan Avenue, Friday, July 20, 1-3p.m. Freedom Faith Worship Center, 485 Capital Ave, and Tuesday July 31, 9-11 a.m. Second Missionary Baptist Church, 485 N. Washington Ave, B.C. MI So, we wanted to start having these conversations at these three meetings. Then ask community members beyond the NPC’s. The NPC’s have been doing a lot of work with the Byrne Grant and that’s great and you guys will get that going. But we want and try and reach beyond the NPCs and get a lot more people involved so that they are armed with the information that they need and felt more comfortable maybe about it, we hope. And then spreading that to people they know and then also creating…it’s great that Law Enforcement/Police Officers come to these meetings and to perhaps some of our community events but it needs to be beyond that. The relationship needs to be built beyond that. We have been saying that forever. Yes, we used to do a lot of street patrols here, I think you have high numbers of some street patrols here, and that’s helps but that needs to continue in earnest. Because the truth is…there is a very high distrust where the police, with our community. So, we just have to face that and try and work to continually try an address it. So please, please, please, come to one or more of these meetings. Meals will be provided. And I’m telling you on Thursday, Chef…. delicious…I’m just sayin…. Please try and come to one at least and get that information. Ask questions and hopefully we’ll begin to work towards getting more information that will help solve some of these unsolved murders. And equip you to be better prepared in the future if you see something knowing what to do. Any questions? It’s a start at that those meetings. Because we’re going to ask what would you like to see going forward? What do you think will help? Because it’s not just Ms. Dillman, myself, and BCPD, it’s all of us, and we can’t think of all of it. There might be an angle that we missed and we really need to work together to try and make this a safe environment for everyone. The City Fair will take place Wednesday July 11, 2018 9-1 at the Farmer Markets which is an annual event. All the City Departments will be represented and good time to ask questions if you have them. The Snowplow will be there to decorate. I wanted to look back at the Battle Creek Safety Project (Byrne Grant) from the standpoint of there was some conversation during the third meeting, the last meeting we had at the Salvation Army regarding Porch Light process vs. Clean-up Claude Evans. I did want to confirm of what Mr. Sweet was talking about. Yes, the city does own that area across from Claude Evans Park. I still need to get a clear answer. There are streets that are throughout NPC2. We want to look at the yard lights at resident’s home as a project that was done in the past because some are not working, maybe replace lightbulb or the wiring to the house. We wondering do you need permit? If say its house where the wire broke. Do you need a permit? R. Bolek: If you just doing a repair, let’s say a wire broke, as a repair. That would not need a permit. If you are going to install a whole new fixture or whole new light and run new wiring. Then yes you need a permit. If the appliance is there and the wire has been run and worked in the past, and you simply going to repair that. No, you do need a permit. Cmr. L.W. Gray: Say it’s the wire and it’s faulty and it’s not working because of that. If you wanted to change it from an electrical connection to a solar, do you need a permit? R. Bolek: Yes. Now you are changing the type of style. R. Sweet: Those light post currently got a dust and dawn on them. R. Bolek: The difference being is a Solar stand-alone unit, not connected to a power system, so you want to disconnect that. But the dust to dawn system has wires that comes from the power source that just simply turns the unit on or off. Cmr. L.W. Gray: And if you wanted just simply put a solar unit where there isn’t want, does that require a permit? R. Bolek: No, not for a stand-alone unit. Cmr. L.W. Gray: So those are some of the questions we were trying to grapple with. That will hopefully will help get to the project we want to do. Then the other one was, if there was a house unoccupied but has a street light on it—can’t touch it right? R. Bolek: The big issue probably is that Consumers would shut the power off to that house, In order to get the power to get back on. Consumers gotten to the point, where they are struggling with having power on and/or turning power on that hasn’t been inspected because of some recent…. In one case in another community, would turn power on to a vacant house and nobody checked it and somebody got electrocuted? So that is the part of whole issue that Consumer’s Power has with this issue with turning the power on vacant houses or not. So, in that scenario you have to look at --is there an option of trying to light that lamp with power that’s not coming from vacant house but maybe a neighbor’s house that is occupied. That is something that have to be looked at from the standpoint of what’s the feasibility is of that. We do have vacant house if the power is on that will be okay. As long as the owner is willing to pay the utility. R. Sweet: A Solar would take care of that. R. Bolek: Who’s going to take responsibility of that vacant house. It has to be the owner under the guide of the building code. Cmr. L.W. Gray: So, can we get a show of hands from members regarding the two projects. Just so that we can contact Adam say we have got the project and we can just move forward with creating a budget for it. R. Sweet: Do you think the city will provide us some energy saving light bulb. R. Bolek: The city? Sweet: Anybody, Consumer Powers somebody R. Bolek: You might check with Consumers. I know they have been handing out bulbs. Consumers just went to my girlfriend’s apartment complex and relit the whole unit. Battle Creek provided lamps so you might want to check with them. Cmr. L.W. Gray: The two projects were: Clean-up Claude Evans Park, the vacant lot, adjacent to Helen Montgomery, clean-up is to reduce the bush and clean up any trash in the area. Ms. Robertson want to level all the trees says Sweet. The Land-Bank owns the house and land and adjacent to that land the city owns. The clean-up will take gloves, bags, things to pick up things, trimmers, just basic stuff. The other project was to identify the Lights in NPC2 replace the light-bulbs, or yard lights needing repair. If houses don’t have a lamp, then when we need to identify how big our area will be and then going forward as to how many lights as possible. So, hearing those two projects. What members want to vote for clean-up? There were three who voted for this. For the yard-light project, how many members want to vote for this? There were more than five. When the NPC2 Improvement Committee gets together and asses their needs. There are no other discussions. We have a project. The Yard-Lights! K. Dillman: Please if you know ahead of time you want to attend those three events that has been planned, please let me know so that I can let people know so we won’t waste food. 7) Old Business: Passing out now will be the absentee ballots for the up-coming Vote. 8) New Business: None 9) Public Comments: Linda Ellis I came here today because I got a hold of the city of my neighborhood. I lived there 20 something years and it’s a dump site now. They started tearing down houses and they still left one, and everybody that doesn’t get waste management pick-up like some people have been dumping in this yard. I have pictures here that I have been taking of my whole area. And it is just getting worse and worse and worse. Cmr. L.W. Gray: We also want to get that to the chief building inspector because he’s taking that information back to…Linda Ellis: I’ve been down there numerous times about it. I mean its creating rats. Cmr: What’s the intersection? Linda Ellis: It’s on the intersection of Wilds and Maryland. Ooooooo…yeah…everything back up that way…. Linda Ellis: It used to be beautiful down there and all of us that’s been there used to love taking care of our properties. I mean just last week this guy I caught him, he just throwing boxes off the side of his truck coming down the road, and two of them boxes landed in my yard. And I couldn’t get my phone fast enough to take a picture. It’s just getting bad. R. Bolek: Unfortunately, it goes along with the what you were talking earlier, you got to have the evidence, you gotta have some kind of…. Linda Ellis: Well, I got and I plan to put up a surveillance camera, because I am really tired of it. And I’ve got like 10 people in the neighborhood; they were supposed to be here tonight. We’re just tired of it. We keep going and cleaning up and cleaning up….and at Springfield all of them that don’t get the pick up that we get, they just go over and dump it and its okay at night to just dump it in. Like they do on Hubbard. Cmr: Can you take that back as far as like the report back to the NPC of what of some of the deterrents for issues like that, I know that there are signs already up there …talking to Chief Inspector Bolek. Linda Ellis: There violations…no dumping over there on Gardenia, but they dump anyway. Cmr. L.W. Gray Are there any additional things that we are not thinking of that could be done. R. Bolek: Unfortunately for our staff, we are only there during the daytime hours. In instances like that we almost have to rely on the police force that might be in the area to catch somebody dumping. If we don’t have information inside that can be material that identifies who is it. If we don’t have pictures of somebody doing it, that can identify those. Then it becomes an issue of who, who do you prosecute for it. We don’t have that. L. Ellis: I do have some literature from some of the garbage and I didn’t get a chance to get it because I was rushing from work to here. And I pick through the garbage and got some of their names and addresses, so I’m taking it down to her tomorrow (Wanda). Like I said about 10 of us have just about had it. Cmr. L.W. Gray: Thanks for coming to night, I can definitely relate to what you are talking about…. cause we have had a problem…. L. Ellis: I wish we could get a dumpster over there and just start cleaning…some of that stuff have been there for years, from the neighbors – just oh its an open field, I am just going to dump it over there, because the garbage man aunt going to pick it up. It’s terrible. R. Sweet: Is that house, Blue, the one they dumping everything…. I think that’s on Wild Street—that Blue house they trying to sell for $9,000. It’s a blue house I think it is, they got a lot of garbage they’ve been dumping up in there. L. Ellis: Yeah, they got that one. And then they got another one, the two that they torn down. This one is across from the yellow one and the blue one that you are talking about. I knew the lady that lived there when she passed away. And her grandson, he just let anybody go in there and just dump stuff. Cmr: L.W. Gray: Yeah, I hate that its one of those things, just like you complain about noise ordinance unless you see it happening, law enforcement can’t really address it. R. Bolek: What would be a big help, is pictures. I mean everybody carrying a cell phone now. You see something. When you see activities almost daily on the news about somebody get videos on cell phone. That is one of the greatest deterrence I feel, is once somebody begins to know that they are getting caught on the phone, they’re gonna book. And if we can start getting some of those, that information, or get that kind of evidence back where we can begin some of those prosecutions, that is gonna be one of the biggest deterrence. L. Ellis: They tore that house finally down there. They have been telling us for the last couple of years that they are going to tear that last house down, tear it down, tear it down. R. Bolek: Well, the city itself doesn’t have a lot of money to tear down houses. We’ve gotten a little bit over the years. Most of the houses that are coming down are owned by Calhoun County Land Bank, they make those decisions on which ones they’re gonna take down. They only have so much money to deal with every year. This year, I think we are on track to do hundred twenty (120) homes in the city, which is the greatest number that has been down since the downturn of the economy in the mid 2000’s. They’re making some headway and fortunately we’re seeing more houses come out of the whole vacant/ abandon process and putting back into use. The economy is kinda comin back a little bit so people have some money they can get these houses again and begin to fix them up and some of them are just gone beyond repair. L. Ellis: These are gone beyond repair. I mean the carport is ready to fall down and I’ve seen some homeless people go in there at night. R. Bolek: The ones city’s work on this year was the money that we had were actually houses that were burned. Is the ones we attacked with the money that we had were houses that were severely burned. Cmr. L.W.Gray: Well, it’s possible that you and the community members you were just talking about. I would talk with Kelly, because you guys could make a group and apply for a Byrne Grant maybe get some surveillance cameras or some kind of something. You can think of a project that could help address that issue and apply for some funding to get materials. L. Ellis: It’s bad, I mean I feel like I’m. It used to be beautiful down through there and everybody took pride in their homes. Cmr. L.W. Gray: Is that a good suggestion? Ms. Kelly: Yes. Ms. K. Hillian: I understand where she coming from see we are getting older and the younger generation they just don’t give a poop about anything. This guy, R. Bolek, only told you. He say he only tear down the house unless it catch on fire or burn up. So you smoke, get you a cigarette its hot outside. (Room full of laughter as she was being jocular.) Cmr. L.W. Gray: I forgot to say, that International Summerfest is a free event. So, it’s free food sampling. Free music and entertainment during that time. Free activities. Rev. Hooper: I welcome everyone in coming out and look forward to seeing you at next meeting. 10) Meeting adjourned by Rev. Hooper at 8:55 p.m. The next meeting will be August 13, 2018.