WEBVTT 00:00:00.194 --> 00:00:10.498 - Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for being here. I will call this meeting to order, or this deliberation 00:00:10.498 --> 00:00:20.513 - session to order with the clerk whenever she is ready. Please do us the honor of calling the roll. Yes. 00:00:20.513 --> 00:00:29.854 - Council member Flaherty. Stossberg. Here. Here. Got you both. Piedmont Smith. Here. Zulek. Here. 00:00:30.946 --> 00:00:40.790 - Daly here Rallo here rough here Rosenbarger Here, thank you. Thank you. And now I will kick things over 00:00:40.790 --> 00:00:49.783 - to my esteemed colleague councilmember Piedmont Smith Thank You councilmember Zulek We do have 00:00:49.783 --> 00:00:58.302 - two councilmembers that are online so if there are people who have joined us via zoom and 00:00:58.658 --> 00:01:06.167 - You can still participate in the conversation and have the small group breakouts with our colleagues 00:01:06.167 --> 00:01:13.677 - who are online. So just want to recognize that council members Flaherty and Rosenberger are on Zoom. 00:01:13.677 --> 00:01:21.558 - Cannot see them because we have this lovely slideshow. Oh there we go. That's council member Rosenberger. 00:01:21.558 --> 00:01:27.134 - OK. So thank you for being here tonight. Here's an overview of the agenda. 00:01:27.714 --> 00:01:36.920 - Councilmember Stossberg and I will do an introduction Then we will move to Wyatt Lawson from a CJM community 00:01:36.920 --> 00:01:45.536 - justice and mediation center Who will talk about our community agreements and overview of the process 00:01:45.536 --> 00:01:53.982 - for tonight? Then we will have our breakout group discussions That'll be about 50 minutes five zero 00:01:54.082 --> 00:02:02.555 - So that's plenty of time for people to share their views on public safety. And I hope everybody who 00:02:02.555 --> 00:02:11.367 - came in tonight has the sheet that tells you what those deliberation questions are. One side is Spanish 00:02:11.367 --> 00:02:19.841 - and one is English. Then we will move to reports from each group. We have 30 minutes designated for 00:02:19.841 --> 00:02:23.230 - reports. And those will be reports from 00:02:23.586 --> 00:02:31.648 - the city officials who are participating in each group. We have tonight in addition to council members 00:02:31.648 --> 00:02:39.553 - we have Mayor Kerry Thompson is here somewhere. There she is. And we have Clerk Nicole Bolden who is 00:02:39.553 --> 00:02:47.694 - also here participating. So you'll have one of those individuals or one of us in your group and we will 00:02:47.694 --> 00:02:51.294 - be the ones reporting back to the full group. 00:02:52.258 --> 00:02:59.459 - Then we will have a survey for you to complete either online or in hard copy. And then we'll have a 00:02:59.459 --> 00:03:06.804 - final 10 minutes of feedback from people who felt like they their feedback was not represented in the 00:03:06.804 --> 00:03:14.005 - reports. And if you stay till the end we're going to have cookies. OK. You can't get them until you 00:03:14.005 --> 00:03:20.990 - stay through the whole thing. All right. I think we'll turn it over to council member Stossberg. 00:03:21.090 --> 00:03:26.456 - Yeah thank you so much for being here to participate in this discussion tonight. I'm just kind of going 00:03:26.456 --> 00:03:31.925 - to give you a little bit of a pre overview before our CGM representative why it goes that today we really 00:03:31.925 --> 00:03:37.394 - want to hear about your experiences in public safety that there is it's one of those things where there's 00:03:37.394 --> 00:03:42.915 - no wrong answers and everybody's input is welcome because everybody's experiences are valid and meaningful 00:03:42.915 --> 00:03:43.998 - and worth something. 00:03:44.354 --> 00:03:51.648 - And the goal today is not to come to any kind of consensus or agreement and it is not to make any decisions 00:03:51.648 --> 00:03:58.334 - about policy or programs or what we should do or what we shouldn't do. It's all about experiences. 00:03:58.530 --> 00:04:04.535 - And the objective, of course, is just to better understand each other and this topic of public safety, 00:04:04.535 --> 00:04:10.365 - which could mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people and everybody has different 00:04:10.365 --> 00:04:16.311 - experiences related to it. And the other thing that we're kind of using this for is, those of you who 00:04:16.311 --> 00:04:22.141 - may follow along with council stuff, is last year when we were working on budget priorities, one of 00:04:22.141 --> 00:04:28.496 - the things that we realized was that there's really only this very vague enhanced public safety kind of goal 00:04:28.496 --> 00:04:34.114 - our planning and what does that really mean and so as council members we were kind of like it would 00:04:34.114 --> 00:04:39.901 - probably be good to have a little bit more of an in-depth understanding of what that means in the form 00:04:39.901 --> 00:04:45.968 - of some kind of a public safety plan in the same way that we have a comprehensive plan and a transportation 00:04:45.968 --> 00:04:51.699 - plan and all of those things so this session is kind of the first step towards some sort of potential 00:04:51.699 --> 00:04:52.766 - public safety plan 00:04:54.594 --> 00:05:01.769 - Move the slide. There we go. So some possible aspects of public safety kind of I just want to make sure 00:05:01.769 --> 00:05:09.150 - that that we all understand and that you understand that we understand that this is a very broad term that 00:05:09.410 --> 00:05:15.626 - There's a lot of overlap with feeling safe or feeling less safe with lots of other aspects of community 00:05:15.626 --> 00:05:21.602 - life. And that once again, this is about experiences. All of these things are valid. But we have to 00:05:21.602 --> 00:05:27.818 - understand the overlap with other areas of government or private sector work. Ultimately, there's going 00:05:27.818 --> 00:05:33.794 - to be two sessions related to this tonight and then one in October. And so if tonight we're talking 00:05:33.794 --> 00:05:37.918 - about experiences and listening and trying to understand each other, 00:05:37.986 --> 00:05:44.129 - Second session we're going to talk more about about solutions And so we're after gathering all of these 00:05:44.129 --> 00:05:50.094 - ideas and experiences They're kind of going to be put together and synthesized and trying to get out 00:05:50.094 --> 00:05:56.000 - some patterns and some themes and see what happens And that's part of what the reporting is tonight 00:05:56.000 --> 00:06:02.025 - to just to hear those different Themes that emerge this evening and then councilmember Piedmont Smith 00:06:02.025 --> 00:06:06.750 - is going to talk about this concept map which is one way to potentially kind of 00:06:06.850 --> 00:06:16.117 - you know, represent that idea of public safety in the community. So this is an example that was put 00:06:16.117 --> 00:06:25.570 - together by the Safety and Justice Challenge, which is a MacArthur Foundation initiative that started 00:06:25.570 --> 00:06:35.486 - in 2022, I believe. And they had public input sessions about community safety in three different counties. 00:06:35.938 --> 00:06:44.990 - And so this is what they came up with. And I just want to show this as to get your ideas going as far 00:06:44.990 --> 00:06:54.042 - as what is considered public safety, what you might talk about. But it certainly doesn't have to look 00:06:54.042 --> 00:07:03.716 - like this. It'll be unique to Bloomington, what we decide community safety is for us and what our priorities 00:07:03.716 --> 00:07:04.958 - end up being. 00:07:05.090 --> 00:07:13.249 - came up with this map with, so there are five general areas, and then under each there are sub-areas. 00:07:13.249 --> 00:07:21.488 - And it's all a little bit vague, like tonight I expect we'll have more experiences, like I was walking 00:07:21.488 --> 00:07:29.647 - down this street and this happened to me. But then as we look at the notes and the themes that arise, 00:07:29.647 --> 00:07:33.726 - we might be able to try to group them in this way. 00:07:34.082 --> 00:07:42.681 - or in a similar way. So I want to just show this as an example of what other communities have done. 00:07:42.681 --> 00:07:51.279 - And now I'm going to turn it over to Wyatt Lawson who's the executive director of C jam to guide us 00:07:51.279 --> 00:08:00.222 - in what comes next. Excellent. Thank you. I see my clicker is coming to me so I'll give yes. Thank you. 00:08:01.122 --> 00:08:07.358 - Perfect. So hi everyone. My name is Wyatt Lawson. I am the executive director of CGAM. 00:08:07.490 --> 00:08:12.282 - but I'll also serve as your lead facilitator tonight. I wanna talk just a little bit about who we are 00:08:12.282 --> 00:08:17.121 - and what we do, and then I'll talk about what we're here to do tonight. So CGM has been serving Monroe 00:08:17.121 --> 00:08:21.867 - County since 1995, and for over 30 years, we've been working within conflict resolution, restorative 00:08:21.867 --> 00:08:26.988 - justice, and education. So our mission is to provide or promote a civil and just community through mediation 00:08:26.988 --> 00:08:31.451 - education and restorative justice, and we envision a fair community that learns from conflict, 00:08:31.451 --> 00:08:36.478 - prevents harm, and grows in understanding. So facilitation is part of that mission. We offer, like I said, 00:08:36.546 --> 00:08:42.835 - conflict resolution, mediation, court-based mediation, restorative justice training and facilitation. 00:08:42.835 --> 00:08:49.371 - And all of the mediators, facilitators, note-takers that you see here tonight are all volunteer community 00:08:49.371 --> 00:08:54.366 - members. So we are a community mediation center, which means that the folks that 00:08:54.434 --> 00:08:59.749 - help us resolve these conflicts and work within my services and programs. Our community members, they're 00:08:59.749 --> 00:09:04.963 - not paid. They do this because they see the love in how we can work together to work through conflict. 00:09:04.963 --> 00:09:10.024 - So that's just a little bit about us, but now let's talk about what we're here to do today. Each of 00:09:10.024 --> 00:09:15.137 - your groups are going to have a lead facilitator, city representation, and then a note taker to help 00:09:15.137 --> 00:09:20.452 - capture what we're going through. But before we get into those groups, I wanna talk about some community 00:09:20.452 --> 00:09:24.400 - agreements. So this is gonna be what helps guide us through this conversation 00:09:24.400 --> 00:09:29.676 - conversation. They're agreements, they're not rules, so this is something that we're all committing 00:09:29.676 --> 00:09:35.057 - to as a group tonight that we will follow as we participate. So I'm gonna read through them, but then 00:09:35.057 --> 00:09:40.333 - at the end I'm gonna give all of you an opportunity to add or subtract if there's something on here 00:09:40.333 --> 00:09:45.714 - you disagree with or if there's something that we may be missing. So the first piece is to speak from 00:09:45.714 --> 00:09:50.990 - your own experience. The object of tonight is to grow an understanding on how our community sees or 00:09:50.990 --> 00:09:52.414 - experiences public safety. 00:09:52.482 --> 00:09:57.720 - We are going to speak from our own experience, share what you've experienced, noticed, or believe, and 00:09:57.720 --> 00:10:02.856 - you're always welcome to pass. So if there's a question on the table that you don't feel comfortable 00:10:02.856 --> 00:10:08.094 - answering, you can always pass. There's no obligation to share in our facilitated groups this evening. 00:10:08.610 --> 00:10:14.589 - Listening to understand. So being curious about experiences and perspectives that may be different from 00:10:14.589 --> 00:10:20.684 - our own. We all experience public safety very differently. So making sure you're listening to understand. 00:10:20.684 --> 00:10:26.433 - We're not making decisions tonight. We're not suggesting policy changes. We are just here to listen 00:10:26.433 --> 00:10:28.158 - from everybody's experiences. 00:10:28.290 --> 00:10:33.547 - Make room for one another, being mindful of how much space we're taking up so everyone has an opportunity 00:10:33.547 --> 00:10:38.606 - to participate. Our facilitators tonight will help you do this, but if they're pushing you to move on 00:10:38.606 --> 00:10:43.765 - or if they're changing directions, just know that that's part of this agreement, that we're making sure 00:10:43.765 --> 00:10:48.725 - that everyone gets a chance to share this evening. It's OK to disagree, but to do so with curiosity 00:10:48.725 --> 00:10:53.982 - and not hostility. So like I said earlier, we're going to disagree on things this evening, and that's OK. 00:10:54.114 --> 00:10:59.584 - We don't have to come out of tonight changing each other's experiences or ideas about public safety. 00:10:59.584 --> 00:11:05.270 - We're here to listen and to understand the diverse experiences that our community may have around public 00:11:05.270 --> 00:11:07.166 - safety. Respect what others share. 00:11:07.650 --> 00:11:12.725 - And that goes with listening to understand, but also take the lessons and ideas from the conversations 00:11:12.725 --> 00:11:17.750 - with you, but leave other people's personal stories here. So I can't promise confidentiality tonight, 00:11:17.750 --> 00:11:22.727 - but what I can say is part of this group agreement is that you all are agreeing that we're not going 00:11:22.727 --> 00:11:27.851 - to bring these experiences outside of. You can bring what you learned and the themes that we talk about 00:11:27.851 --> 00:11:32.876 - this evening, but leaving the individual stories with the folks who said them is an important part of 00:11:32.876 --> 00:11:33.566 - this evening. 00:11:34.242 --> 00:11:40.051 - And then the last piece is the theme that I've said throughout this entire community agreement, understanding 00:11:40.051 --> 00:11:45.543 - before problem solving. Sometimes those two things are hard to figure out which one you want to go for, 00:11:45.543 --> 00:11:51.351 - and sometimes your experiences are rooted in kind of a problem or trying to solve a problem. Our facilitators 00:11:51.351 --> 00:11:54.942 - will ask you questions to help you do this, but our purpose tonight 00:11:55.074 --> 00:12:01.390 - is to understand experiences. It's not to problem solve. It's not to solve all of the world's problems. 00:12:01.390 --> 00:12:07.462 - We're here to listen to your experiences. And then we will do the work of theming those experiences 00:12:07.462 --> 00:12:13.596 - for session two. So I'm going to put them all up here. I'll open it. Is there anything that needs to 00:12:13.596 --> 00:12:17.118 - be added to this list from our participants this evening? 00:12:25.186 --> 00:12:32.942 - Is there anything that should be struck from the list that isn't appropriate for this evening? Okay, 00:12:32.942 --> 00:12:41.388 - I will take both of those moments of silence as that we are all agreeing that this is how we will participate 00:12:41.388 --> 00:12:49.374 - this evening. And myself and my facilitators and everybody involved can now have this guideline to help 00:12:49.374 --> 00:12:52.062 - us move through our conversations. 00:12:52.290 --> 00:12:58.113 - Enough of hearing me talk, it's now time for you all to share your experiences. I'm going to go ahead 00:12:58.113 --> 00:13:03.422 - and break us out into our original groups, but depending on the size of each group, I may do 00:13:03.422 --> 00:13:09.131 - some consolidation. On the top of your participant handouts that you got, there should be a number, 00:13:09.131 --> 00:13:12.670 - and they're going to be associated to my facilitation groups. 00:13:12.866 --> 00:13:19.267 - I'm gonna go a little out of order, because I know the folks that are in this room are not quite all 00:13:19.267 --> 00:13:25.605 - of the numbers. So I'm gonna start with group three. So if you look at the top of your little sheet 00:13:25.605 --> 00:13:32.069 - that you were given in when check-in, and I'm gonna have Julie hold up three for me. You will be with 00:13:32.069 --> 00:13:38.661 - Julie this evening. So for group three, you'll be up here at the front with Julie and Irene. Group four 00:13:38.661 --> 00:13:42.590 - will be up in the corner with Terry and Susan. And then group 00:13:43.042 --> 00:13:49.771 - Group two will be with Vanessa, who will be leading you outside of the room. So if you say group two, 00:13:49.771 --> 00:13:56.367 - you've got that. Group eight or seven, you'll be up here at the front. Just eight, not seven. So if 00:13:56.367 --> 00:14:03.030 - you're group eight or if you need a Spanish-speaking group, you'll be up here at the front. And then 00:14:03.030 --> 00:14:09.956 - I have lost count of all my numbers. Group one, you'll be with Kristen. So if you say one, you'll follow 00:14:09.956 --> 00:14:10.814 - Kristen out. 00:14:11.138 --> 00:14:18.531 - Six will be with Dorit. So if you have group six, go ahead and follow then. So we've got in this room, 00:14:18.531 --> 00:14:25.709 - three up here in the corner. We've got four on the other side. We've got group two on this side and 00:14:25.709 --> 00:14:32.886 - group eight or seven. All right, everybody. If I can have everyone kind of bring back to the group, 00:14:32.886 --> 00:14:35.614 - we're going to start our report outs. 00:14:35.906 --> 00:14:41.454 - A couple, well first, thank you all for engaging in a 50 minute conversation with our facilitators. 00:14:41.454 --> 00:14:44.894 - I hope you all learned. Yes, we can give a round of applause. 00:14:45.442 --> 00:14:50.656 - have to give a shout out to our facilitators. Again, they are volunteers who think this work is important. 00:14:50.656 --> 00:14:55.869 - So without them, we couldn't do the work that we do at C-Jam. We're going to begin the report out session. 00:14:55.869 --> 00:15:00.840 - We're going to try something a little new, and we'll see if it's going to work. So as we're reporting 00:15:00.840 --> 00:15:05.858 - out from each group, my lovely note-taker, Caroline, is going to try to capture what our reporters are 00:15:05.858 --> 00:15:10.731 - saying. And you should see them starting to appear on the screens around us. To give you an idea of 00:15:10.731 --> 00:15:11.998 - how we're going to theme, 00:15:12.258 --> 00:15:18.411 - we're gonna look at the notes that you all took and start to build and connect some of the experiences 00:15:18.411 --> 00:15:24.684 - we heard to help inform what session two looks like. I don't wanna get too deep into that because that's 00:15:24.684 --> 00:15:30.658 - for session two. So we'll start report outs in no specific order. In fact, I wrote down them in the 00:15:30.658 --> 00:15:36.990 - most random order I could. So we're gonna start with group six. Whoever, group six, excellent, thank you. 00:15:42.370 --> 00:15:49.718 - Hello everyone. Thank you so much for being here. I represent the small but mighty group six and also 00:15:49.718 --> 00:15:57.210 - district six Sydney Zulek. We talked about some higher level themes regarding familiarity understanding 00:15:57.210 --> 00:16:04.773 - and predictability that leads to a higher feeling of safety and some of the physical aspects surrounding 00:16:04.773 --> 00:16:05.854 - that including 00:16:05.954 --> 00:16:13.877 - good lighting someone's ability or perceived ability to protect themselves and their family and We talked 00:16:13.877 --> 00:16:21.726 - a lot about the members of the Bloomington Police Department who are doing some great community building 00:16:21.726 --> 00:16:29.201 - work so thank you to the police officers who are here and That summarizes my report. Thank you very 00:16:29.201 --> 00:16:31.070 - much Thank You group six 00:16:31.586 --> 00:16:38.354 - So hopefully, very soon, you'll see Caroline's work behind the scenes popping up there on some of the 00:16:38.354 --> 00:16:44.990 - things we said. So thank you, GroupSoups. We'll move to group eight, which I believe is right here. 00:16:44.990 --> 00:16:51.824 - Group eight, seven, I gave you two numbers. So I'll let you all take care of that. It did, just a bit. 00:16:51.824 --> 00:16:54.014 - Good evening. So in group eight. 00:16:54.466 --> 00:17:02.906 - Oh, my name is Nicole. So in group eight, we talked about themes of identity, community and belonging 00:17:02.906 --> 00:17:11.511 - and how it impacts our views on safety, reducing threats of violence, better use of resources, stronger 00:17:11.511 --> 00:17:20.447 - information planning, sharing, engagement, collaboration and accountability. Some of the key understandings 00:17:20.447 --> 00:17:22.846 - that we talked about were if 00:17:24.770 --> 00:17:31.466 - I mean, the shorthand was, if nobody feels safe, nobody is saved. That safety has to include everyone, 00:17:31.466 --> 00:17:38.031 - including people experiencing different challenges. And we stressed that limited coordination across 00:17:38.031 --> 00:17:44.597 - city departments and community groups could weaken safety. And perspectives to retain, especially at 00:17:44.597 --> 00:17:51.358 - our table, we talked about women, people experiencing homelessness, immigrants, the Hispanic and Latino 00:17:51.458 --> 00:18:01.729 - black community and lgbtq plus people and We finished by stressing the importance of accountability 00:18:01.729 --> 00:18:12.309 - and intentional efforts by the council Thank You group eight My next group is lucky group three, which 00:18:12.309 --> 00:18:15.390 - I believe is right up here. I 00:18:23.874 --> 00:18:32.443 - Short, hi. I'm Hopi Stasberg and I'm representing group three tonight and I also represent district 00:18:32.443 --> 00:18:41.183 - three for City Council and I am gonna do my best to summarize some themes here based on the questions 00:18:41.183 --> 00:18:46.238 - so people in our group had themes of feeling of safety and 00:18:46.402 --> 00:18:54.874 - when there was familiarity and a sense of community in where they were, when they knew the people that 00:18:54.874 --> 00:18:56.190 - they were near. 00:18:56.546 --> 00:19:03.225 - or the places that they were near when there were friends, when there were neighbors, just feeling like 00:19:03.225 --> 00:19:09.648 - they had those people as resources. And then also when they saw other resources that were available 00:19:09.648 --> 00:19:16.584 - for other community members. So things like little free pantries, the vending machines for various supplies 00:19:16.584 --> 00:19:22.750 - so that this idea of community safety and that made other people in my group feel safe as well. 00:19:23.170 --> 00:19:32.201 - Contributing to feeling less safe was being alone especially out and about alone There were various 00:19:32.201 --> 00:19:41.773 - conversations around negative interactions with others either with direct harassment or violence Unstable 00:19:41.773 --> 00:19:49.630 - individuals or uncertainty of stability with individuals and drivers as well that were 00:19:49.794 --> 00:19:58.174 - not obeying traffic laws, that we're driving erratically, that we're driving too fast, those sorts of 00:19:58.174 --> 00:20:06.801 - things. Loitering or out of the ordinary behaviors and just being kind of uncertain as to what was going 00:20:06.801 --> 00:20:12.798 - on with somebody else. And then we had this kind of like dual thing with 00:20:13.634 --> 00:20:20.190 - safety and lack of safety if you feel less safe when you witness or experience those negative behaviors 00:20:20.190 --> 00:20:26.872 - when you hear about it on the news contributes to feeling less safe but also if you see a lot of positive 00:20:26.872 --> 00:20:33.240 - news stories or have a lot of positive events that all contributes to feeling safety. So it's almost 00:20:33.240 --> 00:20:39.544 - like a reinforcing sort of pattern no matter which side you're on. There was an interesting on both 00:20:39.544 --> 00:20:43.326 - sides guns came up that some people in our group felt safer 00:20:43.426 --> 00:20:53.967 - when they were carrying guns, and other people in our group felt less safe when there were guns. So 00:20:53.967 --> 00:20:56.286 - that is a difference. 00:20:56.994 --> 00:21:02.350 - Things that the group wanted counsel to understand about what public safety means for Bloomington is 00:21:02.350 --> 00:21:07.758 - that if you don't know people then you fear them. And so having familiarity with the neighborhood and 00:21:07.758 --> 00:21:13.114 - the community and just knowing people is really important and that people who live here need to have 00:21:13.114 --> 00:21:17.886 - that feeling of safety but that not everybody feels safe. And so that's really important. 00:21:18.178 --> 00:21:24.892 - There is also a lot of conversation about homelessness and that public safety and homelessness are linked 00:21:24.892 --> 00:21:31.416 - together in terms of both concern with potentially erratic behavior, but also concern for the unhoused 00:21:31.416 --> 00:21:37.497 - people and their safety. And because they are unhoused, then they might not be safe themselves. 00:21:37.497 --> 00:21:44.020 - And then also, resources are just incredibly important for everybody to be able to get what they need. 00:21:44.020 --> 00:21:46.174 - And I think that's it. Thank you. 00:21:49.698 --> 00:21:58.327 - Thank you, group three. So we're seeing, as you're kind of watching things together, I've heard familiarity 00:21:58.327 --> 00:22:06.317 - and predictability come up now a couple times, so that's important, as well as some groups starting 00:22:06.317 --> 00:22:14.467 - to be identified that play into public safety, both on kind of both sides of the line there. So we'll 00:22:14.467 --> 00:22:18.782 - go group four, which is our group up here. Thank you. 00:22:19.778 --> 00:22:29.288 - So beginning with what brought people to the council, a lot of it concerned recent shootings that occurred 00:22:29.288 --> 00:22:38.620 - and concern about that danger. And then really just people were interested in the overall view of public 00:22:38.620 --> 00:22:48.574 - safety in the community, brought them to the council this evening. Also, there was a concern about public space 00:22:48.770 --> 00:22:58.149 - Spaces making sure that they are safe and that the perception of safety It was an important component 00:22:58.149 --> 00:23:07.436 - of that of public spaces For the question of when you felt safe One member of our group said cameras 00:23:07.436 --> 00:23:16.815 - made him feel safe more cameras more safety and Generally speaking people in the group said they feel 00:23:16.815 --> 00:23:18.654 - relatively safe and 00:23:18.946 --> 00:23:28.523 - in the community. However, there wasn't concern about members of the community, particularly people 00:23:28.523 --> 00:23:38.101 - of color, having a different experience, different perception. With the question of feeling unsafe, 00:23:38.101 --> 00:23:47.774 - concern about, in the past, rookie police working overtime was a concern, but is now being remedied. 00:23:47.906 --> 00:23:57.651 - The situation is much better than it used to be. Again, interest in cameras in certain areas of the 00:23:57.651 --> 00:24:07.591 - city, and particularly in parks, Seminary Park needs cameras was one point of view. And concern about 00:24:07.591 --> 00:24:17.726 - guns in the community as well. So either people either concealing guns or actually brandishing guns was 00:24:18.530 --> 00:24:28.719 - Is problematic, but we're of course under a state rule. So So there was Expression again of that certain 00:24:28.719 --> 00:24:38.422 - members of the community black population makes up 4% of the building 10 population, but 20% of the 00:24:38.422 --> 00:24:48.126 - jail residents is a problem Which of the city council understand Is Really quite a variety of input 00:24:48.354 --> 00:24:56.971 - But this is where we came, I think, out of maybe the traditional perception of public safety. 00:24:56.971 --> 00:25:06.688 - And that is, do people feel safe speaking at public events like this? Do they feel heard? Are they afraid 00:25:06.688 --> 00:25:16.130 - of being bullied or being discounted for their points of view? And for participation in the community, 00:25:16.130 --> 00:25:18.238 - we need people to feel 00:25:18.370 --> 00:25:29.688 - Safe to come out and express themselves The importance of how police respond and the importance of community 00:25:29.688 --> 00:25:40.694 - policing Was an important thing that the council should understand And And then understanding Essentially 00:25:40.694 --> 00:25:45.470 - what we're allowed to do is a community again 00:25:45.762 --> 00:25:54.505 - that we don't have the ability necessarily to prohibit guns at the pool because state law allows it. 00:25:54.505 --> 00:26:03.160 - And then the last was the idea of public safety and the perception of public safety can be two very 00:26:03.160 --> 00:26:12.249 - different things. And those things need to be addressed separately or together. And that when bad things 00:26:12.249 --> 00:26:14.846 - happen, we need to also share 00:26:15.362 --> 00:26:23.898 - positive experiences. So for instance, needle exchange has probably been effective and many other things 00:26:23.898 --> 00:26:32.190 - for the decline in needles in the community being found by the parks department and their experiences 00:26:32.190 --> 00:26:40.564 - there. So there are good stories to tell as well as the not good ones regarding public safety. I think 00:26:40.564 --> 00:26:44.222 - that's it. Thank you. Thank you, group four. 00:26:45.154 --> 00:26:59.702 - So we're gonna move to our last two groups. I'm gonna first have group two come up and then we'll finish 00:26:59.702 --> 00:27:14.942 - off with group one. Hi, I'm Mayor Carey proudly representing group two tonight. And some themes that we heard 00:27:16.962 --> 00:27:27.589 - really echo a lot of what we've heard from other groups. How welcome we feel impacts our feeling of 00:27:27.589 --> 00:27:38.215 - safety. When we feel known or feel that we belong in a place, that helps us feel safe. And when the 00:27:38.215 --> 00:27:46.398 - community is actively building a sense of belonging, our safety is enhanced. 00:27:46.530 --> 00:27:57.762 - And so we had some experiences shared about moving to Bloomington and it being a much bigger place than 00:27:57.762 --> 00:28:08.886 - where someone was from and the interactions they were having with people and not knowing people helped 00:28:08.886 --> 00:28:13.854 - them feel unsafe, actually, whereas when they 00:28:14.082 --> 00:28:24.114 - get into more familiar settings and in a group of belonging, they feel safer. Another theme that we 00:28:24.114 --> 00:28:34.246 - heard was around infrastructure that helps us feel safe and particularly lighting that helps us feel 00:28:34.246 --> 00:28:35.550 - safe and the 00:28:36.674 --> 00:28:46.475 - I know we call these lights too, but the blue lights on campus that actually have a way to make contact 00:28:46.475 --> 00:28:56.276 - with emergency services if you are unsafe. Not being alone, which goes back to belonging, but it's also 00:28:56.276 --> 00:29:02.590 - sort of strength in numbers. The sort of situational awareness and 00:29:02.882 --> 00:29:12.152 - not only just being familiar in a place, but knowing what I can do to make myself more safe. So in this 00:29:12.152 --> 00:29:21.064 - situation or in this place, who can I call? Who is here that can help me? And or is there a place I 00:29:21.064 --> 00:29:30.334 - can go to be safe if this becomes unsafe or things that all help us to feel more safe? Some things that 00:29:30.562 --> 00:29:39.908 - make us feel more unsafe, the news, both real news and fake news. So sometimes rumors get started about 00:29:39.908 --> 00:29:49.074 - who did things, not true. And then we're looking at people suspiciously and feeling unsafe about more 00:29:49.074 --> 00:29:55.454 - people. But also just the awareness of when shootings or rapes happen. 00:29:55.554 --> 00:30:07.126 - particularly was mentioned, the campus alerts can make us feel really unsafe knowing what's happening 00:30:07.126 --> 00:30:18.925 - to others. And a couple of mentions of misreporting the facts. So people coming from out of town, which 00:30:18.925 --> 00:30:25.278 - generally is, frankly, a dog whistle, and frequently is 00:30:25.538 --> 00:30:39.724 - not true, that crimes do happen from people who live in town. The guns were also mentioned, and especially 00:30:39.724 --> 00:30:45.822 - unfortunate things happening in large crowds. 00:30:46.626 --> 00:30:56.669 - It wasn't directly connected to the gun comment, but that the larger a crowd is, the more unsafe it 00:30:56.669 --> 00:31:05.406 - can be. Statistically, the more you have a chance of somebody acting in an unsafe way. 00:31:05.570 --> 00:31:15.330 - What we wanted council to know is that the things that the city does to help welcome people is particularly 00:31:15.330 --> 00:31:25.271 - important and creating spaces where people can feel a sense of belonging and the notes on the infrastructure, 00:31:25.271 --> 00:31:29.790 - especially lighting, that helps people feel safe. 00:31:35.266 --> 00:31:44.072 - I almost forgot about our group online. So I'm actually gonna let them go next, and then we'll wrap 00:31:44.072 --> 00:31:53.142 - up with group one. So for my folks online, I'll turn it over to you. Hi, thanks. So I wasn't expecting 00:31:53.142 --> 00:32:02.388 - to go next, so I'm sorry. But I think that I wanna start with the themes that we were assigned to report 00:32:02.388 --> 00:32:05.118 - out on. Someone mentioned that 00:32:05.986 --> 00:32:16.840 - confidence in institutions help a feeling of safety. Knowing that you can call 911 or a helpline and 00:32:16.840 --> 00:32:27.908 - that there's cooperation between city and county, that there's transparency in how things are handled. 00:32:27.908 --> 00:32:29.950 - Someone noted that 00:32:31.650 --> 00:32:39.676 - the city used to give crash detail, detailed crash reports and they're not doing that anymore. And so 00:32:39.676 --> 00:32:48.017 - like a theme I feel like was like a kind of lack of transparency in like feeling like there is an unknown 00:32:48.017 --> 00:32:56.436 - and not feeling safe around that. Someone kind of distilled it into two different categories from tonight. 00:32:56.436 --> 00:32:58.718 - One is safety from being hit 00:32:59.362 --> 00:33:08.474 - It killed or injured by cars. It came up a lot in our group, whether someone was in a car or walking 00:33:08.474 --> 00:33:18.036 - or biking, and then safety from being injured by people committing crimes or possibly committing criminal 00:33:18.036 --> 00:33:27.238 - acts or breaking the rules in some way. I guess, for example, shouting on a street at night and maybe 00:33:27.238 --> 00:33:28.862 - bullying someone, 00:33:29.154 --> 00:33:38.497 - or getting into a physical fight on the street. Our session, also the folks that identified, I guess, 00:33:38.497 --> 00:33:48.115 - I identified as like a white woman and a couple people identified as white men. I think that is probably 00:33:48.115 --> 00:33:57.459 - useful to know just in terms of, I guess, what got said. Someone mentioned when we were talking about 00:33:57.459 --> 00:33:58.558 - themes that 00:33:59.106 --> 00:34:05.560 - people are situated differently, almost each and every one of us is situated differently. And so while 00:34:05.560 --> 00:34:11.951 - somebody feels safe walking on a sidewalk, someone else in our group said at nighttime there might be 00:34:11.951 --> 00:34:18.217 - cracks and they can't see as well. So they prefer to walk in the street, things like that. A lot of 00:34:18.217 --> 00:34:24.734 - people had feelings of both safety and unsafety and how they get around town. So mentions of when there 00:34:24.734 --> 00:34:26.238 - is infrastructure built 00:34:26.882 --> 00:34:35.398 - to keep different modes of transportation separate. They feel much, much more safe than when they are 00:34:35.398 --> 00:34:44.165 - on a street with different modes of transportation. Let me see here. Folks also talked about like things 00:34:44.165 --> 00:34:52.931 - that people identify as public infrastructure. So this kind of came up in police and fire and, you know, 00:34:52.931 --> 00:34:55.102 - knowing that you can call 00:34:55.426 --> 00:35:04.186 - some folks saying you can call for help and like knowing that's going to be received. And then other 00:35:04.186 --> 00:35:13.207 - is like regular infrastructure and city services as just like a different realm of safety. Someone also 00:35:13.207 --> 00:35:21.881 - mentioned that kind of more curious around public safety versus public welfare, which I thought was 00:35:21.881 --> 00:35:24.830 - interesting too. Let me see here. 00:35:28.258 --> 00:35:36.298 - I think that's about it. People came here tonight to being interested in policy interventions that might 00:35:36.298 --> 00:35:44.567 - help people feel more safe. I think a lot of people in this group were very aware like this is a perception 00:35:44.567 --> 00:35:52.530 - of safety and it is different for everyone versus like data that might show otherwise. People were very 00:35:52.530 --> 00:35:56.894 - interested in like a holistic approach to public safety. 00:35:57.058 --> 00:36:04.025 - And that's it. That's where I'm going to stop. Thank you. And thank you all for being present online 00:36:04.025 --> 00:36:11.199 - so we could have our folks joining us online participate. So we will wrap up with our last group, group 00:36:11.199 --> 00:36:18.303 - number one, and then we'll move into our next portion of the evening. All right. Thank you. My anxiety 00:36:18.303 --> 00:36:25.822 - only grows as I'm waiting to be the last one to present. Microphone doesn't go down low enough for me. Okay. 00:36:26.050 --> 00:36:33.254 - Courtney Don't laugh. I'm Courtney daily City Council. I represented group one and group five So our 00:36:33.254 --> 00:36:40.387 - small but mighty group had a lot of themes in common with a lot of everything else that was said So 00:36:40.387 --> 00:36:47.662 - our big three themes that we touched on were community All right creating a sense of community really 00:36:47.662 --> 00:36:51.870 - made everybody in our group agree that we felt safe within 00:36:53.602 --> 00:37:00.334 - our communities, our neighborhoods, but also larger communities, like when neighborhoods would come 00:37:00.334 --> 00:37:07.335 - together organically or outings downtown when we're in large groups of people. And we felt a good sense 00:37:07.335 --> 00:37:14.201 - of safety in that way. Predictability was another word that we used that I heard a lot tonight. So we 00:37:14.201 --> 00:37:20.798 - talked a lot about feeling safe when we know things are predictable and a sense of discomfort and 00:37:20.994 --> 00:37:27.464 - feeling unsafe when there was unpredictability. So gun violence and gun safety came up quite a bit in 00:37:27.464 --> 00:37:33.808 - our group. And that kind of played into the predictability conversation, where when we see somebody 00:37:33.808 --> 00:37:40.214 - maybe open carrying out at the pool or in Kroger or walking around, there's a lack of predictability 00:37:40.214 --> 00:37:42.942 - there. You don't know what that person is. 00:37:43.106 --> 00:37:50.260 - thinking or planning and that also was brought up in terms of maybe being down on Kroger and if there 00:37:50.260 --> 00:37:57.484 - are people, Kroger Kirkwood I meant, and people acting erratically and that leads to a safe, a feeling 00:37:57.484 --> 00:38:04.638 - of unsafety because again, it's that lack of predictability. You don't know what they're going to do. 00:38:04.770 --> 00:38:11.330 - And anxiety was another common theme within our group and I think that anxiety that we talked about 00:38:11.330 --> 00:38:17.890 - a lot came from messaging You know a lot of IU alerts when something is happening, you know hearing 00:38:17.890 --> 00:38:24.515 - a lot of bad news I think it was group two that mentioned that too And so talking about how maybe we 00:38:24.515 --> 00:38:31.206 - can craft messaging to maybe make us feel a little bit less anxious would help with a sense of safety 00:38:31.206 --> 00:38:32.190 - so things that 00:38:32.386 --> 00:38:38.540 - Group one and five one of the common council to understand from this conversation again revolved around 00:38:38.540 --> 00:38:44.635 - community building Building community made many of us in the group feel safe and we talked a lot about 00:38:44.635 --> 00:38:50.553 - how can we expand that? Beyond just our own neighborhoods where we are lucky enough to feel safe in 00:38:50.553 --> 00:38:53.630 - our own neighborhoods being able to communicate out 00:38:53.762 --> 00:39:00.796 - What makes this feeling of public safety what practices to create good public safety and in other words 00:39:00.796 --> 00:39:07.762 - distilling that down into maybe a more common definition that City council can start working on as our 00:39:07.762 --> 00:39:14.931 - baseline Getting that shared definition and understanding of what we're working toward with public safety 00:39:14.931 --> 00:39:18.718 - So does that mean predictability and trust for example? 00:39:19.298 --> 00:39:27.693 - and maybe sharing out this is what it looks like to support each other. Expressing expectations was 00:39:27.693 --> 00:39:36.256 - another thought of what can go into helping create this common sense and definition of public safety. 00:39:36.256 --> 00:39:40.286 - Important perspectives that should not be lost. 00:39:40.418 --> 00:39:47.548 - Group pointed out that we all do have different perceptions of what safety means for each of us So some 00:39:47.548 --> 00:39:54.610 - communities in Bloomington have their own understanding and perspective that other communities may not 00:39:54.610 --> 00:40:01.534 - feel Meshes with their sense of public safety. They might not agree. Maybe that that neighborhood or 00:40:01.534 --> 00:40:02.974 - that community has a 00:40:04.162 --> 00:40:12.928 - public safety and what prevents people from going into that area then. And how can we get out of our 00:40:12.928 --> 00:40:22.302 - own safety bubbles and start mixing our communities and helping, again, to create that common understanding 00:40:22.302 --> 00:40:28.638 - between groups. And then question or ideas deserves further exploration. 00:40:28.738 --> 00:40:35.566 - This goes back to the communication and messaging and the impact of alerts and warnings that we get. 00:40:35.566 --> 00:40:42.665 - So we had one member of our group talked a lot about, well, how can we counterbalance that with positive 00:40:42.665 --> 00:40:49.695 - messaging, which would help pull down barriers contributing to the common understanding. Again, getting 00:40:49.695 --> 00:40:56.659 - out of our own sense of safety and working on better messaging that doesn't quite feel so alarmist and 00:40:56.659 --> 00:40:57.470 - fear-based. 00:40:58.338 --> 00:41:06.110 - That was it. Thank you. All right. Thank you all for sharing. 00:41:06.754 --> 00:41:12.659 - Like I said earlier, we've captured a lot of what you've all said. But of course, my note takers have 00:41:12.659 --> 00:41:18.506 - also captured all of the experiences shared tonight. And we have a tall order ahead of us as we work 00:41:18.506 --> 00:41:24.643 - to continue to theme across all of the groups. So you all heard a lot of similarities. We've heard things 00:41:24.643 --> 00:41:30.605 - like familiarity will help, or adds to safety, predictability, belonging. We've heard some differences 00:41:30.605 --> 00:41:31.358 - in relations 00:41:32.258 --> 00:41:39.190 - guns and surveillance, so we've heard a lot of difference, we've heard a lot of similarities, and we 00:41:39.190 --> 00:41:46.258 - get to then work to figure out what session two can help us dive deeper into what some of these themes 00:41:46.258 --> 00:41:49.278 - that emerged tonight look like in practice. 00:41:49.346 --> 00:41:54.737 - The next portion of the evening is actually what we call our exit survey. So it gives you all another 00:41:54.737 --> 00:42:00.022 - opportunity to provide a little bit of feedback. I believe we have it both in digital format and in 00:42:00.022 --> 00:42:05.360 - paper. So you can choose which way you'd like to participate. It's not a super long survey. I try my 00:42:05.360 --> 00:42:10.750 - hardest to keep surveys under 10 minutes to complete because I know no one likes a long survey. So if 00:42:10.750 --> 00:42:16.035 - you would like a paper survey, we could pass those out or you can scan the QR code on the screen to 00:42:16.035 --> 00:42:19.312 - complete that survey. So we'll give folks about seven, eight, 00:42:19.312 --> 00:42:24.978 - minutes to complete the survey and then we'll give you one more chance if anyone from the wider group 00:42:24.978 --> 00:42:30.533 - has anything to add to our discussion tonight we'll try to keep those brief and then we'll close up 00:42:30.533 --> 00:42:36.254 - the evening so I'll give you all about seven eight minutes to complete the survey all right if you are 00:42:36.254 --> 00:42:40.254 - still writing that is all right but I'm gonna go ahead and move us into 00:42:40.770 --> 00:42:46.550 - the next little session. So before I turn it over to the council to wrap us up for this evening and 00:42:46.550 --> 00:42:52.445 - talk about what next steps are, I want to open for about five to six minutes just to open for anybody 00:42:52.445 --> 00:42:58.225 - in the group if they felt like something has not been shared that should be shared, maybe a thought 00:42:58.225 --> 00:43:04.062 - you had as you were filling out your survey that wasn't covered. So this is for the general group if 00:43:04.062 --> 00:43:09.726 - there's anybody who is interested in sharing something that they don't believe they've heard yet. 00:43:10.562 --> 00:43:17.561 - It's my last call for feedback if there's any in the room. It's okay if there's not, but I want to make 00:43:17.561 --> 00:43:24.424 - sure that there is a space in case there is. Lovely. That means we did our job at least decently this 00:43:24.424 --> 00:43:31.221 - evening, which is good. Well, then I'll turn it back over to the council to wrap us up this evening. 00:43:31.221 --> 00:43:38.354 - I appreciate you all for being here. The information that you provided tonight will help us move forward, 00:43:38.354 --> 00:43:39.902 - but I'll turn it over. 00:43:40.354 --> 00:43:40.958 - Thank you all. 00:43:50.434 --> 00:43:57.815 - time or 10 minutes early. I am so proud of all of us. Thank you all for being here. If you are interested 00:43:57.815 --> 00:44:04.986 - in coming to our next public safety deliberation session, that will be held on Wednesday, October 21st 00:44:04.986 --> 00:44:12.158 - at 630 right here in council chambers. Today we talked a lot about our experiences with public safety. 00:44:12.610 --> 00:44:19.371 - On October 21st we'll be exploring our community priorities as a whole on how we want to move forward 00:44:19.371 --> 00:44:26.264 - and solutions that council can address. So if today is more focused on understanding October 21st we'll 00:44:26.264 --> 00:44:32.958 - be more focused on solving the issues. Thank you all so much for being here. We are adjourned early.