The first recommendation and I think the most important recommendation from the youth programs group
is that either the city or a joint city county commission be established for youth. We believe that
there are a number of important initiatives that can be identified and that can be implemented over
time, but without some coordinating force.
to really identify and become, if you will, a clearinghouse for information and identifying and highlighting
things to the public that we won't get the progress that we need. Mayor Fernandez has, in principle,
agreed to this request. I think some of the county commissioners are enthusiastic. We want to hear what
everyone has to say later today, but this Youth Commission
as you'll hear later, is really a centerpiece in what we're proposing because we believe that there
must be a way to help coordinate all of these diverse efforts throughout the community. And you'll see
here, again, outlined in writing, a great deal of the rationale and how we feel that might be done.
The next recommendation is for
the gathering centers for youth, really. Again, a number of really excellent things being done. Rhinos
is a very good example of something that is probably the best gathering place at the moment in the community,
at least in the evenings, doing a number of things with computers,
also creating an atmosphere where there is some adult supervision but the children don't feel as though
they're imposed upon something they want to do. One of the notions that needs to be discussed is whether
there should be an attempt to identify one youth center that would be comprehensive in scope and that
would be able to house a variety of different activities or whether there should be a variety of
well, multiple youth centers throughout the community, with the notion there being that no one youth
center is going to appeal to everyone, and we need to get all of the different elements and interest
groups with the youth. We are recommending, well, the evident question here is funding. And the key
impediment to funding is certainly going to be
as part of this process in the paper which is in the appendix here, asking for input from the community
and asking to identify any possible location or locations for such a youth center or centers. Nothing
has been forthcoming yet, but if the Youth Commission is enacted, the hope is that we can identify some
real estate so that this can be
But again, the notion here is very imperative that there must be a place after school in the evenings
for youth to congregate, if at all possible. The next recommendation here is mentoring program coordination
forums. Actually, it looks to me like the next one here is the parenting resource.
master list that doesn't correspond to this. The parenting resource information distribution really
has two aspects. The first is identifying the resources in the community and the second is then disseminating
that data. The best resource so far that we have seen is the Sunrise Parenting Place Guide. Sunrise
spent over a year and
with two different people doing a lot of research, identifying for each different type of activity,
all of the providers in our community, their phone numbers, a list of the services and the costs. This
is all set forth here. It's been, there's quite a prestigious committee that has been on this and reviewed
it. It is actually this commitment from Sunrise, the result of
what I'll call a clarion call from by Telly and Farrow to recognize that gangs do exist here in Bloomington,
that there is a youth problem, we can't be complacent. So Sunrise has really focused on this. The other
aspect of this guide is for each of the different notions, whether it's gang involvement, senior care,
latchkey children, there are a series of questions that each parent should ask themselves.
We're not saying what the answers are, but these are the questions. So that if a parent has this type
of problem in the home, they'll know what to do and where to go to have the right information given
to them. There's also, well, this is the information, the best we can do. This will be on the web. This
will be updated annually. We want to solicit additions to this database. So this is your baseline.
Then how to disseminate it. There are a variety of ideas, one of which is to create parenting programs
with local employers. The Sunrise parenting program is the best example. There's a brown bag lunch almost
weekly on either wellness or a parenting issue. We purchased a variety of professionally made videos
on drug abuse, on youth violence prevention. All of this need the prevention.
not intervention, which is a little too late in many cases. And we've really tried to encourage that.
I was a keynote speaker at the Chamber of Commerce two weeks ago, and we're trying to really get a lot
of businesses in the community involved at a grassroots level in making this kind of information available.
There will certainly be other ways to do that. This could certainly be improved. But we need to do something.
The notion that it takes a village to raise a child is
a correct notion, we believe. And the question, therefore, is ways to disseminate this type of data
to the people that need it. We'll look forward to looking at other recommendations in that regard. The
mentoring program coordination forums, there are currently over 30 mentoring programs here in Bloomington.
And one of the things we tried to do with the youth programs was really understand
different types of youth that we need to address as a community. It may be easier in many cases to help
people who want to help themselves, but what we will call the at-risk youth are a different and special
type of problem. Many things that need to be done, but mentoring, among others, is probably the single
biggest thing that can be done to help many of these at-risk youth.
And you'll see here a program or a list of suggestions to bring together the community and family resources
to the department. And again, representatives from all of the different mentoring groups to really enter
into a coordinated program. Wherever there are mentoring groups that have someone to follow up a social worker
can really work to see if there's an effective dialogue being created between the big brother and the
little brother, if you will. These are the ones that are the most successful. This is what we'd like
to try to work with. The support piece for that is a coordinated mentoring training program. Because
there are certain principles of mentoring that we really got to understand.
And if we have a coordinated process of working with a different mentoring, then we believe that many
of the people who are going to act as mentors can come together, receive a certain amount of training,
which will make the whole process much, much, much more effective. So we feel that this is a very important
plank, if you will, in the platform here. And again, really the notion
later as we open this up to each of these recommendations. That's something we clearly need to ask.
What else can we do for at-risk children? Community youth information boards. Again, the notion is many
things are happening which are very, very positive. How do you disseminate that information? There are
a number of recommendations here for the community youth information boards to act as one of the
that particular information. We think that those can be used effectively at rhinos, malls, YMCA, city
government, county government, school corporations, and selected downtown locations and of course involving
the media. If we can make the youth aware in addition to the parents of all the resources that we have
available here and what is happening, then we think we
A youth exposition, same type of process. How do you disseminate information? How do you connect people?
Last year we had the youth boozas and it was very successful. But the notion is to expand on this annual
exposition and perhaps make it an even broader mission
not only bring together all the crews that are involved with youth programs and facilitating youth issues,
but you also bring together some of the prospective employers and make it a bit of a job spare. Again,
the, for me, Perry Metz actually from IU here said something early on in this process that I thought
was important. Many of the
freshmen at Indiana University who don't follow through their freshman year or who ultimately drop out,
do so probably because they haven't found some support group, some identity that helps them to really
center themselves with the winds that buff a youth today. And I think those same issues need to be addressed
for the high school youth as well, youth at all levels here.
The attempt to disseminate a lot of this information, whether it's the youth centers, the expositions,
or the bulletin boards, is a way to allow the youth to stimulate their imagination to see what else
is happening here in the community and to try to connect in a meaningful way with others who have similar
types of interests.
Indiana University student group volunteer guide is again a way to try to connect the town down,
if you will, to recognize that there are many resources at the university that can be tapped. This really
exists. It's just a way of better focusing it and bringing it together.
begin looking to inform them of the guide and the fact that there are resources at the university that
need to be tapped. Here again a question of finding ways to better coordinate existing programs.
A coordinated school volunteer program, there's really a wealth of resources available in our community
of retired
semi-retired adults who could provide a wealth of information and help to the schools. I think that
Steve Blanchak-Rock mentioned something that struck home the other day, and that is that many of the
things we're talking about are important not to be lost sight of, but the main
Therefore, how can we promote a better dialogue between parents and the school? How can we make the
school a more child-friendly and parent-print-friendly environment? The same notion was brought up in
terms of precisely some of the at-risk children whose parents may not be in the best situation to deal
with the school corporation, don't know how to get into
know how to address it. They feel disenfranchised. How do we promote that? And the notion there is really
to look at different ways in which we can make the school corporation or suggest that they become more
user friendly. And that goes both to a volunteer program, which we give in different faces. And then
I believe the next recommendation, which is to create some videos
pages so that there could be more information disseminated about the school corporation, about its message,
its mission, putting in the face of some of the administrators there, putting together guides that would
be given out to the school children so that if there is a problem, at least the parents would have a
variety of options in terms of trying to get
rest I think is this the report and on me yeah the rest is the appendix which includes information about
the youth survey that the committee conducted with 520 youth in the middle school and in the high schools
in Bloomington as well as the Harmony school and also some of our research into youth commissions in
other cities the let's see the editorial that Mike wrote and then some information about the Sunrise
parenting guide
we can give people a little bit of time to look over some of this data. Again, I wanted to go through
very quickly an overview of the highlights of what we think are action plan items for more or less short
or intermediate term implementation. I should also stress that we have in our notes probably at least
20 other ideas that we think
have merit. But our recognition here is that without some social coordinating body and without some
community support and in fact probably some charismatic leaders stepping forward who are interested
in this type of function that many of these other ideas won't really come to the light of day. And so we
go back again to the Youth Commission, the notion being that this would be something that could always
celebrate success, encourage further improvement, as we look into other ideas that even go beyond the
scope of what's here. So this scratches the surface a lot more to come. I think what we'd like to do
next, then, is ask the question, and you can phrase it a couple of different ways, that Chuck Bonds
are asked,
Have we hit, well, have we made a mistake? Is there, first of all, I guess, is there anything on here
that we feel shouldn't be on here? Have we missed the mark with any of these recommendations? Let's
phrase the question all the way first. Do any of these seem like they would be problematic? No. The
answer's no.
I think the next question, the next two questions for me would be what have we missed that would be
important to add? And what are the comments about each of these in terms of ranking them as priorities?
Which would you prefer to go on first, Kathy? Maybe what we missed to start with. Let's start with what
we've missed because we've
How do you take the whole time reviewing these particular ideas? I'm not sure that we've missed it because
I haven't read the entire report. But one of the things that we noticed in June's report is that the
peer group is so influential. And how we deal with shaping or changing or redirection of the group
or assisting a child, or saying to a child, get rid of all of your friends or pick new friends, which
is sort of unrealistic, is very much of a challenge. So as we do this, I hope we will look at that factor,
which as we know is a very important one. Maybe there are some activities where you could involve the
group. And I just wanted to throw that in,
Well, it seems, when I was looking at, and I think the survey is wonderful, I haven't had a chance to
look at it, the survey of youth, because it's important to know what children think they need. And I
noticed that one of the activities, and the one that has the charts on it, I don't know the page, I'm
getting close to it. Page 39. I'm sorry? The charts, 39 and page 40. I noticed that sports ranks very high.
And that's not only important because as a nation we seem to be so interested in sports, but it gives
the young people an opportunity to demonstrate that they can excel in something and feel good about
themselves. But it also can combine role modeling and mentoring if we take it very carefully because
there's an awful lot that can be done, not just using sports, it's whatever the activities are. And
generally speaking, the whole group of friends
interested or could be interested in that same activity. So that's one way I think that we could approach
it is trying to arrange activities around people's interests. It's sort of like getting people to read
if they don't like to read and find out what they're interested in and give them a book about it and
I'll have their reading skills improved. One statistic here that really floors me is that City Parks,
that you only have nine people that use the City Parks.
So when you think about the calendar purchasing plan recently, thinking about purchasing land for a
park, and the city's parks, and the budgets that we have in those areas, and just to have nine kids
who say they're using this. It's remarkable. They have to look at who was asked, and that's pretty much
the older kids.
Well, this was middle school and high school cross-sectional. But I mean, high school doesn't tend to
do that. That's what I'm saying on middle school. That's what I'm saying. But what I think, and I have
to probably go to something else in a minute. One of the things that has struck me very much,
and unfortunately, we don't have it. We had five middle schools. We finally created an intramural between
the five middle schools, grade four, five, six, grade four, five, six.
positive because the kids could stay in our community, participate around, and whether it was, you know,
baseball or soccer, I don't know, it doesn't matter what. And if sports is something they like, the
high elementary ages and the middle schools is the most important place to get that started. And we're
not doing much of that. Most of the kids who are participating are going somewhere, are on a team
One of the big dilemmas that we had in this, and one of the issues if there's a youth commission, is
precisely the extent to which you second-guess the MCCSC. Because there's a whole list of things that
we talked about that could be implemented at the MCCSC level. Or it can be done with all three parks.
You said you had to leave? Yes, I did. With this commission for youth that Michael's been talking about,
one of the things, I'm not sure if it's actually written in the recommendations or not, some of the
meetings was having it be somehow a combined county-city commission. It needs to be universal. We're
going to be able to attract just MCCSE and Harmony Kids, but also originally being awesome. One of the
questions is that dilute the power? We would like this commission to have status like planning commission, like
missions that have some teeth and if it becomes a city-county thing does that dilute the potential?
I mean, since it is from the youth committee's recommendation, it really is from the youth committee's
recommendation. It would be nice to have an office for youth, and then have a commission that goes with
that, and where that should be is something we can talk about, and if that is county-wide. But I think,
for instance, an office for youth makes probably a budget attached to all that. A commission for youth
doesn't need a budget, I mean, we're wide open.
I don't know maybe at some point, but what we're trying to do right now is not have a bogged down with
funding questions or legal and jangling questions. We want to get it established as soon as possible.
The question is what steps we need to take to do that. We're better off just working with the city or
we should look at the county.
I think that there are a couple of them. I think your question needs a little bit of research because
one of the things that the city and the county do together that I don't actually know any commissions
that are city-county commissions. So what I would do,
I think that from the point of view, just speaking for the youth programs group, that we'd like to see
this, as Fox said, be the highest priority. And I know that Tom Fernandez is prepared
important issue because this report and the report that was just given, the county report, the study
on youth, all talk about coordination and cooperation and if we do not at somehow address working with
the city and the county the concerns of the young people in Monroe County we have missed a golden opportunity.
So however we structure it, I don't know the answer, but this is an opportunity that's going to slip
through our hands and probably won't have again for quite some time. We do not somehow rather develop
a program that is comprehensive enough to deal with children who come from Ellisville, who come from
Steinsville, I think that's wherever it is, Gossport, that park in Monroe County, in the city or wherever,
because we deal with
These are all actuals. Well, I don't think that we can, I'm not prepared to make specifics, but I think
the general question is how do we move forward in what type of timeline to put together a commission.
And again, speaking with John in some meetings, he's very happy to make it a point.
Well, I'm sorry, but it has to be county-wide, because if you're going to do something for the kids,
you can't just do it for the city kids. Absolutely. Well, the city kids are county kids. Exactly.
I mean, you can't separate them. He had the idea to get this started, and it was wonderful, and we wouldn't
be sitting here today if Mayor Fernandez hadn't done it. But in any event, I think moving forward, I
would guess,
probably in different ways, a lot of different appropriations that just need to be reallocated and retained
available. Because he's prepared to do something with the family and what's your department called?
Community and family resources. Community and family resources. And that would have an office for it
in that kind of setting. One of the comments that
in the coordination with MCCSC and as an outsider just coming in and told it just strikes me as a really
key part of this whole deal is from a taxpayer's point of view a large part of my money goes to Monroe
County School Corporation and they have a huge amount of resources in terms of physical resources we're
talking about finding a building for sports and your mural all of that stuff they have the
me that getting them on this program on this commission is essential. Right. To avoid duplicating building
another building. We've already built all these buildings. Well, the first step is probably as simple
as getting the commissioners together, but then figuring out the role and the relationship there. The
commission would establish a really incredible bully pulpit. And again, one of the notions being
not just to follow through on certain ideas that we have, but to celebrate the successes that are there.
And I think that's a message that we have to keep coming back to because there are a lot of successes.
And making that public and making this in the forefront of everyone's mind, we see as an equal plank,
if you will, of this commission.
I think that the status, if you will, I hate to use that, of having a recognized commission, that something
that can approach people with credibility and say, we would like for you to be involved. When I ask
people in my neighborhood, go over to Highland Park and talk to the principal and ask if you could volunteer,
they won't take that admission. But I really think that there was some way to touch the lives
a tremendous need here. I don't want to belabor this, but your point about, and I don't know exactly
how you said it, but there's an element of parents, I hate to say it, parents from dysfunctional families
perhaps, who are intimidated by school. They won't even run in the front door. They won't walk in because
they think they're too far removed from them. And it's up to
dysfunctional family but I see the potential of a little boy and that's what it takes the closer you
can get one-on-one small groups I think that's fine if I can get two or three kids together hard and
work with fine but the closer you can get one-on-one again I'll be later
week after week, I'm too stupid, I'm so stupid, and I said, don't just say that anymore, then he would
slip and he broke himself for saying I'm stupid. And I went into that school once, I worked with him
and I had done something, I said, boy, I'm really stupid, he said, you're not stupid.
closer we can get to one-on-one. We agree. We got a chance. Couldn't agree more. Do you think involving
seniors is an area that we've missed in these recommendations? Well, I know. It's actually one of the
recommendations. I just know what my experience is with my neighbor. And it's like pulling teeth. And
people retire, and they think, I'm not retired, but people think it's time for me now to enjoy life.
And I try to, we're in a whole different
We're not living in times like we were 30 years. Times have changed, and it's time for adults, I think,
to get more involved in the lives of children. And we have that opportunity. When I was first matched
up with this little boy, boy, I was really uncertain about this. But he and I are, I mean, we're really
close, and that's what I want. Do you think that the notion then of a coordinated school volunteer program
in particular
I think there's a lot of wonderful things there. I mean, I think when I first sat down, I thought, well,
the Youth Commission has, and so I heard discussion about, and saw the courts pulling this stuff together
and giving it some pronounced credibility. So you're back to reinforcing the notion of the commission.
I'm anxious to get down to parenting resources and things like that. I was on the school registering
committee. When I hear people say, put those kids on the bus
Presmont's in the university school. Personally, I think that's the worst possible thing you could do
if you expect their parents to be involved in the school. The worst thing those parents would see on
that school is university because they're just too far removed from it. Now, I'm not going to get in
a big argument about it. Good choice. For 14 months, we beat our heads.
But I think if we can reach, and we're going to have more and more low income people. We're going to
have more and more disenfranchised parents and their children if we don't reach out and help them. And
it's going to take people more sophisticated and educated to reach out to them if we care about them.
Because they're too many of these people in public housing
They're afraid of the official system. They're suspicious of activities of government or the school
system or whatever. They don't know how to, they don't have the sophistication to do even some of the
elementary things and maintaining. And we really, and this is difficult. I don't know quite how to impact
my students' parents. But I really think I've made, got my foot in the door. Thank you.
what you're seeing now of course it's a lot of our notion. Hi I'm Liz Isaacs and like Jim I wasn't on
a committee a friend of mine told me about this and I've worked with adverse populations before. To
touch on what Jim said do you think it would be a good idea to
to also target some of the at-risk areas, whether it's Crestmont, Highland Park, or other areas to build
that trust. I was involved with the Tenants Association up at Crestmont and the Family Center up there.
And then it takes a long time to build trust
And unfortunately, I was able to do that with some. But a lot of them, of the people of the Tenants
Association, really, they want to see a change. And then they do care about their children. They may
not know how to ask the questions or whatever. And maybe that's a way of doing it.
do county-wide and all that. As Kathy summarized that right, targeting at-risk areas for mentoring or?
Yeah, mentoring or parenting. I think it makes good sense to target with the volunteer programs in the
schools, too, obviously. Right. You know what's important about what we've just heard?
They talked about real people. The programs that we talk about are wonderful, but the people who are
actually served, this is what is most important. If you don't mind, I'd like to share just one thing
with you. I had a lady in juvenile court and we'd spent quite a bit of money trying to do something
with her son who submitted a number of delinquent acts. And after about two years of trying to help
her son, she came in and looked at me and said,
The system has failed me. The system has failed me. And when I came down about 15 minutes later, I was
absolutely livid. We'd done everything we could do. And then after I thought about it, she wasn't talking
about the court. She wasn't talking just about the court. She was talking about her frustration with
trying to deal with government official schools. And I'm sure she was talking about those things. So
as we do this,
As we talk about these programs, it's nice to put a face in there. I agree. Yeah, and talking to these
people, regardless of their education or socioeconomic level, they'll tell you what's going on. And
it's very important.
You know, to listen. If we're going to be their voice or their ears or whatever. Yeah. Let's go back
to the question we were on. What else have we missed? Anything else? I see several things here that
are of use, good ideas. Anything else? Well, this isn't an idea, but then I
I appreciate her remarks about the sports element, but also to reach children who are not, they're not
in sports, and they feel the pressure of being left out. And I know this is very complicated because
all emphasis is on sports. No, I know that, but no, no, but I'm saying, I saw this letter a few days ago from
four or five little girls in Hyden Park talking about the Hyden Park Riding Club, the Hyden Park Riding
Club. I think I know that school inside out, but I know I had a riding club. That's after school for
children, I guess. And you know, we have to find some way to lift up children who aren't athletes also.
They also have a right to lead. While we don't have it listed here, there are a variety of different ideas.
we have that we think that you could follow along. No, I saw you. You had written, I think, sports-wise,
other actions. But, I mean, a good example of that's Wonder Labs. I mean, we've spoken with them. We're
trying to encourage a whole variety of programs at a multi-dimensional basis. Well, and then, doesn't
the Arts Center offer a lot of diverse, like, arts programs for you?
Exactly, Liz. I mean, what we said at the beginning, you've got all of these hundreds and thousands,
in fact, of resources. It's getting the awareness out and trying to encourage involvement. It's also
very low on the schedule. It's building more and more parks. Right. And I would also encourage people
to look at the Mitigating At-Risk Situations Committee's report, because they focused a lot of their
recommendations on youth. And they were specifically targeted to at-risk youth
both elementary school and middle school youth. So there's a lot of overlap between these committees.
And I think, you know, we can implement a lot of these recommendations together. Something that we might
have missed was transportation problems that the kids have. Isn't it true that there's no city bus to
Batchelor? And so this means students can't participate in campus school programs unless they have rides
from their home? You're right. And also the city bus system shuts down.
at an early time in the evening, so evening activities. I don't know where they're going. Kids are straining
to write us all the time. OK. But to be realistic, they can get where they want to go. But I think we
could increase. Yes, we can increase them to get where they maybe should be going. Exactly. But they
can get there, believe me. And again, I wouldn't. Yes.
Again, I would encourage you to look at the mitigating at risk situations, because we know this is a
huge issue. And they did have one recommendation where they recommended looking at an alternative
transportation network. That's a specific one. Yeah. That's the value of having a youth commission,
because the little boy that I work with, he would not have been able to play
automobile and we just left that off same thing redistricting people think people can run all over the
community you can't if you don't have way to get there. Carl Salsman did mail this one on the head and
there is a whole report in as Captain said in that one and this was one of his meetings. You're about
to set that second name in the group's report. Anything else?
Shall we then go back over the different ideas that we spoke about and talk about priorities, implementation,
pluses and minuses of each of those? And we've got some people here. I wish he hadn't actually,
but I mean, do we want to spend more time talking about the idea of the commission, Joyce? I mean, is
this a proper forum to do that in, or should we just postpone that and let you
John and others do that behind closed doors. I don't want to- We don't do anything behind closed doors.
Well, I could say without the television cameras on, you're quite like that. No. I think everyone's
interested in seeing that happen. I think we get so many commissions in the community that one thing
we have to stay focused on is our goals and have some short-term goals so we can accomplish so that
everyone feels like
from my point of view just reiterate what I consider to be the bullets that stimulated this idea
Unless we can raise community awareness, nothing happens. And the best way to do that is to celebrate
success in a very, very prominent way and then correspondingly identify those problem areas which are
susceptible to improved coordination, communication, and then action. And absent a way to effectively do that
The notion is that all of these ideas may be great, but it's a moment in time, and they're lost. And
the reality is that the commission is therefore a way to perpetuate a momentum. And without it, I will
go on record, at least, since I don't have anything to lose, saying that we will have missed a golden
opportunity, and we will fail at the community to achieve whatever level we could have otherwise achieved
in terms of making the whole village support it to you. It's just my strong opinion.
it was for this group and you'd mentioned earlier to come out with an actual timetable for this to make
as part of our recommendation what the date is that we want this Youth Commission for Youth established
by. That's where you're talking about these goals and if you don't set up those timelines and goals
it's very easy all of a sudden three months are gone. I agree. I think that's exactly my choice. It's
a choice that's been taken because I've been on enough
committees throughout the years, that they have nothing against the ideas of the people involved, that
they have these wonderful ideas about doing this new program, but they really don't think things out.
They look at the whole picture instead of the short-term goals. If we're going to be realistic for this
to work, we want to get it done in a timely manner, but we also wouldn't need to be realistic and thorough
about it. Tony's point was a good one, when you really stop and think about this strip fair,
Well, I think what we're hearing is the notion is, yes, we need it. I like the idea of establishing
a timeline for any specific recommendations. Is the notion that it should be joint city-county? And
is that a fair? I think it is. And what I hear in this group, and I just say it is because the city
took leave. But we do have two townships and another school district, and they must be a part
We agree. I mean, the only caveat with that would be if it delays the establishment of it, or if it
dilutes the power of it. Well, fair enough. Yeah, fair enough. But let's assume that if there's a strong
recommendation in the push that the powers that we can get together and solve that, because it should
enhance it, not diminish it. What's a realistic time date, do you think? Do you have something like
this? We can get a resolution.
Well, then what we could ask for would be a resolution to implement it and then within a certain amount
of time to determine the real mission because you're not going to be able to determine and agree on
the mission within that period of time realistically.
How about a resolution for the school system? What kind of time do you have? I mean, realistically,
won't it take a couple of months even if it gets established in principle to determine the mission and
the composition? Because it needs to be multidimensional. I was speaking of June and July 1st to have
these resolutions so we know you can have it.
I think June took a revolution to do it in principle, yes. And three months later to have a framework
done. At least by September 1, it seems to me it's doable. And secondly, we've made a lot of movements
toward city-county cooperation anyway. Right. In fact, it's very good. So remember that city and county
budgets happened in the summer.
Do we want to actually delegate any tasks? Well, I mean, I think I'm not sure what you have in mind.
Well, I for one, along with Dr. Pizzo, I'm sure would be happy to put in some research on a cooperative
youth commission between the city and county. So I'll say I'll work on that. I will research what we
can do. We'll get started.
with Dan Sherman and see if we can work up the resolution in the next couple weeks. I think that one
of the things that we might do today is identify what we think is competition in that commission. I
mean if there are any ideas this is a moment for community input because it does need
I would also be a model commission that was in the appendix. And having a larger community of us, almost,
is very good. Yeah, I would encourage everybody to look at the appendix. Karen Lanning, who's a graduate
student in journalism, did a lot of research into different youth commissions around the country. And
just kind of what membership they had, how they got their funding. And that's in, I think, the second
appendix. So that's the starting point.
20,000. 20,000. Can we actually make a recommendation in terms of composition? It says on page eight,
we're talking about commission 10 of 12 members with at least two to four places
But we also would welcome any more input. We kept it pretty general. Well clearly the city and the county
each need to appoint some members. I would recommend that someone from the juvenile justice area be
appointed. I mean that's just my
school systems obviously school systems gotta have some you know the city and the county you know with
the county's youth services bureau and the city it within parks and recreation and their youth program
bureau probably already have a process that we can work for the people who are dealing with youth directly
I guess my main concern about this commission is that the people on the commission are
deal with youth directly and that there are a large number of youth from areas of the city and county.
Not just, you know, we go to Ellisville and we actively recruit, you know, we go into the schools and
actively recruit kids and people from these different, you know, we're talking about at risk and at
risk areas of town. Folks, every kid in this town is at risk. And every area of town is at risk.
I see kids in trouble from every socioeconomic level and every geographic area here in town. If we're
seriously going to get the community involved in this, we need to be able to get a nice comprehensive
commission of everyone involved. Some of the children end up in the juvenile system and others do not. Exactly.
I don't have a real strong feeling about this strength. I do have a strong feeling about the
Youth Commission. My question is this. Would this commission be concerned with the recommendations?
That's what I want to know. Which recommendations? The other recommendations we have. I know that one
of the recommendations is to establish a Youth Commission and the others are programs
So what would be the concern, in other words, what would be the concerns of the Youth Commission? And
your research, what have they generally focused on? That's a really good question. This one seems to
be really using youth and incorporating youth. An example I can think of is the city's art commission,
which may have some artists on it and it may not. I'm not saying that I'm taking a position that it
should be heavily populated with youth or not, but I think that really needs to be discussed.
I think my feeling is that there's a minimum baseline and then for what the Commission would want to
achieve and then after that there are a variety of things that would be optional depending on those
actual grants of authority and funding because they go and you can't but I mean well I mean minimum to me is
is to act as this coordinator of information, and then a disseminator of this bully pulpit. Does it
sound like it's 50-50 years? I don't see it as 50-50 years. We're not suggesting. That's what this model
is. We're not suggesting that at all. I think two to three is probably better than four, personally.
I mean, that's just my opinion, although two to four was the consensus of the committee.
out of 10 to 12. But I think if it's going to be 10, it needs to be two. If it's going to be 12,
maybe four. But with almost every one of the things that we've talked about here, the Youth Commission
could play a major role. Because they can be the ones that bring together the trainers for the mentoring.
I mean, that training program really should be under the auspices, for example, of this Youth Commission.
Yeah, and I think the Youth Commission is actually in the implementation plan of quite a bit of our
recommendations, especially something like community youth information boards. If this is a clearinghouse
for information, the Youth Commission should be a major force behind helping get this started. Michael,
a lot of this also sounds like administrative work and data gathering and sorting, but it seems to me
that if such a commission is really to establish its legitimacy and prominence in the community, it
also needs to think about actually sponsoring programming.
vision that is a role for it or not. For example, I could see the Youth Commission sponsoring the youth
exposition that you described. Absolutely. And having a role in the identification, maybe even in the
governance of some of these gathering places that you talk about. It needs to be, you know, posters,
you know, with a big event sponsored by the City-County Commission on Youth. If you look at the details
within each of the bullet points, you'll see that the Commission, as Kathy said, touches almost every one of
The information boards, I mean, who's going to do it? I mean, if it's going to be done, it really needs
to be done at that type of level. I think one of the reasons we have this community is having too many
people. For instance, you have the Youth Services Bureau. You have all these things in place. And that
deletes because you have so many different missions. One of the problems needs to be to sort out who's doing
This umbrella fix. Yeah. We call that eliminating redundancy. And we couldn't agree more. Because I
think the problem though, what amazed me as an outsider coming into this was the fact that there are
so many different vested interests. And any time you suggest a bringing together or a consolidation,
it rumbles feathers.
And you know that much better than I. But what did I get burned a couple of times? So we'll just have
to see what that means. But coordinating it, certainly, wherever you can eliminate redundancies, there
are just so many ways. But one comprehensive training program for mentors, we think, is a very good
way to eliminate lots of redundancies and establish a minimum criteria for mentoring.
Is there someone from this commission who's going to the Phoenix project meeting this week? I don't
know if we're aware of the Phoenix project. This is exactly what they're trying to do as well. In the
five years that I've worked with youth in this community, I've seen maybe 10 of these kind of commissions
or ad hoc committees trying to get together to coordinate. And then the minute someone talks about sharing
resources or, God forbid, sharing funding, it breaks apart again. Right. John?
You stepped in, so why don't we throw out the quicksand. One of the ideas that has come up again is
the Youth Commission, which we've obviously discussed. And there's actually a recommendation that will
come out that both the city and the county, by June, establish a joint resolution in principle to do
it. And by September, with some of the frameworks involved, and I took the liberty of saying that you
supported the idea in principle.
we're in favor of either city but preferably City County. I think we could do a supporting resolution
certainly by June July and then you know work together with the county over the summer to refine the
mission statement administrative system is in the whole nine yards. I think that it's important that
it is a City County initiative
My only concern is making sure that wherever it's home is, is that it has the adequate resources to
administer the initiative so that it doesn't fall by the wayside. And I'd certainly be willing to make
sure that happens. If we can get the resolution in place prior to July as we go into our fiscal 98 budget
process with the city council,
we can make sure that the resources are there if it's going to be at the city. The only other comment
though is I picked up on the end of Steve's comments about programming. I think sponsorship is different
than program implementation and I'd be nervous about program implementation.
because then the commission gets in a position where it's competing for limited resources with all the
different service agencies. And that's something that the city, my administration is trying to get out
of that process. We went through the whole evolution of our human resources division that started out
as a coordinating group, a policy analysis group, a catalyst group, then sort of went off
into the direction of direct program service implementation. And now we're trying to rein it back in
so that we focus more on what Brad's talking about is pushing forward, you know, real from a policy
side, trying to eliminate redundancy, trying to build capacity throughout the service provider network,
but to help them and not compete with them. And I think the commission could really be helpful
in benchmarking things, making sure that
gaps are filled in helping agencies coordinate but not compete with them for resources. And that was
something we definitely discussed in our committee and I think we came to the same conclusion that it
would be good to sponsor programs but not provide programs because there's a lot of great programs already
out there and there's no need to compete. How would this fit? Maybe I missed this discussion and you've
already talked about applying them.
with the recommendation last week on the juvenile justice group. It's almost exactly the same. Can this
come together? Yes, very much so. I mean, there's the whole juvenile probation recommendations of last
week's meeting that I think we probably would not want this group to get too heavily involved in. But
it seems like there's potential synergy here that the missions might come together fairly closely. They do.
The recommendation on the provision of programming during after schools is one that definitely addresses
that in our report. That's the juvenile justice task force report. Parenting is recommended. They call
it professional parenting, I believe. Coordination of mentoring services wasn't mentioned, but they
do talk about that need that children have. Also, the report on the juvenile task force
truancy program, which fits perfectly with the increase in adult participation and community support
for the school. There was also the recommendation for a group, a group similar to the Youth Commission,
it's not titled that way, but really to raise the consciousness level of the community. And in my view,
what that group would be doing, and I think the Youth Commission could too, is not sponsor a particular
program for people to do or not do something, but to
sponsors, speakers, and workshops to address issues that young people have, drugs, alcohol, peer groups,
whatever. I think it's a wonderful opportunity that came alive for us. And I don't see that much difference
between those two groups. As we move forward then, in terms of refining mission and administration and
all those kinds of items,
the councils, city and county councils, the commissioners, mayor and the judges and the folks working
on that juvenile justice project. We all get together and figure out the best way to do this so that
it's supportive and synergistic and not do a lot of duplication. I think you're right and certainly
I think that your leadership in getting this set up was really
to undertake our project from the Criminal Justice Institute, we were able to get $20,000 from our council.
And we're studying the same group of children. And we're talking about the same issues and problems.
And it was just interesting that there was no coordination between the group that did our study and
the committee that came out with this and how the recommendations are so similar. So I think we could
really, the community,
Listening to all of this and one of the questions we were focusing on John was composition. I'm going
to make a proposal that would change the recommendation here. And if the committee would have,
let's say, 10 or 12 members, what I would recommend to get broader participation of youth is a youth
advisory board for the commission.
and only one person who's selected by that youth advisory board sit on the commission. So you had one
youth that represented a broad diversity of youth opinion so that they would, that the function of the
youth representative being to communicate and then build an opinion and then represent that. Otherwise,
I think you do a disservice to getting a broad cross section of youth involvement. It's just a notion.
but it speaks to what we're trying to do. What it was like, I know, was last year or two years ago,
where they had the youth summit. A couple of years ago, in response to the stuff at People's Park and
other issues that youth were related, they were, from parents of youth that were involved,
the feedback that I got that it was a very positive experience, regardless of the outcome or whatever,
because they got a chance to speak. So I think it's a very idea to get, you know, to have a youth advisory
board. With one representative? Yeah, yeah. Any other way, Ms. Linder, one that you're cross-sectioning
to? Right. And like perhaps inverted?
some of the other aspects of the commission. So. Well, maybe two. Just because it's hard to talk when
you're young. It's just hard to talk in a group. If there's one young person in this group, it would
be very hard for them to speak up. That's true. And so it's a little kinder to have two. Kind word.
As far as some of the other composition of the commission,
sense to make sure that it includes, and here I'm unfamiliar with what programs exist, but for example
use services board. Wouldn't it make sense for that person to be on the Commission rather than people
spend even more time hearing the reports from the Commission and then having to answer back and to really
actually get the people who are already involved in providing the services and involved to make this,
get them on the Commission to start with.
I just wanted to say one other thing about the school thing. This is going way back.
I certainly agree that the school should be really, really involved. But in terms of their facilities
for activities, I know that their gymnasiums are overbooked now. So we really can't look at that as
a place for activities, because there's so many, you know. Well, that's the point, though. That's the
exact point. There's so much overbooking. There's so much overlap. Nobody's taking control of that and
trying to coordinate that. So if the schools were actually very involved with this commission and say,
OK, we're going to have this much program, and we're going to do this on the other,
I'm only talking in terms of space. Don't look there for space. Because their gyms are highly utilized.
What are you talking about for gyms? The rest of the space is very, very underutilized. What schools
are you speaking of? According to Parks and Rec, they say that they can have fun because they come to us
Are we assuming that the schools are permitting people to use their facilities? Oh, yeah. We are. Yes.
Yes. Well, the Boys Club, Girls Club, Parks and Rec, definitely. Boys Club, Parks and Rec, definitely.
I remain unconvinced. I was simply addressing space needs. I understand. Well, I think an interesting
point is kind of coming in all this, is that we really need the support and cooperation of the school systems.
Not just lip service to it. So many of the issues in here as far as parenting skills and daycare and
so much of society is looking to the school as daycare and all these other things that we don't have.
Our parenting skills have diminished and we look to schools more and more to fill a role that they aren't
designed to fill. What I'd really like to say
table or set aside the Youth Commission. Any other comments on any of the other ideas? Can I make one
more about the Youth Commission? Just one more? I don't think that we've really decided that it's just
City County. I think that we really need to decide whether it's going to be school systems too.
As far as... Right. Well maybe they should be asked to pass a resolution. If they don't. If they're
unwilling. If the school board are. Yeah. And maybe they won't.
Well, again, my experience has been that there are a lot of turf wars going on, and I suspect that there
will be one between the MCC and Syrian Commission. I think you can expect it. Who's driving the car?
What's the say on that? I'm not going to argue, but I'm just saying it's kind of the point now that
the school board needs to take an actor's role. I think the school administrator, I think the superintendent,
by his participation, what I've seen is he deserves that. It's going to take the school board, and you're
right. It is going to take that. It will be. Because to a certain extent, if someone's looking in an
official capacity, it creates a watchdog. And you're going to second guess. Now they have to accept
that proposition.
one way or the other, if it's to exist, it seems to me. It's just to address the issue, and I think
you make a good idea. I request a companion resolution from the MCCSA here. Can I have a comment about,
very spunky, and I agree that the schools are probably have the right, not the right, but I agree that
they probably express to you that it's not their job
We all take these children as they come to us. And if children in our society have certain problems,
then the institutions that serve those children will have to get busy about addressing those problems
or asking for help. So it's time for us to stop merely mouthing about what we can't do because
of dysfunctional families, because the children don't have this and don't have that. They are what they
are. And they're here, and we must do something about it.
recognize that we can't go back and teach the way we did in the 30s. I agree. And I think back to Rock's
point, all the rest of this is fine, but the schools have the majority of the impact on the children.
They have the facilities. They're there. The community needs to be able to reach in there and underutilize
the solar system. And in the not too distant future, they will be parents of children. That's right.
Right. And hopefully, the school system will be done as a resource. Let's not anticipate problems. Your
watchdog thing.
I think there's a certain concern about that, as a parent of an eighth grader. But hopefully they will
see this as a resource. I think they will. But it's inevitable that the commission, if you're looking
at youth, community youth issues, will want some of their resources. And there'll be a dialogue.
I'm sorry, Perry. One thing that we did not discuss in our group
think about it because of the survey. On page 41, if you look at the question six about participating
in organized activities, 21% report that they go to church-related activity. And we did not talk about
how to involve the churches in the community in this kind of effort. And I wonder if people think that
there is some potential there for people who may not have been involved
to try this avenue. Oh, yes. I think they're really important, and they ought to be involved. I met
with the minister this week to talk about how we could do some of these things. His group is real interested
in the whole disability initiatives as well as youth issues. But I think they're a very important part
of the community structure. And we try to invite many of the churches
through the Interfaith Council to participate in this process. We have participation on sort of off-again,
on-again basis, but as we get into implementation, I think they're a very relevant part of the community
to have master participants. And also, there's so many church schools these days. More and more parents
are putting their children into private schools.
Do we know how many people are homeschooled in Monroe County? No, we don't. And we not only do not know
how many. Well, I shouldn't say that. I don't know the answer. We certainly do not know what kind of
homeschooling they're getting. Well, one of the things acknowledged even by people who are
fans of homeschooling is that the children tend to lose two things no matter how good it is.
the socialization and laboratories because you can't have that at home. I wonder if we shouldn't also
include under the religious aspect offering something for people who are homeschooling their children.
And some do a great job too. Some do a very good job. You're right. That's a very big issue. But tied
to homeschooling for some parents is truancy.
Some parents withdraw their children from school when their children are short. So whatever we're talking
about here, we have to talk about truancy. It is the greatest problem that we have in this community.
Other than drugs. Any other comments on any of the other initiatives? Sorry to keep harking back to
that. I think our time is up.
I think our time is up. I think we really hit the highlights and there's some very good ideas here.
Thank you all.