- Civility has from almost from the beginning of the mayor's formation and thinking about the Safe City
- Task Force, civility has almost from the very beginning been a part of that. The mayor, I think, recognized
- very early on that the perception of how safe a community is and the perception of how secure its residents
- feel, its members feel, has a lot to do with the quality of the interaction that those residents, those
- members of that community have on a day-to-day basis.
- that when you have tense relationships between people, when altercations are common, whether they're
- on the street or in traffic incidents, when people do not believe that their interactions with their
- fellow citizens are on a very friendly basis, that leads to a perception, often a reality, that that
- community is not a safe one, that it is not one where people can depend on each other, can rely on each
- other for support, people begin to feel alienated
- social capital, the idea that people can currently trust each other, that a community will respond to
- the needs of its citizens, and that people can go about their lives in safety and security. When that
- social capital breaks down, there tend to become many more concerns about crime, about safety issues
- in general. We also happen in the work of this committee to sort of catch a wave nationally.
- If you read almost any news magazine and some other journals of opinion, you probably know that civility
- has become almost a buzzword nationally. The open shot may have been fired last spring, last March or
- April, just about a year ago, when US News did a cover story called America's Uncivil Wars. And we quote
- a little bit from that article, the preamble to our report. The article made the point that based on
- a poll and based on lots of other data,
- People are increasingly concerned about what's seen as a rising level of rudeness and coarseness in
- our society. And this is at all levels. It's seen as being in the media and in the relations in our
- political system. All we have to do is follow the news somewhat closely out of Congress and out of Washington
- to know that there seems to be a complete abdication of the idea of civil behavior, civil discourse
- in national politics.
- but it also goes down to the level of the street as well, that people believe in their interactions
- on the street, in our schools, in our communities, that people are just more rude to each other, that
- they're more quick to anger, that they're less willing to sit down and resolve issues and problems and
- disagreements through debate and discussion. Our society seems to place a premium on personal expression
- and self-expression and sort of being loud
- if you listen to top radio that comes as no surprise to you, and not much of a premium on settling issues
- in a quiet way through compromise and discussion. And you may have heard a couple of months ago, the
- president of the University of Pennsylvania appointed a national commission on civility. If you do a
- quick database search, as Jay Hoffman did, through magazines and periodical literature, there have been
- literally dozens and dozens of articles talking about this issue, often very high-line
- And so one of the things we were concerned about is to not go too far off in that direction, to not
- make the report of our committee sort of scholarly tone about civility and bemoaning the breakdown of
- American democracy and so forth. I think we were very aware right from the beginning that whatever we
- did had to translate into things that city government can realistically do, can realistically get a
- handle on where it will be recognized as having an important role to play.
- I think we agonized for a bit, a number of members of the committee who have been on this committee
- are here. We agonized a bit about just the nebulousness of our task. How do you improve civility? What
- do you do to get people to be nicer to each other, to treat each other in a more civil way to improve
- the perception of right and moving to that dimension? What we came up with are a series of recommendations
- that really calls for the city government to create a certain
- We say in preamble to our report that we're wary of being perceived as a group of elite members of the
- community telling the rest of the community how it should behave. Why don't you get your act in order?
- Why don't you volunteer more? Why don't you cooperate more? Why don't you get more involved in your
- community? Why don't you stop talking so coarsely? We didn't want to be perceived that way. We recognize
- that there are limitations to what our group, to what city government can do. But one of the things
- that government can do is to create a climate, to set
- in both subtle and overt ways, expectations for how members of that community should behave, should
- conduct themselves. The kinds of behavior that that community values, and government can model that
- sort of behavior as well. And so I would direct your attention to the primary recommendations that we
- made. I think our single most important recommendation has to do with the idea of a media campaign.
- I assume these are in order.
- And this is something that we talked about, I think, from our first meeting on, we realized that people
- kept coming back to this idea that the mayor has to use his bowling pulpit, and that other officials
- and leaders in our community have to use their bowling pulpits. The fact that they have public's attention,
- the fact that they're called upon to speak to a large variety of groups and to speak with authority,
- that they need to set out the message
- that civility is important, that the way people are willing to treat each other is important. And we're
- really very indebted to Terri Skerven from College Mall and to her colleague Denise Glesing. Is Denise
- here? Terri, okay. For translating a lot of what we had talked about in our discussions into this specific
- proposal, this really came from Terri and Denise, a little bit of refinement by Steve Howard and Jay
- Hoffman and myself. We talked from the beginning of our deliberations about the mayor using his fully
- public, but also about
- Using media resources, we define media very broadly to put across this message. We see this, and one
- of the things I'd really like to do in this meeting today is to refine what we can do in this way. But
- we can see media to be very broadly, not just television and radio. We've limited access to those things.
- Brian Carney from WFHB said that he would be very willing to help work with public service announcements,
- public service ads.
- other creative ways of radio programming to promote this message. We're hopeful that the HT would agree
- to run public service ads emphasizing this message of civility. But to create those, we talked about
- having media competitions that students could participate in and that could be open to all members of
- the community to design creative posters, things which could be run as public service ads in the newspaper,
- messages for radio and for BCAT.
- that would emphasize this message of stability. Some of you may remember a few years ago, IU did a poster
- campaign through the Commission on Multicultural Understanding, commissioned students, and mainly out
- of the School of Fine Arts, to do some very creative and very striking posters emphasizing the message
- that hatred is not something that should be tolerated, that racism is something that affects everyone,
- that injustice is to people based on religion, sexual orientation, race, gender,
- really harm a community and really tear it down. You know, some very striking images with slogans, a
- consistent look to these posters. These were displayed on campus. I think some of them were run as public
- service ads in the newspaper. That's the kind of thing we have in mind. So we define media as not just
- a broadcast and a news media, but any form of visual communication or audible communication. Another
- thing we talked about a lot are the ads of the ad campaigns that are very well known.
- such as the take a bite out of crime thing, the McGruff thing that you probably all see. There must
- be out there, or if there aren't, we should try to create a series of posters and messages that can
- be displayed in the mall and other places where people congregate that emphasize this message in a consistent
- way, in a way that people identify it as being part of a crime.
- possibly going all the way up to billboards that could be seen in a community that have a consistent
- look and a consistent message. So as I say, we define media very broadly. We recognize that that's the
- way to most pervasively get these messages of civility and public conduct across members of our community.
- So that's the first recommendation. The second one is for a series of public deliberation forums.
- We thought at one point about having some sort of a big summit meeting before this meeting about stability
- issues, having some sort of town meeting where people could come and speak and express their opinions
- about these issues. I think we ultimately decided that that might not work. That the people who would
- show up at a meeting like that would tend to be, for lack of a better term, the usual suspects. And
- that maybe the people who really needed to be there, who really needed to participate in something like
- that, would not. That they'd be intimidated by that sort of a forum, that sort of a structure.
- And so thanks to the work of Jay Hoffman, our Lilly fellow, what we came up with was a proposal for
- a series of smaller group discussions, things that could be facilitated in schools, libraries, churches,
- other community organizations with an agenda not set by the city government or by the mayor's office,
- not organized by the mayor's office, but simply facilitated with some materials for discussions and
- talking points.
- booklets provided by the city government to these groups who wanted to organize their own discussion
- groups. These could be almost like the book clubs that a number of community organizations and neighborhood
- groups and church and school organizations have, where there's a little bit of facilitation, some commonality
- in the materials that you have made available to you. But after that, it's up to the group to form its
- own discussion and to take the discussion in the direction it wants to go. These could possibly culminate
- into a larger meeting
- at some point in the future to talk about these issues in our community, but we sort of begin from the
- principle that one of the key things to improving civility is just getting people to talk to each other
- more, people who don't normally interact with each other to talk about these issues. Our third recommendation
- is called Neighborhood Association Welcoming Strategy. This I think originated from a meeting in which
- a number of representatives from the Neighborhood Associations addressed the Safe and Civil City Task Force
- about some of their concerns and especially Barbara Wolf from the Young Heights Neighborhood Association
- really put onto the agenda the idea that the state of relations between landlords and tenants and their
- neighbors is a civility issue. That residents in our neighborhood are concerned about the behavior of
- student tenants in rental property, about the civility of their behavior and about the quality of their
- interaction and when they approach
- The owners of those properties, those properties, those landlords, those owners, often are not as responsive
- as we would like to see them to be to these issues. This particular recommendation calls upon the city
- government to publicize a strategy and to give some recommendations to neighbors, to people who live
- in midst of rental property, these sorts of properties, how to get to know their student tenants. That
- if you get to know the people who are living with you and in your community,
- you might be able to form a basis for bringing some of these problems and complaints to their attention
- if it comes to being a problem, that a little bit of prevention on the front end as introductions getting
- to know each other can prevent some problems down the end. Now I think this probably could be suitably linked
- Jay with another recommendation in another section that really specifically addresses the responsibilities
- and the obligations of landlords. And do you want to say just a little bit about that? Just a very brief
- comment. This recommendation, for those of you who attended the mitigating at-risk situations meeting
- this morning, is in direct link. It's the sister recommendation, so to speak, of a recommendation called
- the, I can't remember the name of it now, but it has to do with the Neighborhood Association and Code
- Enforcement. And what it wants to do is it tries to integrate landlords
- taking a more responsible approach into informing their tenants that they expect them one to be good
- neighbors and two by integrating the city into that the city can then inform landlords when a violation
- at that property has occurred so that the landlord can in turn inform their tenant that this is just
- not the appropriate kind of action. So we try to take one a very proactive approach in this recommendation
- and then a slightly more coercive I guess for lack of a better word approach in the mitigating at-risk
- situations that committee recommendation
- And from the neighborhood associations, we'd like you to view those two recommendations together and
- give us your feedback on that. And if you think it's something that can work. So if you were to read
- this recommendation by itself, you might say, well, this sounds like the neighborhood associations and
- the permanent, the long-term residents of a community hadn't put forth all the effort to get to know
- their student neighbors and so forth. But there is, as Jay says, a parallel recommendation that really
- does underscore the obligations of landlords to get potential problem situations in the bug.
- and to take some responsibility for the conduct of the people to whom they rent property. The remaining
- recommendations have to do with the general raising public awareness of issues and disseminating information,
- creating a home page and Hoosier Net on the worldwide web that would include stability and diversity
- information, having the city sponsor or at least more ambitiously participate in a diversity fair of
- some sort, an event that would
- emphasize the diversity of our community. And we're indebted to Steve Howard from the Chamber of Commerce
- for reminding us that appreciating the diversity, that the variety of people, the variety of backgrounds,
- ethnic, religious, other backgrounds, the members of our community is an important step in civility
- because so often uncivil behavior takes place in the form of hate speech, in the form of discrimination,
- in the form of misunderstandings.
- And just a review of the hate incident reports that the Bloomington Human Rights Commission,
- which I chair, puts out every six months indicates to you that Bloomington is not a community that's
- immune to those sorts of problems. So the city taking a more active role in promoting respect for the
- many cultures that make up our city and make Bloomington what it is, is an important part of improving
- stability and maintaining stability. And so our recommendations in those two areas haven't really underscored that.
- making stability videos, airing them on Wittenton Community Access Publisher. A lot of really interesting
- programs that are being produced by independent filmmakers, things that have run on PBS. You may be
- familiar with a series called Not In Our Town. In fact, it's re-airing on WTIU tomorrow night at 10.30.
- It's the story of a community, I want to say Montana, that was hit by some very unfortunate issues of incidents
- anti-Semitic discrimination. I think it was vandalism done to a menorah that was displayed in a window
- of a Jewish family. Is that correct? And the person who actually produced this program was in Bloomington
- speaking on campus a couple of months ago. In response, the community took upon itself. You had hundreds,
- if not thousands, I think, of homes in that community then displayed menorahs in their windows, essentially
- in a gesture of solidarity with that community. Really a very moving movement.
- magazine, and I think it was the September issue, had an article on it. Yeah. And so, yeah. Because
- I want to say that it was a much broader approach than that, because in addition to the anti-Semitism,
- there was also an intimidation in a very small black church, because the black population is quite small.
- Right. And so then all kinds of congregations from other churches came in solidarity with the small
- black congregation. And there was a Native American kind of incident.
- The point of these purposes being that there had been some very interesting documentaries and films
- made about how communities responded to these issues that we would like to see made available if we
- could get around the copyright issues and other things that are involved to have them made more available
- and seen more widely by members of our community. And then finally, as appendix to our report, actually
- there are several appendices or sidebars, a report, a paper called Destination Civility written by Jake Hoffman,
- talks a lot about these issues in terms of a broader national discourse. There's a report on what's
- being done in our schools. Time and time again, we came back in our committee to what is happening in
- the schools. We benefited from the participation of Dr. John Cooper, Susan Bearman, the principal of
- Luton North High School, and also for some period by Steve Botnchuk, the principal of Harmony School
- in the deliberations of our committee.
- I think sometimes we were tempted to say, these problems begin in the schools, and the schools should
- try to do something to teach people civil behavior. And I think that as a group, we sort of checked
- ourselves and realized that we didn't want to get into this game of trying to blame all the problems
- on the schools and put all the responsibility for solving these problems on the schools. But we did
- need to recognize some of the, in many cases, creative and innovative work schools are doing to try
- to promote
- better relationships among students and between students and teachers. And so as an appendix to our
- report, there's a two or three page description of what's going on in each school in the MCCFC system
- that is relevant to our concerns about civility. And then I guess the final sidebar, it's really actually
- toward the beginning of the report, is simply a definition of civility that was contributed by Lynn
- Ostrom, who's on the political science faculty at IU. We decided it was probably
- important because this is a rather nebulous charge. It means a lot of different things to different
- people. It's necessary to define our terms a bit. And so near the beginning of the report, about on
- page seven or eight, I guess it would be, you see a two-third page simply had its civility. And that
- is the definition of civility that we as a committee decided to adopt. It emphasizes the connections
- between civility and perceptions of civil behavior toward perceptions of crime and safety, and also to
- attempts to define this bigger issue we call social capital, that civility is important to expectations,
- that promises are kept among people in the community and between members of the community and their
- government and their leaders, that reciprocity is a good strategy to follow in those relationships,
- and that one will be able to call on one's fellow citizens to provide assistance in times of need. The
- more we can build up those values and those ideas through civil behavior, the more healthy our community
- is likely to be.
- That's a real quick overview, a real thumbnail sketch of what our committee did. We hope that we've
- at least made some contribution in the context of all of these national commissions and learned journals
- that are writing and opining about civility. We hope we've made some reasonable and realistic contributions
- to what our community can do in the sort of environment that city government, which is really ultimately
- the audience of this report, can do. What I would love,
- be to hear your general, I guess two or three things, your general reactions to the report and to our
- recommendations. That would be number one. Two would be what we have overlooked or left out in terms
- of the literature that the city government can take or facilitate, since that is the group that will
- have to implement this state and city council's task force report. What we've overlooked, what we've
- forgotten. And third, to get your ideas about fleshing out the recommendations, particularly
- What I would continue to think of is our flagship recommendation, and that is for using the media broadly
- defined in our community to communicate messages about civility. So with that, I would love to hear
- your feedback and your thoughts. Let me just ask Jay, do you want to add anything? Jay was incredibly
- useful in drafting many of these recommendations and really doing a lot of the creative work that's
- the basis for many of these recommendations, as well as
- Steve, I think you've done a wonderful job of outlining the process of the committee. I really have
- nothing to add. The fact that I guess I just reiterate one thing that Steve said is one, it's very hard
- to wrap your hands around what this idea is. We started with one conception back in October when I joined
- the committee and started discussing it. And I think we really ended up somewhere very different by
- the time that we ended. And when you're talking about civility, there's one thing that comes out again
- and again in the report and it's the definition. It's this idea that we're all in the same boat together.
- and we need to find ways to interact with everybody in that vote. And that's what we're trying to do
- in this committee, is get the word out that, you know, we need to get along and we need to make an effort.
- It doesn't come easy. Yes? The Y had started a campaign, which is their basically campaign, and it fits
- right in as far as I'm concerned. There were like four words, caring, honesty, respect was the first thing.
- and they used different colors and things like that. Right, right, and then the fourth one I can't remember.
- But they did call together leaders from 4-H, Boy Scouts, the business community, and things that were
- mentioned today when Jay was presiding over that meeting. And you know, I mean, there's a good start
- there already. And I can see, Steve had mentioned it a couple of times
- partner with them in some way, why could facilitate a discussion group about these issues in line with
- our second recommendation for these discussion forums for example. There are clearly lots of organizations
- out there that are concerned about this issue and so I don't know if it's necessary to bring them into
- some sort of big fold or simply say let a thousand flowers bloom, but they're involved in a campaign
- which fits their mission and their membership and their needs and that's great, we should acknowledge that
- Well, I feel that they lost, was it their director that was spearheading this and maybe they had a staff
- out there because they stopped the meetings. I haven't, you know, it started and then the only thing
- I see now is the posters. Yeah. I don't know, they may be doing something about it. They aren't continuing
- like, you know, with the community out.
- perhaps if we maybe go through the details of, I think, Steve, before we have the first three and maybe
- four recommendations are clearly our most well thought out. Perhaps if we discuss specifically one at
- a time some of the more intricate details of what would be required to implement one of these, if it's
- even feasible or if it defeats the purpose if we're getting about it wrong, that might be very useful.
- Again, this is a very difficult issue and a lot of uncomfortable moments of silence are things we're
- used to. We've certainly experienced those in the committee process.
- I think, too, because we were somewhat frustrated because it's very easy to get off on a rather philosophical
- and theoretical or just unfocused discussion about how bad it is that people are worried that somebody's
- going to pull a gun out on you if you cut in front of them on the highway or something like that. All
- the problems that we were very concerned about. I think I was, anyway, to always bring this down to
- the level of what can we do in terms of concrete initiatives to improve quality of life
- Terry, do you want to say anything just by, to emphasize anything or by introduction of the beauty of
- public relations campaign, you and Denise really sort of took that and ran with it. Put that in writing
- in a concrete form. I'll give it to you and then you finish it.
- a real good arena for reaching people. It's a real important message to get across to folks. So we do
- see many ways that the mall can help spread this ability word as that campaign is developed. It certainly
- is a crossroads for the community. Yes. Well, I guess I'm thinking of, we'll talk about some things
- we're talking about. I think we need to
- I kind of miss that here. Daycares. The grade schools are doing some things, but I guess I want to reach
- out to more of the community and some of the smaller kids who are involved. Just everyday manners that
- they're missing nowadays. What are some, the first question I would ask is what are some
- Is there a way that the mayor's office can facilitate getting something going along those lines, I guess?
- Well, Parks and Recs are one thing. That could be a focus of one of their programs. I know they go to
- a lot of housing things, and that could be a program that they focus on. The Human Rights Commission
- each year. You have camps, youth camps, that could be a focus in your youth camps. Such as the Walnut
- City Camp and Parks and Rec camps. There's a conference held every year
- The other angle, if you're trying to get a home with the people doing childcare, go through the City
- of Wilmington, the Community and Family Resources Department, because they maintain
- program and then the food program. The food program providers that are participating in that are required
- to do monthly training meetings. So you've got a resource there to train the providers to how to teach
- this to the children. And then certainly in my extended day programs I can't do it. The Human Rights
- Commission each year sponsors an essay contest geared at a couple of different levels of the schools
- and this year our general
- the theme tied in with this work was civility, and I think for the elementary and middle school kids,
- you can use the term civility, I forget exactly how we phrase it, but sort of thinking about how we
- treat each other, and just being nice to each other, something like that. And I know that several of
- my fellow commissioners, certain judges, in that our award ceremony's gonna be at May 1st, I've not
- read the essays yet, I've not seen them, but we decided to make our own
- I was thinking in terms of customer service and businesses. We have visitors come to visit our family
- here in Blooms and they always say when I take them shopping anywhere what a friendly place it is that
- when they come from New York or Chicago or some place like that you know the waitresses aren't as friendly and
- cashiers aren't as friendly. And if we can just continue to promote that in New England, if every business,
- if every not-for-profit, if every family thought of ways that they could be friendly and nice and how
- they can accommodate their customers in many different ways. And we each have our own group of people
- that we serve in many ways in our lives. And if we just think about how we want to be
- that and just make it just go out like a wave that we would have a very civil community. If I could
- follow up on that, you really hit it on the head. We've talked a lot about it this morning about grassroots
- movements and the importance of starting from the ground up. The most important thing everyone in this
- room could do today when they leave is go out and tell someone, I live in Bloomington, Indiana. It's
- a safe and civil community and start spreading the word. It starts with us. So I think we also recognize
- that this kind of thing is very cyclical, that if we
- If people in those customer service responsibilities are that way, probably a lot of that has to do
- with the fact that they themselves are treated that way, that they have maybe a lower level of tension
- and stress than people living in New York or Chicago, because Bloomington is in general a safer community.
- It's perceived as just a community with a higher quality of life. And that leads people to be better
- to each other in their interactions. And the quality of those interactions then feeds that
- called social capital, and it becomes a positive cycle. Steve, does the chamber do anything in the way
- of advocacy or customer service training for local businesses along those lines? No, I don't think we
- have. We could. For our community development, that certainly could be an initiative. There's some subtleties
- here that you need to think about, though. I'm reminded, and I think it has to do with the diversity
- issue. It may be similar to people
- not just be nice, it's recognize that nice is perceived in different ways. That's why we included the
- term diversity, which has become kind of a misunderstood or buzzword in and of itself, but why we included
- recognition of those non-discrimination and diversity issues in the purview of our committee. That's
- a perfect crystallization. For those of you who don't know,
- an African-American faculty member at IU who directed the Afro-American Choral Ensemble. And he looks
- different. He's an unusual looking person, I think. That might have been it more than anything else,
- but I don't know. So George, I think you're right. There's something we could do in that area. Those
- of you who are in agencies, businesses, all of your professional lives, are you aware
- poster campaigns or public service announcements or series of coordinated messages that your group makes
- available that are already out there. I think Terry did a little bit of looking. We sort of said that
- there must be some national group like the ad council or something like that that has a campaign just
- like the McGruff take a bite out of crime. There must be something like that about stability.
- If there is, we haven't found it. And maybe we need to create it ourselves.
- materials, PSAs, other things out there that you're aware of that we can make use of. Not nationally
- for all ages, but at least in my program there's posters we use for children. Well the best resources,
- and it's like Skacy and I'll quit talking in acronyms, it's the National Association for the Education
- of Young Children and the Children's Defense Fund is another excellent place, but again the message
- These materials can be purchased by local groups. There may be overlap here with the youth. Should we
- start piling more things on the Youth Commission's job description? Well, I would let Gaffney speak
- to that. I would just say that one thing that we didn't have time to discuss, our committee deliberation
- ended and the work is never done.
- was when we got the survey results back from the school as to far as what they were doing to promote
- civility within the school system, I think there's some possibility there that we might be able to tap
- into that and expand upon it, make it a bigger deal, say we want a proof of what you're doing, this
- is what the other schools are doing, let's try to get more of it, get some excitement building, and
- by then you'll get some adults involved and we'll come up with some ideas for you and I, the old folks,
- older folks. Your old folks. Yeah, right.
- The community is so rich in creativity and artistic capability. There are a lot of examples, a lot of
- opportunities to do things. Because the one that occurs to me is every year we have a contest to see
- what will be on the front cover of the business directory of the chamber. And there's always a theme
- that's put out. And there's no reason at all the theme for next year couldn't be civility.
- medium that's out there that disseminates the message. Does this idea of some sort of a contest have
- potential? I mean, we tend to do that a lot, I suppose. I don't know if it's an overused idea or not.
- To my mind, it wouldn't have to be limited. It probably shouldn't be limited to schools. But rather,
- anyone in our community who has visual artistic talent, media production talent, I guess this is something
- ultimately the mayor's office would have to sponsor.
- office or commission set up to implement the work of the state and civil city task force, it would be
- something that they would sponsor. And there would have to be some money and some prize, I suppose,
- involved in addition to the recognition. But to commission people to create in a competitive way posters
- and PSAs and other media that could be used, hopefully, to provide a consistent message. Does that idea
- have potential? Does anybody have any strong feelings for or against
- that approach of grassroots creation of these sorts of materials and messages. There's just continuing
- opportunities to do that. Another example would be every year the limited voice listens to opinions
- about what the best pizza is. We could ask them who's the most polite wait person in town or who's the
- nicest citizen
- Let them get together and figure out how to collect and disseminate messages about civility and diversity.
- A little business community involved. How else would they do that? I'm just curious, just to flesh that
- out a little bit. That they would actually sponsor something, since they control the machines that print
- all this stuff, they could easily disseminate it. Tell me. I think that the elementary school
- I remember when the city government was in the old building, weren't there periodically sort of art
- displays around the common council chambers geared toward a theme? Yes, there was. I always had some
- theme. I don't remember who was in charge of that, but I think that should be introduced. What about
- this idea that the city actually have an official motto?
- So is there any official Bloomington motto or slogan for that? I'm looking to the members of the city
- council who are here with us. We have sort of floated around this idea. This goes beyond the stability
- committee, but I think we've been one of the key committees that's pushed the idea of having on city
- letterhead, on signs, the entrance to the city, Bloomington a safe and civil community. There was even
- at one point someone came up with some sort of artwork or a little logo that could be used with that
- sort of slogan.
- Are we in agreement that that's both a compelling enough and an encompassing enough issue that that's
- a message that a majority of members of our community can rally around the idea of a safe and civil
- city or a safe and civil community to elevate that to a slogan, to city letterhead, to city signage,
- all this kind of thing. Do you have problems with that? I think it's a wonderful idea, except it puts
- you at considerable risk.
- brave thing to do because you push yourself, you make yourself vulnerable to community, you claim to
- be that, and then something happens that clearly is not. I think it works the other way. Where's the
- potential for ridicule? Go ahead. Although that's certainly a risk, part of the idea behind this getting
- the word out is that when you create the expectation that this is going to be a safe and civil place,
- that whether or not you are safe and civil yourself, you might conform to these norms. Now that's not
- to say that everyone acts rationally and you won't have
- random acts of violence. But what you might see, and what would be interesting to see a study done,
- we certainly have people at IU who could do those, is to see if we create an expectation that we are
- going to be safe, and we are going to be civil, and we tell everybody, and we write it every place,
- and it becomes a norm, not a law, that maybe people will say, hmm, this isn't the place where you beat
- up people, and this isn't the place where you give people the bird, and whatever. The model doesn't
- necessarily need to claim that we are something, but maybe depict that we're striving.
- And this ties into another insight from one of the other committees, Dan Sherman's committee. Is that
- mitigating at-risk situations? Safety of the environment. In the Fuller report, which you'll see after
- the task force has fully finished its work, there's the insight about what's called a broken window
- theory. It's common sense that you're in an area where trash is not collected, where there are broken
- windows, where property falls into a dilapidated state. That sends messages to people as to what the
- expectations are.
- and what the safety of that physical environment is. And so a motto emphasizing safety and stability
- that this community is self-confident enough to declare that it is a safe and civil community works,
- as Jay said, to send the opposite message, that it promotes an image and a perception of order and safety
- in the community, which you hope becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And I think there is an element
- to this. You've got to stick your neck out a little bit. I agree with what Jay says.
- far to have the motto, then it ought to be followed up with every single agency or department of the
- city having a mission statement and a set of goals and objectives and action steps for how they are
- contributing to the establishment of the state and the city, so that we don't end up with some sort
- of lip service. Sure. I think just the existence of this overall task force in this meeting today is
- a start toward that. It certainly shows, I think, the commitment
- on a very large macro level to these ideals, and not diversity, the recommendations. And actually, I
- would add to that, not just city departments, but the interfaith council, you know, what are the various
- congregations doing with regard to this issue? I just want to say, before we put it on anybody's letterhead,
- I would rather see us tell a lot of stories about how we're working to be a safe and simple city, and
- maybe this would be a long-term
- could eventually put it on. But I think when we get all this media stuff going and we start pointing
- at different people that are doing things and different organizations and departments within the city
- and can give statistics of how we've gone so long without having a murder or whatever, then we could
- say, these are examples of how we're safe and civil city. I like the word working, striving, working
- for a safe
- I'd like to just hang it up there and shoot for it. You bet. Just say we are one. I think the compromise
- of the personal safety commission at Ivy faced a similar issue. You don't want to send a message that
- it's unsafe. And so I think the compromise, Toby, you may be familiar with this, is toward an even safer
- campus, is the name of the publication. It was like, toward an even more safe and civil setting.
- or give you the idea, they get the message across, but it isn't real, real blunt. I'm not saying one
- way or another in terms of whether the letterheads in the first city should say, second civil city.
- I have to frankly admit I'm a bit frustrated because I'm, and I haven't read everything, so I don't
- know exactly what the definition of civility is. You know, I get it that it's mutual respect and courtesy,
- and for me it would also be tolerance. But then I think when we get into things like
- lightness and niceness and stuff like that. There's so many different definitions of what that is, and
- I don't know what we're talking about when we talk about being nice to each other, being polite to each
- other. It seems to me that we need to have some really broad views. For instance,
- What is civility? Because... I'm showing my own lack of knowledge of what the subcommittee of our commission
- did. I believe that some guidelines were given out to the teachers about these essays, for example,
- that didn't tell you exactly what they said. I know for me, in terms of doing city business, when I
- think about why do I regulate or put a stop sign or something like that, we live in a civilization and
- we have to figure out ways to get along with each other. And part of it is, say,
- And I do feel as though there's a real attack on regulatory government going on, just to relate it in
- terms of what cities can do. So for me, that's an issue where civility really breaks down. Respect for
- the law. Respect for the law, respect for the functions of government, what governments actually are
- trying to achieve. It's a collective view of how people should get along with each other to a certain extent.
- to narrow out that word tolerance. If you're going to define civility, I think tolerance should be in
- there too. Because a lot of times when people's customs are very, very different, so their politeness
- to each other are very, very different. But if there's an overriding feature of tolerance, then that
- maintains the civility. So. Had to certainly hit on the key thing that frustrated our committee, I think,
- for about nine months.
- We're all struck at just sort of how satisfying Lynn's definition was, the way she described it in a
- relatively Greek space, what we mean by civility, which is in the report. It means, as you say, lots
- of different things to different people. Yet there does seem to be this perception among a lot of people
- that society is less polite, more coarse, that our political dialogue and debate are more acrimonious
- and more bearish. The me generation. We're trying to move out of the me generation.
- I'm going to defer to Jay because Jay is more familiar with Lynn's work and has been a student of Lynn's.
- All of Lynn's work is based on this very bullet point, so it's not surprising to see it in here. What
- Lynn means is that we interact with each other more than once. If I am nice to you today, then I should
- be nice to you tomorrow, and again, and again, and again. Whereas if I'm just trying to get something
- from you and I burn our bridge today, I might have to cross it again tomorrow.
- And so a long-term strategy would be one where you and I decide to get along today and we stick to it,
- rather than I burn a bridge whenever it's convenient. That's not a good strategy to follow. And that's
- what creates a lack of community, alienation, and these kind of things. And Pat, I think we finally
- just sort of came to the conclusion that we were never going to come up with one all-encompassing definition.
- So the best we could do would be to come up with some initiatives and that there's enough agreement
- on what an ad can
- look like, or just repeating this idea of civil behavior. That was worth doing for its own sake.
- And also, government is creating an environment where these issues can be discussed, where people can
- talk about them, where the forums come in. And so we're never going to define this as an issue. But
- everybody seems to be talking about some buzzwords. So people must have at some level some sense of
- what we're talking about. So let's just let 1,000 flowers bloom.
- it is to be a human, to relate in a civil manner with each other, rather than saying, for instance,
- and not to pick on Shrine North Middle School, but you walk into the school and there's a poster there
- about, you know, if you become a drug addict, you'll, you'll, this will happen to you or something.
- And I just always looked at that and I thought, how much greater if there was a great poster there that
- would make the kids live up to a higher expectation, rather than a fear driving a
- I mean, I don't think that we necessarily need to say things in such a blunt way. We can find a way
- to inspire those people. I'm just frustrated because he's been trying to say something. Oh, I'm sorry.
- Well, I agree with what you're saying very much.
- They'll have some.
- I don't think we ought to get into the paralysis by analysis here either. For the parents in the room,
- if we got a couple three-year-olds playing on the floor and one was pushing or hitting or something,
- what would we all say? Be nice. We'd say, be nice to your brother, Susie. Right? Chris would say that.
- And we'd all get a concept. I think we all sort of get the idea.
- And I know you can take it from that into deep and dark recesses of the academic mind and trying to
- identify what exactly that means. But I think most of us on some sort of utility level know what it
- means to be nice. Well, I know in this day and age, I know some parents would say, Johnny wasn't doing
- anything wrong. Well, and then others might say, hey, hit your sister back. Well, I think that maybe
- we always have
- However, we end up defining similarity, that we accept that there will be conflict and tension. But
- it's one of those things where almost anything, as long as doing something is probably going to make
- some improvement and some positive impact, even if you don't have the ultimate master plan or the ultimate
- definition, just doing something toward this general goal is not likely
- Yeah, I think there is a, designing an immediate campaign too, I think that there's a diminishing return
- in trying to come up with the ultimate definition of civility, whereas telling stories of civility,
- seeing the column in the real times, there'll be a lot more consensus on yes, that is an example that
- we can all get behind, whether it fits the definition we've been able to define in the last year or
- not of civility becomes beside the point, whereas we can immediately begin to tell stories, and that's
- where we've,
- involved a sense of what is civil. Sometimes it's- I have an example. It's a recent H.T. article about
- if you do something stupid as a driver, how to acknowledge your stupidity to the other person. So it's
- a good shot. I didn't put that one forward. How do you do it? Yeah, right. You don't use the middle
- finger on one hand.
- I think as much as we don't want to get too tied down in analysis and all that, it is important to look
- at some of the root causes, anonymity, that adults have in their cars, for example, and lack of supervision
- the kids have. I know my kids, the first time they went into a totally uncivil environment was when
- they got on the school bus, right? And all of a sudden, I'm like, cussed up and cussed down. First day
- of school, second day of school, third day of school. Next thing I know, I was driving. And got them
- back on the bus eventually, and then I'm driving.
- because of all the abuse they're taking. For a couple years, my son rode, when he got old enough, rode
- his bike a mile every day. He didn't want to be on a school bus. It was too rough. He wasn't into it.
- And I think that we can't expect... Well, you can stand on that example. Let's say we come to a point
- in this community where we think maybe we need cameras on the buses. Then maybe we should rethink that
- and say, no, maybe we need adults
- driver and somebody else. So we don't have anonymity and that lack of supervision. So I think a lot
- of our decisions need to be based upon not having people, children when they're unsupervised, and we're
- doing a lot of that through the after school program, Wendy's program. But we have lots of holes, lots
- of places where we're really not doing it. And I know you were in the youth programs committee this
- morning, and I guess the more we talk about this, the more I'm seeing a lot of connections
- But again, I think so much of this just has to occur in a decentralized way. I mean, our report ultimately
- is concerned, as I said, with what city government and the mayor's administration can realistically
- do. That's not an issue that the mayor can probably have a lot of impact on. But we can somehow encourage
- parents and the school corporation to come up with some dialogue and to come up with a solution, not
- just jump into a rash
- Yeah, I was just thinking, I'm not sure I have the quote right, but Rodney King's quote, can we all
- just get along, is a nice simple way of saying it. Yeah, absolutely. And as far as publicizing, the
- Human Rights Commission issues reports about hate crimes in the community, and maybe we need to just
- try to, those tell a negative story, but maybe those do provide just an extent of wake up
- of incidents occur. And when people learn about that, hopefully you hope the effect it has is that people
- get angry and want to do something about it. Because they do believe that Bloomington is the kind of
- place where ultimately those kinds of things should not happen. Yeah? Do you just say civil rights commission
- sent a report, an annual report, to the HD? Yeah. I don't think there's an HD representative here. Our
- experience with the HD is like,
- everyone's experience with media. We send a copy of the hate crimes report with a press release. And
- it comes out every six months. There are times when no notice is taken of it whatsoever. There are times
- when it's on the front of the region section. It's, like most news judgment decisions, dependent on
- sort of capricious. It depends on how much news there is that day. It depends if the press release gets
- handed to the right person whose imagination is captured by it.
- his judgment as I said I was always going to be capricious and so we can't rely on that necessarily.
- We don't want to sensationalize it. We don't want to make such a big issue of it that it becomes
- sensationalized. I think communication is very important and the city I think is, I don't know how far
- they've gone on encouraging
- That's actually a very good segue Steve. We should probably try to solicit some feedback on
- other recommendations that are related to the media campaign because I think that the next
- well, almost all the next recommendations are ways to get this idea of civility out in alternative ways
- other than the media. And the very next one is, how do we get small groups of people talking about civility
- together, and then we take members from those groups and send them to another group and compare notes
- and see what they came up with, and then take that to the mayor and let him know what they came up with,
- and then start all over again, back to the smaller groups and keep it as a process that's going. Because
- if we talk about civility today, you and I, and we leave and decide to be civil, by Wednesday we might
- have forgotten.
- And it's something that's ongoing. It's not something that we saw this year. Yeah. I just want to make
- a couple of points. I think, first of all, in a general sense, I think the city administration needs
- to be very careful how they approach this. A lot of the uncivil type political and type of discussions
- that go around for the city to spend tax dollars on and be nice to one another campaign,
- is only going to kind of open themselves up to more of the same kind of uncivil sort of discourse that
- comes along. It's a great idea for the city to come out and promote and help elicit civility amongst
- the citizenry. But I think we need to be real careful about not being too trite about this,
- and very specific, because I see big billboards asking, you know, keep us tacked off.
- The challenge is to create a climate where when people see over-the-line behavior or rhetoric that citizens,
- any citizen, feels that they can call that person or that organization on it. I don't agree with Brad.
- I think that confrontation does not really increase uncivility. I think that I've seen good debates
- going on that have been very civil.
- Yeah, it struck me as interesting that back in the inventory of school skills that are covered that
- conflict resolution shows up in a number of places, but it's something that I think that a lot of people
- would like to be trained in. The neighborhood associations, I think, are trying to make conflict resolution
- part of what we show the members and that kind of stuff.
- And I would love to see that be an initiative out of this group, is to have some training module in
- conflict resolution that's available to school kids, to government organizations, to neighborhood
- associations. It's a skill that is teachable, whereas civility is a big, fluffy cloud of stuff. Conflict
- resolution is a specific translation of what we're talking about. I'd love to have a training package
- available in conflict resolution. And that ties into my point. Tony, actually, I think we agree on that.
- I see unless what goes on is pretty specific and pretty focused, it could lead itself into a negative
- impact. And certainly no one in this room, no one involved in this long process wants it to be. Under
- this general idea that we're talking about here today, it has to have to be concrete, specific initiatives.
- And people can feel that they are advancing the cause of civility by doing a constant resolution workshop,
- or by doing a politeness module for kids of white, some
- And I had just a quick idea is that maybe there could be a volunteer organization out of this group
- of people who are so interested in it that maybe once a month did secret shopping around areas
- of Bloomington, not just retail stores or whatever. If you see someone who's been nice to somebody or
- writes a letter to the editor that has a different opinion to something that's written in a concise,
- civil way instead of name-calling and finger pointing, that maybe once a month there can be the mayor's,
- say, civil committee
- The story of the month. The story of the month, or certificates given out to 10 people who have been
- exemplified in the civility of the city. I was wondering about that. Maybe we already have too many
- award programs in the community, but should there be... Never recognize people. Actually, we have that
- very idea on page 18.
- It's a proposal whereby we recommend that the mayor's office and members of this committee get together
- and continue to flush out what this concept is and to try to identify not the places in the community
- that are uncivil, but those that are civil and give them some gold stars and give them some recognition
- and give other people something to shoot for. Yeah. Besides having a strong social service background,
- I also have a strong PR background. And I know we or one cannot
- or at this time get a concise definition. But if you're going to spend whoever's budget it comes out
- of, if you want an impact, you have to be as clear as possible, even if it's an image, whether it's
- a theme, like I'm thinking when we were talking about diversity, like the Bennington theme or something.
- I mean, there are other examples, or a pants example of using a Martin Luther King quote or a Gandhi
- quote or something. It could be a series of different things, but it's... A consistent message. Yeah,
- a consistent message or try to define it as much as possible without... Clarity. Clarity. Yeah,
- thank you. More clarity. Because I know if I read something that's like,
- You know, it has to be clear if I'm going to react or act. Yeah. It can't be this sort of fuzzy. Yeah.
- Fuzzy. About 10 minutes ago, or maybe a little less, Tony jumped across item three on my list to four
- neighborhood associations. And I was afraid we wouldn't get there, because I'm not going to get there.
- Just a minute. Because I want to say what I think is so important about neighborhood associations.
- Neighborhood associations don't exist only to correct people's problems. I get not quite as many calls
- as John Fernandez, but I'm not paid to be president of my association as much as he's paid the mayor
- of the city. But I get a lot of calls about conflict. And one of the things you can do to shortcut some
- of that is get acquainted with your neighbors when they first move in. Take the initiative, go and say,
- I'm involved with a neighborhood association. Here's our meeting dates, lead life.
- waiting hours for your neighbor to contact you about some problem. Because I think if you get to know
- people, you reduce some of this hostility or uncivil conduct or response. If I knew you really well,
- before we had it, I had a conflict, I would be approaching you a lot different. Had that happened in
- my neighborhood less than six months ago, where a man continued to park his RV
- back of he had a boat-in-trailer pick-up truck and car in his own driveway so in order to party his
- 27-foot RV he had to park in front of his neighbors lot and part of the house and I got drug in this
- because the one day was trying to sell a house and he said I'll never be able to sell a house long as
- his RVs in front of mine and so I went back and forth between these two individuals and I finally talked
- to the one man who was the offender
- I said, in your heart, Harold, in your heart, don't you really just think this is wrong if it were happening
- to you, if your neighbor on the east were parking your car? And he must have thought about that because
- he paved two strips on the side of his house, concrete, where he pulled the RV off the street, or what
- it's supposed to be, parked it next to his house on his property.
- to know our neighbors. We use that phrase, I'll get to know your neighbors. But we don't really practice
- that. And I think there's so much to this thing of really making an effort. You have to be a little
- more outgoing, perhaps. And you have to take some initiative here. I do that probably too much. I'm
- probably too, and sometimes that will fly back in your face because neighbors know them. They say, I
- don't care who you are, out. But I think on balance, it pays to get acquainted with your neighborhood.
- That was where I wanted to take that decision, because my next question is going to be asking you and
- Larry. I mean, does this report do you some good? I guess, from the standpoint of a mayor in a city
- task force like this, the question we have to ask is, what can be done, other than hoping and praying,
- to ensure that people like you and Larry and your fellow Neighborhood Association presidents, that there
- are more people like you, and that there are people who take your place when you're done doing this job?
- I mean, people react individually, differently to your, but I think I have a really great member of
- the association where I live, and we have a, not me, not just me, we have a lot of people who really
- care about where they live. Unfortunately, a lot of older people, senior citizens, and I can check real
- bitchy ways to see if they're dying or not, but we have a large number
- encourage people. You have to go and say hello and I like the flowers in the front yard. Before that
- person calls and says we got too many cats running loose. Is it safe to say that we're in agreement
- that the neighborhood associations are sort of basic building blocks have to be basic building blocks
- of an initiative like this and so then what we need to focus on is what can we do to strengthen those
- organizations and ensure their health. Jim's excessively bashful I think
- And you can also do it by holding up people as examples in HD stores, feature stores, and so forth.
- I don't think it happens out of a whole plot. I think it takes a catalyst, and it's usually some individual
- who's just coming to see how it happened with YouTube. It's sort of publicly recognizing that work,
- a way to get other people to step into those roles. Well, that establishes the expectation that in this
- neighborhood there must be some human being that would have the time and the energy and the skills
- down the street. Let me lighten this just 30 seconds or less about the most uncivil act I ever had about
- 10 years ago when Kirkwood started to cross this street toward what is now the new library corner and
- a woman with a baby on board when that was so hot almost ran over me. I mean that's the most I've ever
- came to get hit by a car. I stepped out she gave me this dirty look and then that last thing I saw was
- I just wanted to say that while I think it's really important, it is much going in the grassroots level
- as possible. Neighborhood associations are loosely organized. And so you want to be careful about placing
- too much responsibility on that kind of an organization and making sure that what you provide is support
- at some level that is more organized. Right.
- certainly recognize. And I would hope that the welcoming strategy that we lay out, and although that's
- primarily a strategy aimed at this, the student neighborhoods, we realized that was just fine to a particular
- need that the goal of that strategy wasn't to be the end all be all, but if that strategy can spark
- ideas that we could integrate with other neighbors, it's just a platform. If we can send one brochure
- out, we know that there are hundreds of smart people out there. They'll come up with something even
- better and they'll get it going on their own. We're just hoping to provide that spark. And I think that's
- an excellent comment.
- neighborhood associations have been really strengthened in the last three or four years as a council
- of neighborhoods it's true it is loosely organized but Cincinnati for instance some of their zoning
- and planning changes have to be approved by neighborhood associations before they can actually go into
- effect so and that isn't the way it is here of course but I mean you know there's a lot of
- may or certainly put a lot of strength, simply by including neighborhood associations in these surveys,
- and also by allowing the associations to copy the newsletters through the city. There's that kind of
- support for associations, which I think can only help. It's a tremendous grassroots resource for everybody.
- Someone mentioned a training program of some sort. I think the council of the Neighborhood Association
- would be a great place to start. Conflict prevention, I think that Mark was talking about. If it got
- to Kona, the council of the Neighborhood Association, then it can go from there out into all of the
- Neighborhood Association. And I can't see why anyone would be against it. John or Patrick, tell me this,
- you know, the city administration, are there people right now employed by the city
- Resources capacity or a training capacity to do that kind of workshop I I know we've got people at IU
- in physical planned and in training and so forth who who do Workshops on conflict resolution. I can't
- mention people The community family resources group from time to time sponsors those kind of initiatives
- or other organizations
- Again, I think that the first weekend in June, we're going to have our first neighborhood issues forum.
- And from that, I think we can have an infrastructure to go back and help the neighborhood associations
- communicate success stories, things that they've tried and haven't worked, and be a real network of
- ideas to strengthen some of the newer organizations.
- to develop materials about a welcoming strategy and so forth. It would be wonderful to have those. I
- think the housing and neighborhood development department is a good place to start and then they can
- work interdepartmentally with the community and family resources people to help do some of the board
- training or conflict resolution training, et cetera. Steve, were you trying to jump in earlier? Just a minute.
- is something we talked about in this process. I don't think it was identified in this report. But that
- is the idea of providing opportunities for social interaction without some sort of agenda. And I think
- where it came from was some organization called One Atlanta. I think it's One Atlanta. Do you remember
- that or know anything about it? The idea is there was apparently a tension between the black and the
- white community. And instead of getting together discussing race, they got together
- came an opportunity for social intercourse. And then from that came something that I understand. It
- wasn't this tense thing where we sit across the table and talk about black-white issues.
- There's a recommendation in the Enhancing the Safety Environment group that suggests a geographic information
- system that shows throughout the city and neighborhoods and blocks and so on, crimes and statistics.
- And it strikes me that that would also be a very good thing to take to a session of neighborhood associations
- is to review that and use that as a means, I think, for stimulating activity.
- Actually, the Human Rights Commission has talked about Barbara McKinney. I think it is in the process
- of developing a similar thing for where hate has occurred in the community as well. One thing I haven't
- heard to my relief, but I'm wondering about your thoughts about this, is this an elitist initiative?
- Now, maybe that's all because we're part of the elite in the community. But there was a very interesting
- article I gave to members of the commission that appeared in The Nation magazine, which sort of took
- a debunking attitude toward this whole national
- of civility saying this is really political and social and cultural elites talking down to everyone
- else and before they tell people how, before they tell the rabble how to behave, they ought to get their
- own act in order in their own political and financial and sexual scandals in order before they start
- telling other people how to behave. Are we at risk of that kind of perception? I think that's really
- an unfair and silly kind of put in charge. I really think it's a silly approach. I mean, all you have
- to do is look at the situation like we had
- Last year, where the two young kids from Ellitsville, I believe it was, were on Route 67 and got into
- a civility, really, argument with a guy in another car. And the guy stopped, they pulled around in front
- of him, stopped, walked back, the guy shot him, killed him. I mean, that's a pretty serious issue. And
- I think taking the kind of approach that this magazine takes. I mean, I guess the kinds of things I
- hear us talking about are kind of grassroots, everyday life,
- enough kinds of things that they don't make us vulnerable to that charge. But I still saw a number of
- people nods or very enthusiastic. Well, no, I'm just saying that I have read those critiques and more
- than just the one that existed there. And I don't think that they should be dismissed lightly. And that's
- why I raised the issue that if the idea of promoting civility is to diminish legitimate claims on resources
- where you don't like the way those
- then you run into that trouble of just solidifying the status quo using the word civility instead of
- something else. And I think it's something to be aware of. And that's why I said when we start to develop
- our thinking about this and our statements about this, that we remain clear that this doesn't mean that
- there will not be tension and conflict. That's fine. I'd just say that when we started, we brought in
- civility into this discussion in the first place, we saw it as having a direct relationship to public
- safety. I mean, that's a word. We've talked about it in pretty
- I think we also need to be clear, you brought up a good point, that if we're gonna talk about civility,
- whether certain principles, that it shouldn't be moralistic, because then we're no better than the religious
- right wing or other fanatical groups at all. Or the situation with Crestmont is a prime example
- like getting involved with the Tenants Association, you know, they want the perception to change. And
- then the next thing you know, the two families on the side of the Family Center are playing like Hatfield
- and McCoys with the shootout, you know, so. And I don't know, you know, are we gonna be like Dudley
- Do-Right to save, or Mighty Mouse to save the day, or address,
- some of these issues to make people more aware, like the way that it used to be. Steve, can I address
- that? Yeah. The literature gets very complex in that, and I've spent much more time than I ever would
- have dreamed of last August, when I started this, examining that very issue. And let me just tell you
- a little story about what it says, because I think it's very interesting, it's very relevant to this
- discussion as far as civility is our decision,
- to talk about civility in an elitist attitude. Is that the way it will be perceived? And the literature
- says that people who will hold that attitude saying that you're being an elitist and you're telling
- me that I'm not civil are the people who are really saying, this isn't my problem. And that is at the
- heart of civility is when we start not taking responsibility for the fact that the homeless is our problem.
- And when people aren't nice in our community, it is our problem. Maybe it's not us who are the ones
- being in civil, but it's still our problem that we need to take responsibility as a collective
- If it takes the elite people to push this forward and get a role on it, the literature says, hey, more
- power to you. Try to get at the grassroots level going. It takes leaders to make this work. Oh, sure.
- There are always people that are going to point the finger. But I mean, that's the- This is John. Go
- ahead and back, John. Hi. Well, I was. I think it's really important not to shirk responsibility.
- about two children who decide to dissolve their vehicular conflict by shooting each other. Somewhere
- along the line, responsibility for something was not, was shirked. They weren't taught something that's
- somewhere along the line. I'm not talking about schools necessarily at all. But that's why I'm uncomfortable
- with us just talking about civility and talking about nice and talking about polite and not being more
- about what do we mean by that? Because there are certain areas that I do feel very comfortable being
- involved with and saying, this is the way it's done. And then there's other areas that I'm not comfortable
- at all trying to tell people how they should be. That's why I like it to be really much more clear.
- And then we can feel real comfortable saying, this is our jurisdiction. We're not being the latest here
- at all. And I'm very uncomfortable thinking of myself as an elitist group at all. Leadership, maybe
- I hope there are times I take leadership
- But I think if we are more clear on what it is that is our jurisdiction, then it's just, you know, to
- not make decisions about that and try to affect that is shirking responsibility. Just make a final comment
- here. I know we need to break up. When you look at the breadth of the proposals involved with this subject,
- it seems that it's a darn good start. And we ought not be afraid of a label
- As Dr. Bonner was saying, when we started this discussion about involving an element of this program
- to include this whole discussion, we were very clear from the beginning that we weren't sure where we
- were going with it. But something told us in our hearts that this is something you can talk about. And
- you see it throughout society, and Wilmington's not immune. And the reason I wanted to address this issue
- does have a direct relationship with public safety. And it seems to me that a society that doesn't respond
- to problems associated with respect, dignity, fairness, is on the verge of some major public safety
- problems. As a community, we ought to say to people that we believe in democracy, we believe in dissension,
- and we think that that's an important
- of how we operate, but when people cross the line and can't make the distinction between policy, legitimate
- policy arguments and personality attacks, I think we should call them on it. Because I'm of the opinion
- that if we tolerate verbal violence, we're just that much closer to tolerate physical violence. And
- we ought to say that that's wrong.
- And that's not how we want to operate in our community. That's why we involved it. And I think that
- the range of ideas that we have here are a good start. There's some landmines along the way. You have
- to be careful about how you discuss the issues. But it's a discussion I think we have to have as a community.
- Because one of the essential characteristics of Bloomington that you hear over and over and over is
- that there is a sense of community. And that's why it's a special play.
- Part of that sense of community is the friendliness, the genuine compassion and caring. If we get away
- from that and we become almost apathetic about attacks on people, verbal attacks, stereotype attacks,
- et cetera, we're really, I think, gonna lose that special quality and we ought to talk about it and
- reaffirm it as a positive
- And all of this, I mean, stems from a sort of decentralization. I think there's not going to be a stability
- commission, I don't think. Anyway, there's not going to be a stability czar. This is decentralized.
- We'll give out S's in use for citizenship. E's are a few. But what we simply want to do, I come back
- to what I said at the beginning, that we hope that our report creates an environment that the mayor
- and whatever
- form this continuation of the Safe and Civil City initiative takes will create an environment where
- neighborhood associations and people who work with youth and the Chamber of Commerce and everybody else
- will, in their own way, contribute to in schools, especially schools, will contribute to this and make
- their own little contribution. This doesn't have to be centrally controlled. We don't have to agree
- on one definition. I think, though, that we all, at some level, understand the kinds of issues
- create that environment that empowers people to make that difference. One thing I really find interesting,
- when we first raised this issue, I thought, well, this may be a crazy idea. I told them, this may really
- be nutty, but it seems we've got to talk about it. What surprised me was the number of people who came
- forward and said, absolutely yes. The number of people on our commission and elsewhere said, yeah, we
- have something
- So I think a lot of people intuitively felt that it's an issue that needs to be dealt with. It resonates
- with me. And I thought John's very good statement, but I incorporate that in the report. So Steve, I
- think the first task in the spirit of that retreat was how somebody made the point that you need to
- get people away from their work environments and just get them to interact as people. I guess it was
- you who said just get people to interact socially. So I think the first thing that needs to happen is
- we need to retreat with members of the city planning department and positive
- progress to go out to Bradford Woods and do team building exercises and get to know each other. Maybe
- that can be one of the last initiatives. Thanks very much. Gotta thank Luke. I've smacked him right
- in there for an hour and a half. He's got every word.