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.