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HomeMy WebLinkAboutSafe City - 1998-10-02SAFECITY~1998-10-02 Present: Others Present: Absent: The Safe City Committee held its meeting under the Chairmanship of Coun. Karen Taylor-Harrison with the following members present: Coun. Mark Yantzi, Trudy Beaulne, Nancy Brawley, Jackie Marsh and Rita Westbrook. Brock Stanley, Bob Arnot and Avril Tanner (minutes). Philip Fernandez, Lironel Hazlneh and David Ryan. Brock As soon as possible Contact Professors at the Universities who may have an interest in joining the committee. The agenda dated October 2, 1998 was approved with the addition of the following item: · Expansion of the COPS Program. Moved By: Nancy Brawley Seconded By: Jackie Marsh CARRIED The minutes for the July 3, 1998 meeting were approved. Moved By: Jackie Marsh Seconded By: Trudy Beaulne CARRIED 135 Minutes ~ro~ UlY Meetings The minutes for the September 9, 1998 meeting were approved with the following change being noted: Page 108, First Paragraph, Last Sentence should read: "Trudy explained that registration would be $35.00 for professionals and $20.00 for volunteers or students." Moved By: Nancy Brawley Seconded By: Trudy Beaulne CARRIED Brock Stanley explained that Julie Dean's position description allotted 25% of her time to Safe City Committee Co-ordination. In reality Julie Dean had been spending approximately 50% of her time working on Safe City Committee related projects. He continued to explain that when the Department's Strategic Plan was being developed it was recognized that Julie had been spending more than the allotted amount of time working for Safe City. It was therefore decided that a full time position should be allotted in 1999 to make the Safe City Co-ordinator position a full time position. Brock circulated a copy of the recommendations and requested that the committee make a decision on whether he should proceed with the plans to make this position full time. It was pointed out that recommendation #2 would be funded by the Safe City Committee Capital Budget and would therefore require approval by this committee. There was some concern noted about what would be included in the Job Description of the Co-ordinator position. It was stressed that this individual must be out in the community doing safety audits etc. It was pointed out that once the position description has been written it can be brought to the committee for it's review and approval before the hiring process begins. It was also mentioned that in order to fulfill the initiatives the committee has chosen to complete help will be required from committee members as well. In General the committee felt that hiring a full-time Safe City Committee Co-ordinator would help the committee to feel like they are achieving the goals they set out to achieve. There for the following motion was made regarding a full time Safe City Co-ordinator position: That the Safe City Coordinator function, presently comprising 25% of the Environmental Design Technologist position, be expanded into a new full time "Safe City Coordinator" position and that this be referred for consideration as part of the 1999 Operating Budget. That, in the interim for a 6 month period between October, 1998 and March, 1999 the Safe City Coordinator functions of the Environmental Technologist position be expanded from 25% to 100%; and further that any costs associated with the temporary replacement of the Environmental Technologist position be funded from the Safe City Capital Budget with such costs not to exceed $27,000.00. Moved By: Nancy Brawley Seconded By: Rita Westbrook CARRIED 136 The following concerns were mentioned during the above noted discussion. · It was suggested that instead of discussing the best method to proceed with an issue and deciding on a plan, we should take small steps and decide on the plan as we go along, in order to feel like we are accomplishing our goals. · Requests for dealing with problems are now being received that do not really fall under one specific department, they are really community development issues. Some concern was expressed that maybe the committee should not proceed until such time as community development issues and focus are developed. It was pointed out that once we have a full time Safe City Committee Co-ordinator, this person can coordinate a plan and work with the community to solve some of these issues. Brock Stanley explained that there other issues that fall under Community Development, such as "Porch Lights On Campaign", Education of Businesses and Safety Audits, that need to be sorted out so that Safe City Committee can continue on. Again it was mentioned that the Safe City Committee Co-ordinator can help expedite this process. · A suggestion was made that the committee's mandate needed to be changed to be more specific. It should also encompass a process on how the committee should deal with specific issues that arise, whether we deal with them as a committee or forward the issue to someone else who can deal with the issue in a more appropriate manner. The committee then reviewed the Terms of Reference for the Safe City Committee. · The committee felt that to build safer communities a Community Development role must be in place. It was expressed that objectives must be built recognizing the role of community development. The Community Development concept is essential to the Safe City Committee. · It was recognized that in order to be fully successful in Safe City it is necessary that Community Development become the way of doing all business within the City. It requires a change in City philosophy or corporate culture. It also relates closely to having a full time Safe City Co-ordinator. · A parallel can be drawn to that of Heritage Conservation. It was only after the City got a full time Heritage Planner and heritage conservation became ingrained in City Administration as the way we did business that Heritage Conservation has been successful. · Should build into our objectives a recognition of the role of Community Development and its indispensable nature for Safe City to be functional. Our Terms of Reference should be amended to reflect this. · Safety is the bottom line issue that impacts on every community and neighbourhood. It is once of the key issues around which community can be built from the inside out. · Should be building a Safe Community not dealing with safety issues. 137 · It was felt that the selection process hinders the way the committee functions as it is unable to fill the seats available to the committee. It was pointed out that there is a need for some fresh people on the committee, a suggestion was made that we check with the Universities to see if there are any students working on Community Development Projects that would like to volunteer for any of our Working Groups. There was discussion about changing the structure of the committee to be more like the Downtown Advisory Committee where we appoint people by who they represent, for example we could indicate that we would like a professor from one of the Universities. It was decided that Brock would contact professors related to Community Development Issues at the Universities to see if they were interested in being a part of the committee. The committee decided to change the meeting time for their meetings to the First Tuesday of the month from 4:00 - 6:00 pm in hopes to attract more members. NEXT MEETING: Meeting Adjourned: List of Attachments Tuesday, November 3rd, 1998, Human Resources Training Rm 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm 10:20 AM. 1. Safe City Committee Co-ordinator Recommendations. 2. Committee Terms of Reference. SUBMITTED BY: Avril Tanner, Committee Secretary