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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1998-09-29 TranscriptionSeptember 29, 1998 Council Work Session Page 1 UI Student Senate and City Council Meeting Chairs Mayor Lehman and Student Senate President White City Council: Champion, Kubby, Lehman, Norton, O'Donnell, Thornberry, Vanderhoef UI Student Senate Facilitators: Zak, Wolseth Villanueva, Rudd, Chiesa, Pettinger, Shuman, Murphy Tape: 98-108, Side 1. Introductions 98-108 S1 White/We are going to get the meeting started here. Thanks for coming out tonight. Mayor Lehman would like to welcome you here... quick address .... Lehman/It is going to be quick ..... I would like to welcome you on behalf of the city council. I think this is an important meeting from our perspective. A year ago, the outcome of a meeting very similar to this was the instigation of the shuttle service downtown which has been incredible success .... Started by conversations with you folks. It has worked out extremely well .... Good things can happen from this .... Important... the students in this community and university are every bit as much a part of the community as the people who live here all of the time .... The student body in this community is here every single year .... They are a very very important part of the community .... People love Iowa City .... It is the student folks in this community that make this town such a wonderful place to live... We thank you... We would like to work with you .... You pay taxes just like all the rest of us do ....We would like to visit tonight ....I look forward to meeting in small groups ....Going to have a discussion of some of our results... You can call the city manager, Steve Atkins, anytime you would like .... Feel free to call us at anytime .... I am looking forward to a fruitful evening. Thank you. White/...for the record, I only buy pizza. I just want to thank everybody who has made it here tonight ..... Welcome you all to the 1998 joint meeting between the UI Student Government and the Iowa City City Council .... Briefly explain the process that is set up for the meeting. The tables.. small groups... topics that have been set ....Each of these groups there is a student facilitator who will help move that along ....Blue name tags ....Format of the meting is very informal ....One hour. After that hour we will reconvene to share... main ideas that came out of the small groups. Finally, in upcoming weeks, the dedicated facilitators .... Will get together to compile a detailed list of what came out of the meeting... distribute to all the people present ....Let's get the meeting started and let the facilitators take it from here. [Small Group Discussion] This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of September 29, 1998 WS092998 September 29, 1998 Council Work Session Page 2 UI Student Senate and City Council White/ Group Let's go ahead and get started with the large group reconvention. This portion of the meeting is basically to share information that came out of the small groups. For those of you that haven't figured it out yet, we have had three sets of small groups. One is to discuss lighting, one is safe travel and the other one is police public safety attitudes with the students. So if we can now just start on the other side of the room .... Request .... Speak up .... carry your tripod to the microphone and give your presentations to one of the microphones .... Group # 1. #1 - Lana Zak/We dealt with the issue of safe travel. These are the different major issues that we thought of and different solutions .... Walking beats. We felt that a lot of people would feel more secure if they actually saw the presence... security officer ....Presence of people ....Making people feel safe .... Insufficient volunteers with Safewalk .... Possibility for increasing the number of volunteers ....Expanding Safewalk volunteer into a community outreach program ....Or to have Safewalk walkers be on call .... Discuss ideas of getting a car donated... Cambus done as a shuttle. Expand Safewalk hours to weekends when security seems to be a greater issue .... Have later hours... Safefide. Seems to be the drunk... might not be for everyone... Cambus after midnight because that is a lot of the time when students need it the most. Also expanding Cambus routes .... Where it actually goes out to different pans of off campus apartments. Police statistics. Trying to combine ICPD and Cambus statistics .... Saferide. Try and be off Cambus... Safefide and Safewalk program... joint program. Table 1 1. Walking beats - campus security 2. Insufficient volunteers Safewalk 3. Expand Safewalk hours. Weekends and late hours 4. Safefide - Bus for drtmks 5. Cambus after midnight 6. Police statistics. ICPD/Off-campus This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of September 29, 1998 WS092998 September 29, 1998 Council Work Session UI Student Senate and City Council Page 3 7. Safefide off campus 8. Safefide/Safewalk Group #2 - Jon Wolseth/I won't go into quite a bit of detail. We would like to expand Safewalk not only in numbers but in area .... We would like to .... Not every campus building has a free campus phone. That cuts down on the ability for people to call for Safewalk .... We would like to see an increase in the numbers of campus phones available on campus .... Having one in each building. We would like to see the expansion of "Blue Light".... Goes farther than just the campus boundary .... Problem areas around town where lighting is poorer .... Talked a little bit about having a joint bus venture between UI and IC bus system .... Which student fees help pay for a general city and campus bus system that is free for students ....Allow the hours to be expanded ....Expanding weekend hours as well. Table 2 Safewalk expansion Free phones on campus Expand "Blue light" off campus Joint bus venture - UI/City i.e. downtown shuttle expand weekend hours Group #3 - Jess Villanueva/Our table felt the need for expansion of bus service, having it go later .... We talked about bicycles and registrations and rules .... There are differences between city and University rules and regulations .... Two registrations ....More efficient to possibly combine .... Availability of campus phones .... Somebody had to call Safewalk two days ahead of their test .... More campus phones in academic buildings or even outside academic buildings .... Table 3 Later night bus service Consistent bike registration rules between City and University Availability of campus phone outside of academic buildings, well lit areas This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of September 29, 1998 WS092998 September 29, 1998 Council Work Session Page 4 UI Student Senate and City Council Group Group #4 - Abby Rudd/Basically our group concentrated on lighting issues around campus .... A lot of areas on campus that students don't feel are lit enough on and off campus. Specially what we concentrated on the most was .... Creating a bike path on the east side of the river .... Behind Curlier .... With the Greeks going dry this year .... Out role is to talk about that program again, bringing up the possibility of a bike path .... Greek system .... Benefit the community... The other thing... lighting problem from Church Street to Park Road on Dubuque Street .... Lighting there is geared towards traffic as far as cars go and not necessarily as far as pedestrians .... Table 4 Bike path on east side of river Ped lighting from Church to Park Road on Dubuque #5 - Tom Chiesa/Our group discussed lighting also and out focus for on-campus was Mayflower .... The concern was going around that bend past Park Road and across the bridge, there is... no lighting for pedestrians walking to their dorm in Mayflower... Discussed lighting on Broadway .... we do have students that live out there in apartment complexes .... Putting in pedestrian lights. We also discussed lighting the Ped Mall ..... Park Street, going down Park Street towards Hwy 1 .... We do have a lot of people go out there for picnics .... Relatively dark. We did talk about safety concerns with no lighting around campus... emergency poles would be a lot better .... Table 5 Lighting in the Broadway areas Lighting going south on Dubuque Street towards Mayflower in City Park across from Mayflower Lights in ped mall Issue of street lights not existing Light back of sidewalks for ped. ['No Table 6] This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of September 29, 1998 WS092998 September 29, 1998 Council Work Session Page 5 UI Student Senate and City Council Group #7- Sarah Pettinger/We started out talking about police intervention, parties with possible party ordinance... they can be very helpful .... We also talked about police and public safety, perception is reality. How students and how policeman view us. Public safety is very very important .... Police and public safety, working on ways of working with our officers and making sure they are getting across the message that they want to .... We talked about Public Safety doesn't carry weapons .... There is a concern that it will take a tragedy, an officer or student or citizen getting shot or killed to change that .... White/ We talked about the Police Citizen Review Board. They came up with a confidential complaint form .... The Police Department also has their own citizens complaint form and so does Public Safety. We also talked about gang problems in Iowa City. There is a problem .... We talked about bicycles, the fact that you can have bicycles on university sidewalks but not on city sidewalks ..... causes problems. We also talked about problems associated with skateboarding. Thank you. Table 7 Police intervention-parties. Police can help if getting out of control PERCEPTION Public safety doesn't carry weapons. Tragedy needed to change? Police Citizens Review Board. Confidential complaint or ICPD citizen complaint Public safety-formal complaint forms, too. IC does have gang problem. Police and citizens responded. Bicycles can be on Univ. sidewalk but not on City and causes problems. Skateboarders Group #8 - Scott/As far as perceptions go, my group talked about the same thing .... what Sarah said. We sort of talked two ways we think you should change it or it could be changed. We thought the most important thing was personalizing it so students would know officers more and be able to recognize them .... Programming... going to residences halls .... This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of September 29, 1998 WS092998 September 29, 1998 Page 6 Cotmcil Work Session UI Student Senate and City Council White/Okay Table Views Views 8 of Public safety Not real cops Do not know range of capabilities May not see of PD The "enemy" Most interactions are extremes (get helped or being ticketed) Ways to change Personalize it Programs in residence halls Put programs in center of rights Group #9 - Shuan Murphy/Okay, here is what we talked about. Mainly we focused on the attitudes... between students and police officers. First of all we discussed .... Police officers report good interactions when they actually come up on a situation with students .... However, we talked about the general student attitude... generally not good... they are fearful or don't want to have contact with them .... Then we talked about just briefly how promoting better attitudes from the police side of it .... Talked quite a bit how the attitudes are related to alcohol .... Then we talked about making successful influence enforcement on drinking related problems .... Table 9 Attitude/Relationship between students and PD's PD's report good intentions majority of time However, general student attitude is bad reflecting back of personal contact Promoting better attitude presents problems i.e. notification of police inside to bars Many of the problems are closed related to alcohol Influence enforcement has on drinking related problems. This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of September 29, 1998 WS092998 September 29, 1998 Council Work Session Page 7 UI Student Senate and City Council White/Thank you. Okay, now that every group has presented, the basics of what you have seen tonight... What we are going to do, the facilitators are going to get all together and put together some type of minutes or summary of what went on here tonight and we will be able to get that out to everybody who is on the program list .... Thanks for coming out .... Safety .... Safewalk is here... If you are in need of a fide, let us know. Thanks for coming out. Meeting adjoumed: This represents only a reasonably accurate transcription of the Iowa City council meeting of September 29, 1998 WS092998