Minutes 0904

A meeting of the Town & Gown Committee took place on Monday, September 20, 2004, at 7:30 p.m. in the Council Chamber. The meeting was called to order by Carl Luft, City Manager. Members attending included: Carl Anastasia, Gerald Conway, John Cordrey, Deb Hoff, Heather Lumb, James Neal, Hal Prettyman, Ron Smith, and Larry Thornton.

Guests attending included: Council Members David Athey and Kevin Vonck; UD Professor April Veness and several of her students; and several Newark residents.

Members of the Committee were introduced. New members included Deb Hoff, Assistant University Secretary, Heather Lumb, representing Off-Campus Student Council, and John Cordrey, representing DUSC.

Ron Smith was unanimously elected chairperson for one year upon nomination by Mr. Luft.

There being no additions or corrections, the minutes were approved as received. It was noted in Chief Conway’s report that the burglaries percentage numbers were omitted.

Chief Conway provided statistics for the full year, ending September 11, 2004. Total Part I crimes were down by 4%. Robberies were down by 22% and auto theft was down by 42%. Burglaries increased by 13%, and aggravated assault and general theft remained the same. The largest increase was the number of reported rapes, which rose from 4 to 11. The rapes involved family members, ex-boyfriends, and two stranger rapes.

Part II Crimes were down this year by 9%. Weapon offenses were down by 42%, criminal mischief was down by 5%, alcohol investigations were down by 30%, drug investigations were down by 35%, and disorderly conduct was down by 18%. Noise/disorderly premises offenses were up by 19% and other assaults were up by 14%.

Chief Conway provided additional statistics for “quality of life” offenses that compared the timeframe of 6/20/04 to 8/21/04 with the first couple of weeks of school, 8/22/04 to 9/11/04:

Chief Conway said it was a much busier year on Main Street in 2003 than in 2004.

Mr. Smith questioned if there was a problem with cruising this year, and Chief Conway said enforcement was conducted about twice a week mostly from mid-summer to the end of the summer. He also noted that the State Task Force conducted several sobriety checkpoints. Overall, this past summer was quiet.

Chief Conway also explained that the beginning of the school year was always busy and began to slow down after homecoming because of midterms and the weather getting cooler.

Mr. Prettyman asked if the night football games had a positive impact on reducing the number of parties, and Chief Conway said he found that the Friday nights prior to the Saturday night games were busier. The police have been concentrating on Ivy Hall, the first stop over the railroad bridge where students tend to gather after football games. The police have been working closely with the owner of Ivy Hall who hired off-duty police officers and a security firm to help keep order.

John Cordrey advised that DUSC and the Building Responsibility Coalition, through Tracy Downs, were conducting a good neighbor campaign that involved distributing information that promoted getting to know your neighbors and being respectful of your neighbors especially in the early hours of the morning. This proactive effort was geared toward alleviating problems.

Mr. Thornton explained that this was the time of year when UD was required to submit a survey of their crime statistics for 2003 to the Department of Education. In 2003 there were four reported rapes on campus (two involved acquaintances), and five other sex offenses, two involving acquaintenances. Eight robberies were investigated on campus, which was consistent with the previous year. Thirty-four burglaries were reported, representing a significant reduction from the previous year of 75. Motor vehicle thefts remained constant at 10.

With respect to liquor law violations, there were 109 arrests, down significantly from 180 arrests in 2002. However, the student judicial referrals (SJR’s) were up to 917 compared to 767 in 2002. Twenty-six arrests were made for drug law violations (mostly possession of marijuana) with 86 SJR’s. Mr. Thornton explained that referrals occurred when they had evidence of such things as drug paraphernalia or small quantities of marijuana and when the Attorney General’s Office will not prosecute a case.

Overall the statistics showed that arrests dropped for alcohol which Mr. Thornton believed showed that students were not as blatant about alcohol violations on campus, particularly in residence halls. The increase in SJR’s indicated they were seeing more first time students involved in alcohol incidents. It was noted that the crime reports and statistics were posted on the UD website.

Chief Conway noted that his administrative report and Newark’s weekly statistics were on the city’s website.

There was a discussion regarding the tragic death on the railroad tracks. Mr. Neal noted that an article in The Review reported that in the last five years there were seven incidents on the railroad tracks. He pointed out that there were two signal crossings in town, which were the only warnings anyone got that a train was coming. It occurred to him that most of the accidents didn’t happen near the crossings except when a car was crossing the tracks. Anyone crossing the tracks on foot from Kirkwood Highway, past the Main Street crossing, didn’t get any warning. Mr. Neal asked if DelDOT or Amtrak could do something to improve the situation, and he suggested something similar to subways where they had lights in the floor that flashed when a train was coming.

Mr. Thornton said that he and Chief Conway met with CSX officials last week to discuss their concerns. He noted that they used to have a problem with students crossing the railroad tracks from Cleveland Avenue across Frazier field. Students were constantly cutting holes in the fence, which resulted in UD putting up a concrete wall. However, that moved the problem further down to the cemetery portion and the wall was eventually extended from N. College Avenue to S. Chapel Street. That has cut down on the number of people trying to take a short cut over the railroad tracks. He did not believe CSX or any railroad was prepared to fence the entire area. Rather, they rely on educational programs advertising the fact that it was a violation to be on the railroad tracks.

Mr. Neal did not think it would be expensive to add lights tied into the railroad’s signalization and encouraged the city to look into that possibility. Mr. Thornton thought they could make suggestions, but Amtrak’s main thrust was that they didn’t want people on the railroad tracks. Chief Conway said he would be glad to discuss Mr. Neal’s suggestion with CSX.

Mr. Smith reported that a date, place and time were announced for a Town Conversation and he believed Mayor Funk sent a memorandum to City Council providing them with that information. (Secretary’s Note: Town Conversation to be held November 10th, 7:30 p.m. at the Unitarian Church on Willa Road.) He explained that the plan was to hold a forum to get more public input on issues discussed by the city as well as general issues regarding the community. He advised that Mayor Funk and others have shown a great interest in this project. They still need to determine which stakeholders would be at the meeting, and what their role would be. He indicated that a lot of legwork still needed to be done, but because there were a lot of people behind the project and there was enough time, he was confident they would keep the project moving forward. He asked the committee for their comments on issues they could discuss at the Town Conversation.

Mr. Smith advised that he did an informal poll at Community Day and reviewed the issues that were brought to his attention, but noted that not many people participated in the poll. He also referred to a survey that was done by Mayor Funk when he ran his campaign for mayor. It was Mr. Smith’s opinion that they could select three or four issues from the two surveys for discussion at the first Town Conversation.

Mr. Luft suggested that the Committee endorse the Town Conversation, which he believed was to be geared toward town and gown issues. Mr. Neal asked for clarification on its purpose, and Mr. Smith responded by saying it was to provide a forum to discuss concerns. He thought town and gown issues was a good place to start, but he would like to branch out from that.

Ms. Huff thought it was important that they work on issues that were under the purview of the Town & Gown Committee, and pointed out that some issues suggested in Mr. Smith’s survey would not come under their purview. She emphasized selecting issues of importance to the Newark/UD community and looking at ways to address those issues and find solutions.

Mr. Luft said one concern discussed by some council members was for the city residents to have a voice on university policy to help with addressing some problems in the community. Ms. Huff suggested having a survey instrument at each Town Conversation that would provide a series of topics for future discussions.

Mr. Neal thought it was important when the Town Conversation was advertised that the public be made aware that issues would be discussed and answers and questions would be provided at the next meeting.

Ms. Veness said her students might be a vehicle used to reach out to the community to canvass the residents for topics

Mr. Thornton advised that he attended a roundtable discussion held by DUSC where students proposed questions to campus administrators. Ground rules were set at the beginning of the discussion and the roundtable discussion was very successful. Mr. Cordrey agreed and thought a similar forum for Newark residents to address the university administration would be very beneficial.

Mr. Thornton suggested that the citizen survey done by the Planning Department could generate some topics for the town meeting.

Ms. Huff suggested adding an online survey to the website and advertise that the survey would be used to find issues for future discussions. In order for the town meetings to be successful, Ms. Huff stressed that the questions raised need to be answered at the next town meeting. That would show the community that their concerns were being taken seriously by the committee.

A subcommittee to organize the Town Conversation was selected: Ron Smith, John Cordrey, Deb Hoff, and Hal Prettyman. April Veness also volunteered to assist the subcommittee.

MOTION BY MR. NEAL, SECONDED BY MR. LUFT: THAT THE TOWN & GOWN COMMITTEE SPONSOR THE TOWN CONVERSATION, SCHEDULED FOR NOVEMBER 10, 2004.

David Robertson, Newark resident, suggested that the committee allow public comment during the meeting rather than at the end because their comments may be useful to the committee when discussing certain issues. Mr. Smith said he would like the meetings to be a lot more open and was willing to have more conversation from the public. Ms. Huff endorsed the suggestion. Chief Conway pointed out that each member of the committee represented a certain group and therefore they may not want to open up the conversation to the public for every topic. Mr. Smith agreed the committee should have the ability to say it was time to move on.

Council Member Athey thanked the committee’s efforts on the Town Conversation. He was excited that there was already a discussion about a second Town Conversation sometime in February.

Jean White, Newark resident, agreed with Mr. Robertson’s suggestion to allow the public to make comments during their discussions. She also suggested that safety within the city would be a good topic for the Town Conservation. That would involve train, automobile, bicycle and traffic safety, which affected all residents of the city. She also felt if the Committee was sponsoring the event, the date should have been selected by the Committee rather than the date and time being set in advance. Ms. White also commented that she thought it was difficult for the committee to accomplish much since they only met four times a year. Therefore, she suggested they consider holding more meetings.

If you cannot attend this meeting, please contact Pat Fogg in the City Secretary’s Office at 366-7070

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