Okay Good evening I invented we're going to start of course and we're going to have the public comment at 30 there will be you will make a statement of your comments and of course we want to speak with you and then we'll let you know nope not there you can hold on one second as you can see everybody talking to the mic
Hey everybody hey the reason we're here today because Friday Monday through Friday as I was getting ready to go to work right stay on state and rode in the low so when I got to my car it's for car got broken into and one was my car so I cost me like 300 and something dollars to place a windshield that I should have to pay for it. But nevertheless, since it was less than $500 deductible I responsible for the repair in the back window. So Nevertheless, I just didn't value for a quarter I broke it and I missed it. When I went in the police cars he took too long I had to get to work I had to be to work at 930 to do a 12 hour shift. So what I'm here to say is why don't we go back to the roadblocks I mean, I know you're gonna tell me you don't have enough police officers but let's do something National Guard lets us do it. Because I guarantee you the first question asked and roadblock, do, you have driver's license, and I guarantee you, they're not gonna have a driver's license, that's gonna give you proper cause to do what you got to do to find out who they are and what they're carrying. That's the only request to help you gotta bring back the Robles. If you're serious about stopping the crime here in this city, they set the example but the roadmap Big L, understand, you're gonna tell me we don't have enough cops, we don't have enough, use our National Guard use the resources that we have to put a stop to this crime, if we are serious about it. And one more thing, I'm going to say, stop the lottery, you know, we know that bus is not wanting three or four o'clock in the morning move, they don't pick up on the bus stop. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I would like to speak. Thank you all for having this meeting. I want to say that I think the solution to some of the problems that we're seeing with our youth is that they don't have activities that will keep them involved. When I was a youth, I'm from Midwest and when I was a youth, I wanted to do something special. I wanted to have a special talent. But I didn't have a special talent. But if you turn on some music, I could dance and I could tear up the dance floor. So I had a brother who in my community created a platform called Let's dance. And it allowed the teenage youth to come together on one platform and dance to different music. And we be brought class and showcase showcase on telethon public television, which made us celebrities within our VR environment. I think what I have is a organization a nonprofit organization called Atlanta click vision. And what Atlanta click vision does is it gives our teenage youth a platform where they can express themselves where they can act out different things that are going on in their communities, and helps them to be consciously aware of different scenarios that they may be faced with in the streets, and how to be able to, you know, rationally dissolve those issues. And I think if we create a platform that helps them to think of some of the consequences of their actions, before they do them, then it will help them to come up with different methods when they're faced with those actions in real life. So what I've done is I've got some brochures, I would love to work with you and some of the members of the city to help implement this program throughout the city. I mean, you can you can never have enough programs for teenagers, you. And I think that we live in an environment where this is a selfie type environment, you know, everything is for Instagram and click vision and things of that sort. So we create that environment for them and make them feel like celebrities, then you're less likely to go out and do hazardous things. Because you know that you have people that are looking up to you that appreciate you and you have activities that keep you entertained. So, I'd like to pass these out. And if you could just pass them down then that would that would be great.
Good evening, everyone. I'm a little nervous this my first time doing this what I had a lot I hate to say that was it. It was kind of personal for me. I deal with a lot of kids in the community. And I also work at an after school program, the primary center and three minutes, the young I feel like it may sound crazy, but how about trying to make after school programming mandatory for every student that's enrolled in a school and throughout the city, make it mandatory if that if that sounds don't sound crazy, but if you're enrolled in school, you must participate or be enrolled in some type of after school programming. Therefore we know the whereabouts and that eliminates so many kids hanging out on the street. And maybe we could get in cahoots with the bus drivers the buses and stuff like that for transportation and at the same time that create jobs because we're gonna need drivers more buses and we're gonna need people to operate those facilities for more hours and it also give parents time to work longer hours, you know, and I don't know what we have at primary centers, a lot of people don't know about it. And I just wanted to bring it to you guys attention that we have three locations we working on the fourth location. We are at 836 metro politan Parkway, 740 camera, Alexander and 220 Kensington Road, Kensington on the camera to roll down in the parking lot the same as the YMCA. I just feel like we do that we can account for the kids even though young youth you they have to be working or doing some then, you know, we know where they are. We just got to I'm sorry. Yeah, it's kind of personal for me, because I see a lot of my kids that I know, on the news, you know, it's personal. You don't have anything to do with a job or anything. But we got to get the program these centers up and running events are the ones that have closed down, we need to be open, and transportation, it plays a big role in getting the kids to the center and getting them home. Okay. Hello, how
are y'all doing? My name is Alia, strong. So before I told tell you, I guess the solutions I had in mind, I just wanted to give you all a short background of who I am. So a lot of you probably saw the story or you may not have earlier this year, my fiancee was shot and killed in front of me at the lounge downtown encore, which I you know, assisted with the city working to, you know, make some changes there. And I started my nonprofit in March. And then I was invited to the White House to meet with the President. And so things kind of move pretty quickly. So I don't speak from the perspective of someone who just thinks that I know, I sit down with these families who have been impacted by gun violence on a day to day basis and parents who are dealing with delinquent teens and things like that. So I just feel like it's gonna take a lot of you all people from the city and to work with the people who are actually living this and experiencing this, who can tell you what we feel like is missing. So I know I don't have a lot of time here. But my name is Alia, strong and feel free to reach out to me. My email is a strong that's a STR o n g 387. At gmail.com. The name of my nonprofit is time to thrive beyond grief, which we assist, educate and advocate for victims and survivors of gun violence as far as helping families find affordable grief counseling, assistance with funeral expenses, memorials the whole nine. So I know you could probably find my information online as well. But I definitely would love to speak with a lot of you as far as the solutions and ideas that I had in mind. Thank you. Good evening, everyone.
I respectfully disagree with a lot of the comments that take place, every time there's an incident. I think that the city of Atlanta in the southeast region is one of the most resource dense municipalities. We talk about programming available to young people, resources available to families. But what I will say that I agree with is that we often in the city of Atlanta, and most of us know working in this space, we're really siloed in our work and our approach. I believe that times like this force us into a situation where we need to center ourselves on values, right? There's a gentleman by the name and they send you Smith to Austin talks about values based organizing. And we're in a time in that place. Now. We need to push beyond any of our barriers, whether it's the role, we occupy the nine to fivers, we hold. It's time to push beyond our community and residential locations, it's time to push beyond who has control of organizations, right? Because what I do know from doing this work for some time is there is no one organization, there is no one solution, there is no one approach. There is no one, one end all be all solution for the time that we're seeing now, what we need now is this collective impact model that can be replicated in communities across the city, right? It's a partnership. And unfortunately, all too often we leave out the folks at home. And for those of us that do this work every day, we know what a challenge it is to work with young people and send them back into a home where mindsets or mindsets and their values of their values. And so I believe that I have no idea what the solution is right? I know that there are a group of people there are lots of folks folks here who are willing to do the work. And if we're going to point the blame at a municipality and add an entity we should also give them you know, allowed them to be the convenient is right holders of that to be able to create space. And to help us all figure out what those solutions look like. I would offer that the neighborhood Planning Unit V as in Victor is an excellent model of collective impact. Thank you
Hello, everyone. My name is CeCe shields, and I come to you today as the founder of Mothers Against gang violence. But I stand here today because I'm a full time employee with Coronavirus Atlanta. I am a mother they started an organization because of services that individuals thought were not provided. But what I did was I worked with programs Like Mr. Charles the firm at Primate Center, and I started my organization because I was to with my son impacted by gang violence and things that was going on in the community. And I allowed these opportunities to work. What we also need to do is give the grassroot individuals the opportunity because as moms, we can't work organizations part time, and then have a full time job that we have to go to, to be able to stop gun violence and to provide resources and services in our community. So provide opportunity to provide resources, provide partnerships with the grassroots. When I leave here tonight, I will be out in the community. And I will be mediating gun violence mediating conflicts as a mother, but I still have a son that works. But I worked with Mr. Charles, I worked with AP at the AP Primate Center. I work as a mother who's living here every day to provide infantilize my own resources that I want to share to all the families that feel like those resources don't work. So fun, provide and give the opportunities and families we just have to come together and just share it with one another. So I just wanted to say that tonight. Thank you.
Good evening, everyone. My name is Tony Broughton. I'm a parent here in the community. Let's be let's be real, the one thing that we're missing the most as men in the community doing things. I'm on the board at the Atlanta rugby club, elonis rugby, we've been working with the mayor and some other people, we've got some things that we're trying to do. The problem is, is the bridge, right? We don't have a bridge. It's great that there's gold over there. But how do I get over there? I can't swim. How do I do that. So what we're doing, we're losing all of these kids in that mid afternoon space, because we don't want to have that time. That's where it's most critical. There's at my son's here, right now, when I leave here and go into wrestling practice, we've got a bunch of kids that have never wrestled before we've got him we're taking them to a wrestling club. So there are things that need to do that need to be built. Besides that sports are one way, rugby is a sport that everybody can play as a as a position for everybody type. So when we do these things, what we're trying to do really is figure out how we can grow and how we can educate these young people. The problem is, they're there. They're scared. They're afraid of life, and they're afraid of what might happen to them in life. One of the young men, we have our first success story out of Maynard Jackson High School, he is on a full ride playing rugby at American International College. Seven months ago, he had when I first met him two years ago, I had never left the state. So I think that's what we need to do is make sure that we put more people it's not about money, guys, we gotta get more people in the process. You can throw all the money you want at someone if they hadn't had anything to eat, it doesn't matter. Right? So thank you
good evening, everybody. My name is Aaron Terrell. I'm gonna try to get it out. Let you know that a little bit about myself. First, I'm from Covington, Georgia. East bound from here. I was born and raised there. I'm 53 years old, I grew up here all my life, Marine Corps. I got three kids, three grown kids, they all in a 30s has the sense and also have same thing we all got with the kids. They think they know a little more than we do when they get grown, you know. But my thing is, we can sit here all night and do some things. I hear some wonderful things I hear. This guy right here already got my attention, regardless of what you guys do me and this guy is gonna get together when I leave here, because he makes too much sense. And what we got what I got right now is I know that we as a culture, need to take control of our culture. That's the problem. Right now we got too many people in our country, we need not to ask the government for anything right now. I know that the kingdom is probably flipping over right now. Because they gave us all this and look how we treat it. Look what we do with it. This is unbelievable. What we need to do take control. We didn't use the government later. But first, let's get our stuff together. So we can know what to do. And until we do that, that's when we're going to hit control of these children that's out here don't know what in the world they doing that you don't gave them some guns. They don't know what they do with these guys. They think they don't let them look at Empire. We got to take them out of this city. You got to bring them out there. Well, Matt, let them get on it. I'm not gonna call it a plantation. I'm gonna call it a wrench. So you can like it a little bit better. Because some of us up here don't even like the word plantation. But you know, we run the plantation, we feed ourselves. Once you start feeding yourself some real good food, you won't have to go to dialysis like I do. So once you start taking control, and getting this thing under control, that's when we'll have it and get it back in order. All these ideas are great. We can use them all. So let's do that. And let's just move on Good afternoon.
I am Mr. Farmer number 24. Retired Air Force veteran been in harm's way for this country? Probably if the enemy had did what they said I would do, I wouldn't be here talking to you today. I live in Clayton County, Georgia love joy is the high school closest to me. I'm doing what I can talking to the kids, teaching them about that. I've been to 22 countries and counting how many young people that I'm teaching them. But as a black male, and I read super, I'm uncomfortable. That has been the 22 countries and counting. To all the things you need, I tell them, education is the key to increase their dreams now and in the future. If you look at what as well, dad's in a, ah hoo hoo teach him our study techniques, the best I learned and 68 years, and the human calculator. The best mathematical tool I've learned is, I've learned that 68 years, I sent this information to the Secretary of Education for the United States. His name is Miguel Cordova, for y'all who don't know, because I want them to educate and get their dreams. My dreams came true. I'm 68. And I come out of Newark, New Jersey. Actually, I just came back from Newark, New Jersey, to my high school class for you all y'all gonna know my school name. Once I take call, we changed names at the Christmas break. 50 years ago, I graduated from Malcolm X Shabazz, high school and first class with the new name out of the name change out of our New Jersey. So I'm doing what I can, I'm talking to my people, I'm helping them out and doing everything I can, you know, because the young people came up with somebody came up with this idea of paying it forward. So I'm paying it forward. And I tell them, I vote and everything. And you can see that I want my athletes colors. And I wear all of that. And I'm talking to the kids specially in Clayton County, and Senators, that bed paper that I told you, I sent it all the way to Nigeria, because I met a professor in Egypt. You said time. Thank you.
Everyone, my, my name is Taylor born. Hey, Dorothy. Hey, Darryl, North memory for Central and progress. I'm a strategic consultant now, but also a native Atlanta and I grew up as shallowford Road, went to Lakeside High School, went to Georgia State served on a bunch went through a bunch of public public safety meetings with Dorothy and what I feel like the city is lacking is just strategy. It feels like we have a lot of these players in the city that are most likely here. So I'm probably who aren't here who offered certain services to youth, and they are doing the job. But where is this kind of collective leadership? from not just the top down? But why aren't we designing these strategies with these kids in the room? Like an urban design? Something I've done before? It's an it's called co design where you bring the residents in the room with the planners so that you build the city they want? And it seems like we always keep talking about the kids. But where are they like, and I don't want to bark or yell at people. Dorothy, I'll email you because I want to get involved with this. But there just has to be some type of leadership of where all these people plan. And when are we going to kind of look in the mirror. And for the however many years in a row, we're the most unequal city in the country. But we go around and brand ourselves around MLK, like, when are we going to be real with ourselves? That MLK wouldn't be okay with this? Like, we can't keep doing the same things in the same people be in the same rooms and council members saying we're going to create a curfew for every person under 17. Like, where are we pulling these policies from? Are these just like, headline things we're looking for? Are we actually building policies with the kids that we're trying to help? Right? So you know, my advice, some pro bono consulting would be to really start with the community members, and to not talk at them and about them, but to talk with them. And Dorthea you have the same email.
My name is Edith ladipo. I live in southwest Atlanta. I'm a retired educator, retired investigator for US Department of Civil Rights. One of the things that I learned as a teacher is that research based programs are important. It has to have a beginning, a middle and an end and you have to have a success story and not just keep throwing things at these young people. The one thing I learned from a young lady in Florida, was that they did some research and showed that by the time a child leaves school at second grade, when they come back at the third grade level, they are already in Again, they have instituted programs where they have taught teachers, all the gang signs, all the the, the haircuts all of these things so that they can recognize them and get to these kids very early. Many of these kids have education problems, they have social problems, they have problems, not knowing who they are, they have a lot of problems. And we are not looking at a holistic way of trying to address the children. These children are not all bad. I've taught them, I've changed them. And I've watched them change over time to become adults. So I'm saying that we are really throwing these kids away, because we always have a title for they are bad. They're this, they're that. But like this gentleman said, find something that they like to do. And they become professional at that, if they can come become professional at these computers. Look at all the transportation jobs that are out there making $100,000 a year when these kids graduate from vocational schools, who's looking at that, who's trying to find those jobs for these young people. They need people that understand child development, somebody that understands what it means not to have a father in the home, what it means not to go home and have food ready for them. They need to have understanding they don't need all these accusations and talking about them and making them feel like they are nobody. We need to get these kids in a place where they feel good about themselves about life and about what they want to do later in life. And we're not giving them those chances.
Thank you for this opportunity. My name is James Edward Lewis, Jr, president of the National Urban Coalition for unity and peace, new cup. On December 3 2022, my great grandfather at wacko Williams was shot and killed by a 20 year old Jonathan Johnson, a reckless, mis educated, misguided, foundationless, spiritualist and unloved individual is what his action tells me. The new cup organization has worked directly with youth in metropolitan Atlanta, from 1988 to 2019. Cabo homes Kimberly caught riddle boat rock, the city of Atlanta Gwinnett County, DeKalb County and Douglas County if the overall agenda and plan does not include technology, finance and capitalism is to fail the agenda. Out of all this the only thing anybody missing that's missing is love. Love in the community love Purcell helping these children love themselves and giving them Foundation. And they start with the home. But we have to come together to help the home. I have doctors, lawyers, teachers come out of both rock East Point rental doctors and lawyers. But it takes love it takes a commitment. You can get people out of money you want to do a job the dad got loving it. The children filling it don't work. Thank you.
Good evening. It's an honor to speak to you. My name is Irving Bernard Fordham, electrical engineer, Georgia Board Certified engineer, alumnus of both Georgia Tech and Georgia State. I've been practicing electrical engineering for over 42 years 10 And it was 42 years was in manufacturing at the high level might come before you today because I'm in the process of my legacy is starting a nonprofit across the street from Georgia Tech. Between 10th Street and 14th Street. In this brief amount of time is just like a get acquainted session. I will follow up I'll follow up with the council person who's over that district. It should be an easier thing to do. I'll give you example and try to speak quickly. Like this defense appropriation bill, getting what you see me do is getting African Americans more involved in manufacturing. I've got about 20 more years left in my career. I'm the champion to get the old engineers we volleyball to the point where we got two generations, African American engineers over the current students. The primary target group is for those jobs. To take undergraduate students, it has to be close enough. And my dorm was in this, my old dorm was in this area where they feel comfortable walking out their dorm, between 10 and 14 street. When George Floyd got killed, all of us remember what I was seeing on my TV, I saw a black guy jumping on his squad car, I saw a white or Latino guy with a bandana, taking a skateboard pounding into the CNN Center. At that point, I knew I had to do something. So I've got to get in touch with the elected officials. I don't know Miss Williams. Hank Johnson is my Congress personnel from DeKalb. County. Thank you, because I'm honored speaking. Good evening, everyone.
My name is Ivana Moore. I'm here because I'm a mother of five kids. I have two older boys at the age of 12, and 13. I'm not originally from Georgia. I'm from Alabama. But I've been up here going on seven years. And two years of me being up here in Atlanta, I had a defense case, because I spank my children when they try to join a game, because the bus drivers out. And I was fighting every day. And I didn't want my kids to grow up and be in the system, or I find them dead somewhere. So I feel that the system is was failing us. Because when it comes to trying to be a parent, and you try to put your foot down and raise your kids a certain way, they try to tell you how to raise your child. Everything that you do as a parent is abuse. I'm not abusive person, I sat there and dealt with kids all my life from the age of nine, I sat there and babysit cousins, next door neighbor, kids and everything. And I feel that the system is failing us. Because it's a lot of things that we had can barely do. As a parent, I had a next door neighbor whose son, he was gunned down and killed. And it was crazy because she said she dealt with a defense case. And she said, when she dealt with that defense case, it got to the point where they had it was she was so stressed out that she threw her hands up and said, I give up i let y'all have, I can't even be a parent and do what I need to do without getting accused of abusing my child. And I felt the same way when I caught a defense case, the stuff that they had me going through, just to get my kids back, like, I wanted to see her and say I give up but I couldn't give up on my kids. And I see the change. And now I had to take them through counseling. And it's still to the point where I'm dealing with my oldest son who was 13, where he gets in trouble in school a lot. And it's only certain things that I feel that I can do without getting in trouble. That's all I have to say.
Good evening. My name is Marjorie McLeod. And I do work in the community. I was a school bus drivers, I retired from the military. So I got a lot of hats. I know everybody's talking about programs, but we got to make sure the programs that you're getting, you're monitoring, the program got to fit the child. If you put a person in a program that don't work, you're just not helping that child, by me, bringing people in, I don't have a nonprofit. I bought so many children. We got to talk about I know you're talking about guns, but we got to talk about the drugs that's out here. That's a very important we have a crisis. And that's what we got to make sure that no in school high school, the kindergarten, teach them about drugs. What is the guess what it does? Because you know, we know I got nothing to do with this doesn't matter one and we know we're going to pass that or whatever. But they get drugs where to get new drugs and where they get new guns from who selling the guns to the children. Isn't that all the time they say they breaking in and getting the cars we got the wrong people? Well, the children want you ask them have a roundtable with the teenagers and talk to them they self because we got all these adults, that's good, they got new program, but talk to them and ask them what can we do? How can we correct this? What do you need? Because we want things the way we want programmed, but what do they want? That's the most important thing that we need to do. And I I tell you, I have so many kids, not Metro, you know they'll high risk children and no high risk children very intelligent. But you got to have some fun them to do. We don't have after school program because COVID-19 That's all I have to say. So y'all be blessing. This don't talk this action
what we're going to do, I spoke with the chairperson there's more and we're going to extend the public comment to the last pose the last person in line now. Okay, we're going to extend the public comments to everybody have an opportunity. So I know we said we were going to stop at seven. But since we have such interest, we want to make sure everybody's heard.
Okay. Good afternoon. My name is Andre King, CEO and founder of second nature for children Inc. I've been reaching out to the city now for the last 10 years. No one has responded over in district 10, at CT more natatorium Recreation Center. For the last 10 years, I've pulled more children off the streets than any other organization in the city of Atlanta running my program, which is called an installment program, a complete wellness program, where every Monday and Wednesday night, I was pulling at least 50 to 70 kids off the streets, where we're missing it, it will missing because we're not reaching the unsystematic children. The children that are not part of the after school programs are not common to certain programs to kids that are in the streets. Those are the kids that we are missing. I've been reaching out in crime for 10 years, I have a proven program. I hope to hear from someone soon. So we can sit down. And let me share this program with you. Thank you
Good evening. Commission. I'm so for read your bylaws, my understanding that you guys make recommendations to city council. We have a public safety board with a sound panel. And my concern is that we come down here every other Monday and talk to them about things that they said they want to do when they ran for office. And you guys are supposed to give them recommendations and kind of be that liaison. So once again, we are people out here on a Tuesday evening, late night, coming out here on Boston, their concerns, a minute you live in a community know what's going on. And I'm just flabbergasted as to why we don't have real resolution not saying you guys haven't made those recommendations. But I mean, how long is too long. I mean, we just lost the so like I said yesterday 77 year old white woman was killed by young black male, if a young black male escaped the killer, send me Sam, your white woman on a bus and you don't stand a chance because one thing you know as a black man, that you will be punished to the fullest and that alone kills somebody white. You know that? And if you don't fear that that's got a problem. I'm 45 Born and raised in boarding homes. And when I tell you it's scary out here, y'all sit up here sometimes and counsel does that, like all just not going on in our city, man. Come on, man. Like it's terrible. I hear you got men and women I hear who they're here because they care. And you guys are charge. Some of you guys are appointed to make strong recommendations to council and hold them accountable. Like rear recommendation, man, because what happened today with no set misbalance? Man, that's scary man. And we just got to give real recommendations, man and no, I'm saying hope we get real solutions. Thank you.
Good evening, everyone. My name is Michael Lawson, Jr. I'm a Los Angeles native, but I came to Atlanta 20 years ago to attend Morehouse College. And back then, the notion on the west coast was Atlanta was a safe haven. There was no gang violence. And it was safe. And I can say, violence has been an issue in the city for the past 20 years. I witnessed murders near campus as a teenager. And here I am as a father in the community. And one thing that I can say has been missing in the past 20 years is a collective action of organizations and men in the community. I'm hearing rumors about consultants and organizations getting checks who say they can solve this problem. But in my opinion, this problem really result sits on the shoulders of the men in the community. And I really hope that not hope. It should be a database of community organizations centered around actually where men can take back control of our communities. And I think that there are many answers to our issue. But that certainly is one of them. And this is coming from a man who came here As a teenager, and now, almost a 40 year old father, still witnessing violence industries, but bested in the community, I worked as a as a therapist in DeKalb. County Juvenile Justice Fulton County Juvenile Justice. So I've done the work. And many of us in the crowd have done the work. But for the mothers, fathers, families, of victims of violence, it's up to the men to solve this problem in our community. Thank you.
Good evening, everyone. My name is Ken Johnson, and I'm a former NFL Defensive end player for eight years. And for the last 30 years, I've been going into schools, talking to young people from the elementary level all the way to high school, college. And, you know, everywhere else, one of the things that, you know, I experienced and learned early in life, it's the parent has a responsibility. If there's no parents, it's tough. But when I was growing up, my parents told us to pray. And I think what we're dealing with is a spiritual issue. From the button, you know, number one, this is just happening is because of things that have transpired over the years. And I think the key is that you have to have this attitude of prayer before you do deal with any situation, because the prayers will give kids understanding and power to overcome difficulties in life. You know, I graduated from Indiana University, I tell Stu, and like I said, for the last 30 years, I've been a motivational speaker. But we get one of the needs is to get to the kids in elementary school early, and begin to share with those kids now I only can do what I've been gifted to do. And that's to share my story. And I think all of us have been stuck, but we need to get to where they are. And that's in the school, elementary school, middle school, high school. And if we start programs, where we come in there and speak to these kids, share our experience with them, our lives where it can make the difference. And then other organizations can come behind that. Get those kids and after school program boards, clubs, and all those particular things. But I think the first thing we got a spiritual problem. Good evening,
everyone. Last year, October 23, I was a victim of a home invasion where five game members broke in my home and I was shot at 18 times where I was hit one time by the grace of God. And I'm standing here as a testimony living. My name is Lady loud. I'm a music promoter here in Atlanta. And I work hand in hand with music artists, every single day, hundreds of music artists, they're active gangbangers, they post guns on their Instagram every single day. And you know, I tried to do what I can to talk to their managers to tell them like you know, right now, and what we're going through is not the time to promote gun violence. But I wanted to hold a music team summit for these kids next year. I just don't have the connections. I don't know who to speak with or who to talk to who can back me up with this. But I want to touch what they end what their interests are. A lot of them are interested in music, we know the odds of what what music art is going to make it the odds are very slim. You can do music for 20 years and never make it. But we do. We have producers, we have engineers, we have writers, we have different positions and different jobs that you can do in the music industry that they just don't know about, because knowledge is power. And if we inform them and let them know and give them an opportunity to see that there is different things outside of just being a rapper because right now that's not even a thing to do, then maybe we can help them in that aspect. And it piques their interest which causes them to stay out the streets.
My name is Gary Richardson. Originally from Baltimore, Maryland. I moved down here 16 years ago, to get out of Baltimore to raise three beautiful kids. By the grace of God. I raised three beautiful kids. They all graduated from college. But since I've been here, I wanted to start giving back to trouble. You've started an organization called high risk high reward. And in the business community, we celebrate disruptors and they say disruptors are those that changed the business community while I started high risk, high reward to see how we can take the high risk youth and allow them to change their negative energy and use it as a positive way to change their community themselves and their environment. So my goal is to kind of partner with you Uh, the city of Atlanta, as well as I'm partnered with a good friend of mine who's back home that has a group called ceasefire, Baltimore, where one one time a month or so they try to, you know, promote ceasefire, no gun violence in his minister cessful thing. And I spoke with him last night. And I asked him how could you know, he moved that down here. And we have ceasefire, Atlanta, where, you know, we promote on a particular day, that we're going to see all the gunfire. So I myself, I've been in federal prison for drugs. I'm a testament of it. And I believe that credible messengers like myself, and the rest of the people here is needed to bring about change. And we can figure out a way that we can communicate and talk to the youth that look like us, that'd be able to show that we have made positive change of our life, I think that can help us to help them promote and see that they do to themselves can do something better. So I would like to see something like ceasefire, Baltimore, come to Atlanta and be ceasefire Atlanta. Well, we can try to promote the end to gun violence. Appreciate you.
Thank you so much for having us here this evening. My name is Robin Downton. I am the democratic post seat holder for district five, which is the north end of midtown, the south end of Sandy Springs. And I am here today, because I would like to see a program that would have more citizens involved in the city, and the activities that go on in the city. Like people like myself and other friends of mine, we need there should be 1000 people here after the situation on the 17th Street Bridge. The grandmother that was killed in my neighborhood, like I live five minutes driving time from her. And I would just like to see a program like the ambassador ship, how they do downtown Atlanta helping people and we need to get about 10,000 people in a program like that. Something that the city can incentivize. We just need. We need more hands. We need more, more people. Thank you.
Good evening, everyone. My name is Christopher Welch. On the president of indie market. I've been a UK youth community activist for about five years. I graduated with a diesel in industrial technology certification. Andy market is the marketing Corporation for youth, seniors, adults, and are different genres of talent. I've been in a community working this summer, giving out summer jobs to the youth, also talking to the youth and teaching them how to work with their parents, and not just be disrespectful. So it worked. I got a lot of great response from the youth and also from parents. And we actually did the free waters to despite the gun, I mean, the stuff that was going on with the water boys during the summer, and I was kicked off corners, I was told that, you know, they couldn't help me far as getting the water buoys off the corner, and actually getting them to something that's strategic and as planned out well. So at work back in 2019 actually started a water war. And some of y'all might can relate to that. Because, you know, we had, you know, city city, poly police, ambulance, on top of people showed up, due to what was going on, it was a massive crowd, we pulled over 3000 people out to a person Park. And we didn't intend for that to go like that your family we, we thought it was just gonna be like 100 people because we ran around the city for a whole month waiting people up. But it's all about, you know, being fun and being active. You know, sometimes we know we could have gotten in trouble for but it was all about the energy that was built up in the inside of all the teams or the youth that was doing it. So I felt like my my my mission have worked 90% You feel what I'm saying? I have got response back. I have worked out my own funds. And now I'm starting a nonprofit called the ATL U Street Team. And that's going to help us bring these youth back together and stop the gun violence.
Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Kenyatta Martin. And what I do for a living is I'm the only black owned trailer dealership in America. So in in box trailers, you see this built, I built it, and I'm a resident of Atlantic Station. I've been living there for for six years now. So I understand everything that's going on in community. And second second thing that I want you guys to know it's about educating the youth Pretty much speaking to Atlanta Public School System, or Gwinnett. County School System DeKalb County School System. Well, I want you guys to understand that this there. And as 13 years old, I was facing 30 years in prison, and one of the youngest juvenile tried as an adult I did 10 years in prison, I went out to state prison, no juveniles prison, I want to ask you from age 13, to 23. And so now what I do all my spare time, is I go to dog high school I go to I just love manera middle school, and I speak to the kids, I speak to the youth. And when I asked you to raise their hand is if you commit a crime, if you pick up a gun, at age 13 years old, do you know that you will be tried as an adult, none of them are no, like young guys, there was no legislation on 17th Street Bridge, all of those guys will be tried as an adult, you got they will be facing a minimum of 10 years in prison, but no one in the school system and under you keep 99% of the kids in the school system know that if they pick up a gun, or do in in one of the seven deadly sins, they're going to be tried as an adult. And we'll be facing anywhere from 10 years to life in prison. So by I encouraged a lot of public school system, everything school system is they need to put something in the school system to educate the kids on the law, it might not change. But if you got to 10 kids, and they understand they can be tried as an adult, you're going to prison for life, in my least five of them might hesitate on not picking up the gun. So that's why I encourage Atlanta Public School System DeKalb County, whoever man just they need put some type of curriculum in school is about the law. If you're 13 years old, and you commit into one of the seven deadly sins, you will be tried as an adult. Thank you.
I'm sorry, I have a pat here that I'm going to pass around councilmember weights would like for any organization or anyone who has made an attempt to reach out to anyone with the city and has not received a call back or anything. Or if you would like to receive a call back or have conversation with Councilman way, throw someone in the office to sign put your information on here, if you will, please. And then this path.
Hey, how's everyone doing? My name is Richard Wright. And I'm a concerned citizen. And two things I'll be showing in quick. I think that we're looking at public safety and not looking at some of the economic dire dynamics in the environment. And so we're coming at it halfway. And so I think we need to look at some of the economics in South and Southwest Atlanta, and pair that with some public safety policies. And I think that we'll get better results. One recommendation system before a body that could do recommendations. I think that we need to challenge educated African American men like myself to do pro bono hours with youth in Atlanta. Right? I'm a CPA. So I think that you guys need to call out rich to write to CPA and say, hey, you need to come down off your high porch and talk to some children. Right, really meant to have children. Not before I was a month. And I think that'd be effective. And that's just one recommendation I have. Thank you. Good evening. My
name is Mona Muhammad. I'm 27 years old, and I am from the southwest Atlanta area. To start and to piggyback off of that this is an economics problem of the youth crime. Did you know that 75% of the kids at APs are living in poverty? And did you know that most of youth crimes usually happened due to unstable housing, food deserts, lower economic opportunities and lack of transportation? I don't need to know this sistex. But I know for a fact that these kids are usually coming from my side of town where I was raised. It is sad that of course they are living in food deserts. There aren't any economic opportunities for the youth and also their parents. And did you know that the one way to get out of poverty is education, but yet, our educational system has been failing for many generations. And it's not just one but it's two to three, because even during COVID, many kids were sent home to parents that are uneducated, cannot read and help these kids and that they're back in school and I can only imagine how far behind these kids are and uninterested in learning. Another thing is that the car break ins the youth gun violence. These kids are getting it out of vehicles, they're breaking into vehicles and they're getting these weapons. I have heard that the city is aware of it. Police are picking these kids up trying to take them to the juvenile detention center and they're not being admitted in I don't understand why are you guys letting these kids back out into the streets? Is it so they can kill each other which it's been proven? Is it so they can continue committing crime or is it to our We waiting for them to be tried as an adults to get felony charges. Why are these kids not given an opportunity to actually be six be successful? The answer to all of this is community it is providing resources within these communities, something to look forward to. And lastly, a lot of different organizations are here saying that they have programs. CTE Martin does Midnight Basketball, Midnight Basketball was created to prevent crimes and things like that. Why is it starting at the age of 18. And yet the kids committing crime are starting at the age of 12. That is the quickest solution to this is to actually implement and do times and then other leads. Can we like try to pick up kids from middle school and high school for after school programs, it usually that's for elementary school, but not for the middle and high school. A lot of kids are going home to no one home and they could commit crimes and come back home. That was
a resident of Atlanta, Georgia, my kid's father was killed 1122 2022. I don't think that is a youth problem. I think this is a we problem. I think this is a community problem for as black communities, parents, and everyone involved in everyone's life. This isn't a pointing finger type of situation. This issue is among the community of black individuals. I feel like as a mother of four, and two black men I am raising now fatherless. This is bigger than black and white. I feel like as a black mother standing here in front of you guys, and women, there is much that you can do. Being that you sit higher than us out here in the in the audience. I know that we can point the finger all day at each other and say parents, teacher, community, staff, and whomever. This is a system problem. This isn't a family problem. This isn't a youth problem. This isn't a community problem. This isn't a system problem for schools, and poverty problem. I am a black woman who was raised in poverty. I don't think this is a US problem. This is a weak problem. We can fix this problem by finding out what is the problem. My children are now fatherless due to the system that we are raising our children in as a black American people.
Good evening. My name is Minister Cicely Howell. And I want I came down here because I wanted to talk because I was I'm a mother of five to be on boys. And one of them was convicted of SB 40. Charge at 15. He had to serve time in prison part juvenile. But my whole thing is I hear a lot of people saying that. So we it is a weed problem. But it starts at the school. And if I would as a parent would have not ignored the things when Clinton was eight when he was telling me these things, because I was a single parent trying to raise him and in do everything by myself without a father. So Clinton did things in the neighborhood, you got to know your kids, you got to know their friends. Pressure is so heavy as I minister, the youth, I hear a lot of stuff turn the gangs because they just want to fit in, fit in turns to drug, you know, drugs, guns and going to go breaking a house, a home of Asian, all that starts from there. My whole thing is committed, we got to rebuild a hurt other community because it's transforming from the parents that's living with generation hurt and they pass it on to their kids. And that's how the cycle is continuing going on. And on and on. Because we have to serve as the families. It says in the Bible Families First, we got to go in that order. I'm just telling you because I'm a parent, I walked it. I lived every bit of Clinton when he went through everything, both of my boys, they fell but I couldn't get a parent and a proud mother. But they still did things. But we have to not forget we have to transfer that Trent transfer form. They're hurt into the families because the mothers and fathers someone won't even know. They clueless. So we had to put it into schools. We got to help the parents more accountable period. Bottom line, they got to be held more accountable. You got to know what job you got to know what time yet. If not call the police because I did. I was in Clayton County every day. Every day I was in that Sheriff here. And he went out my son every time Victor Hale did when he got him. So at the end of the day, but I live in Atlanta now by the end of the day. You have to be involved in know your children. And we got to create the programs opened up the recreation center three children have somewhere to go but y'all can't ignore the military in the military in this either. We got to service the families. And that's just the bottom line on it. Yeah, have a go. Hello, my
name is Jasmine I came down here, I debated whether or not I should come down here. But I've been saying this for a while now. My kids, they're not I don't have a lot of trouble out of them. But I compared them to my nephew. I had my kids in a lot of programs, there was us new look, there was camps giving, there was Steve Harvey who came here did several programs, those things worked for my kids, I have three kids in college, my nephew, not so much. I tried to put him in the state Harvey program, but it was just too far gone. One of the things I liked city of Atlanta to do is we coat and we talk about how great of a city this is. And it is I was born and raised here. So I've watched it transition. I like to see you all have partnerships with all of these programs. One of the things that I did, after I said this, I said, let me go and look and see how many of these programs that I could find. It was so hard for me to find stuff. And it shouldn't be that hard. It should be to where you guys when we're if we're unemployed, we're required to have this job resource thing where we're going, and we're looking for jobs, and we're reporting. So if these kids are getting locked up, where are these programs, why aren't you all having a partnership with them and mandating that these kids be a part of one of these programs, as a part of their release, if you go to jail, here is you know, we're gonna release you. But you have to be enrolled in these programs. That way, they're being monitored. They're having mentors, they're having people that are kind of, you know, coaching them and giving them feedback as to what they need to do mental health that's being monitored. If you're in a program, and they see a mental health problem, well, there's a referral referral to an agency that provides mental health, like I like to see you all do more partnerships, and it should be mandatory, they shouldn't get a choice, a part of your release is you have to be in one of these programs. If you're not in this program, then okay, we need to revisit the judge and say, hey, they're not being compliant, they're getting in trouble. And then we had them a part of this program, which they miss three weeks of, according to this agency, and it should be their choice, you want to play football.
A good evening. Good evening, I really didn't want to have a comment. I just wanted to offer myself as someone that's willing to help with the community. I'm from Chicago, originally, I've started a program called Let us make man Foundation. And my charge is not to the government. The charge is to black men. We need to stand up, take our communities back and have some type of accountability. Because I didn't have programs as a child, I had a parent. That was the parent and I'm also an educator, I'm sorry. And one of the main issues is that the parent expect the educator to raise their children. We cannot allow people to point fingers when all we have to do is work as a collective. So I'm here to work with anybody in this city to do anything if that means walk the streets. Talk to the gangbangers feed the homeless I'm here. I want to go ahead and take that charge. So I have my card I'll pass it out. But I'm not here to look for government to do what a black man should do.
Yeah, I'm back I had some more I just wanted to get off my chest that I'm really kind of sad a little bit because what all is going on in the city and we got to five we live in four to six hour news and a lot of stuff going on the room should be paid. It should be people standing around. I don't see that many people. I don't see that many people in the building, you know, in a room where you know, I just feel like some more people should be here and about the kids. We got to understand and I had to understand myself this a different generation. So what we used to what we used to do that's not what's going on these days and myself at least in it a lot of the rap stuff a lot of the music and stuff like that. I do I do. I listen to it all. But when I was young younger, the radios did not play what they play today. lol my people station. I really do. Wish we had to go to the mall and go back to tape to hear other songs. Send the whole album, we only got that one hit single, you know, these days, they're able to go on YouTube or whatever, okay, you can go listen to music on your own time with the radios, we had the, you know, hold them accountable to they're not like, not like that were like that. But you know, they play this music there are kids listening to, you know, in his different music from what we used to listen to, you know, at least played a clean version of it. You know, we don't get that these days we just get a rawhide is, you know, it was a privilege to do that years ago, we didn't get to hear the whole song like that, you know, so a lot of the music and videos and stuff like that the kids looking up to that they looking up to the rappers and stuff like that. I don't know, anyone's having talent at all. I don't, you know what, and I feel like we should have some people that are well known in that area in that field and music field to kind of get our kids to because they listen it through the music.
Good evening, everyone. I am Michael Hill, CEO and president, past president and current Executive Director for the Atlanta metropolitan Black Chamber of Commerce. We're here today to really offer ourselves as a resource. We've heard a lot of great ideas and meeting of the minds and coming together this evening, I want to invite everyone for us to collectively come together to present a plan, not only before the Public Safety Committee, but for the community, with the kids. And they're all the ideas that were brought forth. The solution is multifaceted is generational, it has happened over a period of years, it is going to take business, community and government coming together to solve this particular problem. So I am proposing to work with this committee as well as the city council. And I want to encourage the attendees tonight, for us to collectively put together a proposal over the next 90 days where we get together, we put an idea together, we strategically placed the committee's and organizations and ideas and organizations strategically and tactically throughout our community to truly bring about change, what can we do in 30 days? What can we do in 90 days and show results. So that is what I want to bring forth. And we offer our services, and we offer our resources to bring us together. So I look forward to working with everyone in this room. Thank you.
I appreciate that. But to return to the microphone, I did not give my contact information. I'm 80 years old, came to Atlanta in 1988. And the stories I told you about the teachers, the lawyers, the doctors that came through our program in public housing in the city of Atlanta, I got a lot of wisdom in the streets because I had to go in the streets and stay in the projects on the ground with the parents and the children. And in the schools. I was in partnership with Parkland elementary school for 25 years. The history is there. But my organization is the National Urban Coalition for unity and peace. Email addresses in you see up es at NUC up.org. I do not have a five a 123 at this point in 2019 45 changed the rules. And my my my content, my tax person was doing things manually. And they stopped taking manual 501 C three contact tax information. But I'm here with wisdom that worked with any organization. I'm 80 years old. But I can talk and I can get you what I know. If you want it. All you got to do is ask for God bless you and God keep all of you and thank everyone for your participation. Like I say that was my great nephew that got shot eight times on December the third 2022 by 20 year old last
year. We're gonna have comments now from Councilman Michael Byrne.
Well, first, I'd like to thank councilmember weights for pulling us together. I was I knew I was gonna make a comment wasn't expecting to make one as quickly as that but just want to thank members of the public who come out and provided us with a lot of good ideas and inspiration. This is a crisis in our city and And as we move forward as this body moves forward and making recommendations, just and I'm a native Atlanta born and raised in vine city, I've been robbed, I've been involved in. You wouldn't call it a gang today. We're loose association of young men who were involved in. devil meant, as it might have been called back in the day. But the tragic place where we find ourselves, I think, as a city is that the city government, the school system, we can't change people's homes. We can't change the way things are going on inside of someone's house. But the institution's the city of Atlanta, the Atlanta school board, has not changed with the changes in the constituency of Atlanta, young lady pointed out of a fact that's 75% of Atlanta, large swaths of Atlanta are underneath the poverty level. school system and the city have not responded or changed to that. When Fulton County in the city of Atlanta, back in the late 1950s divvied up what their responsibilities were going to be between those two governments and the school board was a subset of the city of Atlanta at the time, there's been no review of that service providing since the late 1950s. And so what I would suggest here tonight, as again, that, you know, at some point, there needs to be a cataloging and coordinating of all the different programmatic opportunities that are available for young people. But I don't think the programs are going to be the end all get all, I think it's time to look at the charter of the city of Atlanta, look at the charter of APS, look at the services that Fulton County provides, so that we can better capture and address the needs of those students. All these young people have to go through APS The law requires as matter of fact, of all the people in Atlanta all the people in the region, the city of Atlanta and APS have absolute legal authority over that population. 712 17 and down, we have complete legal control over their lives, we tell them when to get up where to go, what to do, where to be, and can require them to be anywhere, for any period of time. And so if we have them passively for eight hours a day, it's probably time to look at expanding the time that we have legal authority over there. Maybe the school day should be eight to five, instead of eight to three. Maybe they should do something that Dr. Webb at Clark Atlanta University did did for me. And in my generation, they had the Saturday Science Academy, which was they required kids to go to school on Saturdays for six months to get bolstered education and in and programming, enrichment programming, maybe music and art ought to be added back into the school system. Maybe music production and television production, since Atlanta's a new Hollywood ought to be infused into APS, perhaps schools should be year round. Perhaps there ought to be summer jobs program ought to be a year round jobs program for our youth. There are a lot of things that policymakers can do for that, quote, unquote, captive population, that we have so much authority over that we're not using. And we can do it in a productive way. That is not super restrictive or, or is a punishment to that population. And so I would challenge us those who are involved in to look at doing that, you know, the school system. You know, nobody, everybody cries when the city of Atlanta raises taxes, Nobody cries when the school system raises the taxes because it's supposed to be for the children. So the resources are there, okay, or should be provided to be there. And those of us who grew up in Atlanta, know a very different Atlanta, where there was innovation where there was an injection of probe programs and initiatives to recapture great great minds. But outside of these walls and outside of the walls, APS Atlanta has changed. It's not the same Atlanta that it was for me and, and a few others in this room. And so you're paying taxes, you deserve more for your taxes. We need to sit down and redesign the services that we're providing for that, for that population. And as adults, it's our responsible, it's our responsibility to do that. And of course, I'm here to backup My colleague Keisha waits, and work with anyone in the room to make these improvements and to have that conversation. But as you know, it's just time. I mean, getting out for the summer as I close, that's an agrarian concept. Best when people had to go to the farm, during the summer to have had on the farm, that's 100 year old concept, you know, you know, just time to rethink everything. So that we can help to manage that populace to help that population to grow. Because I will tell you, you know, despite how pretty I look today, if it wasn't for extracurricular activities at Frederick Douglass High School, you know, I'd be in a different space, if I couldn't pay it. If I couldn't draw, you know, if I didn't get exposed to other things, you know, because people forget, I had a famous dad, but my dad was out of town, six out of the seven days of the week, he wasn't home. My mother basically was a single mother with five kids. But it was the activities at school that kept me going to school, it kept me involved, it kept me with my, you know, kept my interest. And, you know, I think we need to look at our kids are worth spending the money, whether it's on a program or reenvisioning, the services that we deliver, so that they can have full and complete lives and don't have to get sucked in, regardless of what their situation might be at home, we need to be able to provide that opportunity for them. Wow, what's our withdrawal?
Again, Councilman bone, Councilmember awaits is going to come and share some infant comments as well.
Madam Chair, I'm not going to keep us long just wanted to thank everyone for coming out in echo my colleagues, sentiments, there was a sheet going around, to which we're going to put together some programming information, and will submit that to this body, we look forward. And we hope that this body will also come and present it the Public Safety Committee and just wanted to take thank everyone again, for coming out. Thank you for your time I share your frustration, share your pain, and share your rage. And so I believe, again, that all of us every single person in this room and out there, we're going to be the solution to the problem. So thank you again, for all coming out tonight.
Thank you both for your comments. I before calling the meeting to order, I would first like to thank everyone in the room for attending. And for those of you that shared your thoughts and ideas and recommendations with us today. Thank you for that, please continue to do so. A meeting will come to order. First of all, we'll start with an introduction of the members. I'm Jasmine Moore, chair of the Public Safety Commission, Representative from Grand Memorial Hospital and injury prevention and additionally, a researcher from Georgia Tech. And I will start with Mr. Chris Brown. And we will go this way with introductions please.
Good evening, Chris Brown Atlanta Public Atlanta Planning Advisory Board public safety chair versus Disease Control Prevention Division of Violence Prevention. Hi, I'm Dr. Ashley de inverno Division of Violence Prevention at the CDC.
I'm Dorothy hearse. I was appointed by a pap. Good evening.
I'm Raines Carter. I'm the solicitor for the city of Atlanta.
Good evening. My name is Andrew Anderson, Chair of mpg. I've been with Atlanta fire for 10 years also.
An evening my name is Eric tumor. I'm an appointee by way of a PAM and I've also a parent of two children. I was born and raised in Atlanta.
Ron Applin, Chief of Police, Atlanta public schools and also a product of Atlanta public schools.
Will you read Executive Director of the Atlanta System Review Board? Good evening. My name is Darrell Johnson, senior manga manager with the ambassador force. Scott Kreher. Chief of Police for MARTA Aaron Edwards, city of Atlanta law department. I am car Baker staff as Chief of Staff to the Fulton County Solicitor General carbon
ties suit of Atlanta Police Department Assistant Chief
before we move to adopt the meeting agenda, I want to request that the commission members give our activities a grace of 10 minutes in the event that there's more discussion to be had any additions to the meeting agenda? The agenda is adopted. So first I just want to give the commission members an opportunity Ready to share their thoughts or ideas or feelings? Or two? Thank you even for your comments today, I just request for housekeeping sake that the members are attentive to allow other members an opportunity to share. So please be considerate in the time that you take but open the floor. I'll acknowledge whoever's interested in speaking first. Commission members? Yes.
Madam Chair, thank you. This is Dorothy hearse. First of all, I want to thank the public for coming out. As they were speaking, I took some notes. And really, there were some things that stood out. And I just want to kind of address some of the things that I thought that really kind of hit that that really spoke to me if that's okay. Um, one of the things that stood out to me was one of the members spoke to the fact that we need to have kids in the room we need to talk to the kids. And I think that was another person that that spoke also to, and said something about that, you know, many times we, we, we make policies. And it kind of reminds me sometimes about corporate America, when we have executives that think they know what the frontline is doing, when in fact, they have no concept about what the people that do the real work is actually doing. So there's that disconnect, about what the executives want them to do, versus what the frontline is actually doing. And that's what I think that's happening a little bit in our community. We know what we want the children's to do, yet they're doing something different. So we have that gap. And we got to fill that gap. So I'm not offering any solution. I'm just kind of creating an analogy, because that spoke to me. And it just brought me back to that analogy. But when I worked in corporate America, the other thing that spoke to me was when we had someone that said, and this, this has been running around in my mind, personally, myself, someone said we have the service the families. I am a true believer that you cannot service the children without servicing the families.
And that's the piece that think we're missing. You've got to hold parents accountable. You've got to service the entire families. Because if you
again, me and my analogies, you put a drug addict back into the drug den that person's going to go back into drugs. So we've got to serve as that entire family. And there's ways to do that. And we have those ways already in our system that we can easily incorporate without doing a lot of legislation. So and I don't want to get into you know, I just want to tell you what spoke to me. And the last piece that spoke to me was and someone talked about hard to find programs. Wow. That one almost tore my heart apart. Because I can remember years ago when the United Way did a program where they brought together all these so many programs under one house because we had the exact same problem where people were having difficulties finding some programs. So if we're having problems finding youth programs, we need to do something similar to that. I mean, if part of the problem is that people can't find programs to put their children in. But that is a big disconnect. So those are things that really stood out. I mean, there were several other things. But those were things that just really hit me hard and heavy as I heard the people make their comments. And, you know, based upon those things, there were some things that I felt that we could do right away to start making, putting some reality checks into some of those things. Thank you remember hers. Mr. Kramer?
Yes. Hi. First, I'd like to thank everyone for coming out. And I'd like to make a blanket statement. I think that all of the participants that spoke, there was not one person that did not say something that was very valuable for for and couldn't be used and probably is being used, we just maybe don't know it. Then I'd like to move on and say that. All right. I think a sculpt right now was myopic, by nature of our organization, we are the city of Atlanta only. This problem is not just the city of Atlanta problem. It is nationwide. When I was coming up in the early 60s, we had a program called neighborhood youth program, and it was funded by the federal government, it would take an educate kids from them were just maybe did not have a place where they were going in terms of their future. And it would educate them in the sciences of computer science, and would take them all the way into programming, if that's what they had a propensity for, or maybe computer operations and so on, and was something that was a tool that was useful, useful. And it also afforded the child an opportunity to have respect for themselves. They were going somewhere. And right now we have a tendency, I think, and I'm not trying to find fall. But we have a tendency of highlighting the negative as opposed to the positive. There are a lot of kids that are from single family homes and from dysfunctional families that somehow find a way to slip through and become productive citizens. We need to find those kids, and map out what they have done, which a lot of cases we already know. If you cannot read, you are not going to pretty much make it in this society. You can target kids right now from the second, third, fourth, and fifth, and you can say this person is behind their reading skills. And if they can't read, they are going to wind up in the system 99% of the time, unless they are remediated. So my whole suggestion, and I heard it stated that education was a big part of this. I think so. But I think more specific, you have to target kids that are behind the curve, especially in reading because you might have a propensity for math. But as you get into the higher forms of math, anybody knows you cannot put word problems together because you can't read to put them into an equation. Those are the kinds of things that we need to do. The educational system has to do better at targeting. And I'm not pointing out the educational system because there is blame all around. This is not something that you can point to education you can point to single parents you can point to fathers only or the youth only misses all of our problems. I spoke with my daughter today who is an adult now. And she said based on the happenings of today, the lady that was killed. I can see her as my mother. We're all at risk our mothers, our fathers, our brothers and sisters, it can happen to any one of us at any time. One way is to give hope to the youth where they feel they can Make, make it and make it does not mean being a doctor, we have to get rid of being a doctor being an engineer being something high up on the hog an attorney, just the everyday worker, a bus driver, a taxicab driver, a plumber, or whatever. We all have values if we do not instill in our youth that every single job that is done today has a value. And you can produce cans, you can work hard, and your kids, the next generation possibly might go beyond you. That's the kind of health that we have to present to our children. And I can go on and on and on. I took a lot of copious notes. But that's that's the basic premise, we have to stop highlighting the positive. And we have to ensure that kids that are falling in the crack in these early grades are caught and put into a position to succeed. Because right now, we can point to that and say that is really one of the major problems. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. tumor. Everett,
Thank you, Karen Edwards, son from the city law department. And I want to add to my colleagues here to say thank you, I took a lot of notes. But I did want to say that what I heard was that this has to be done. All these issues, resolutions need to be worked through as a community that is collaborative and strategic, that we have to open up to the youth and listen to them as well, that there's multiple organizations out there that we need to connect with. And that the programs have to fit the child. And that we have to look at education, economics, the activities that are available, and family resources. And I just did that was just all a wealth of information that I think will help us all as we try to work on this together.
Thank you, Mr. Reid.
Levy, city of Atlanta, Atlanta citizen review board, like everyone has just mentioned, I want to say definitely thank you for coming out. What I took from it. And what I think is really important, is this idea of and the thought of collective, holistic approach. The problems are so vast, and the reasons for the problems are so vast, that we're not going to be able to just do anything more than one silver bullet to take care of the issues. So I think we keep that collective spirit in this in this holistic approach, thought that we can really get some things done. Thank you again, for coming out. Thank you, Mr. Reid, Mr. Brown.
I just want to thank everybody for coming out. My name is Chris Brown, Chairman of the National Planning Advisory Board Public Safety Committee. And this committee meets with our 25 MP use. And I want to encourage each each and every one of you guys to get involved in your communities and your neighborhood planning units is great that we come down here to engage with the City Council at large and to engage with this commission. Part of our work. We also go into these workgroups that has also been comprised in his various police zones across the city of Atlanta, the system of elected officials and delegation of people, including community members and nonprofits, but get engaged and be a part of actually be a community. Again, I think we talked about things from the past. And one thing we know was being being a community and having these programs, the first thing we need to know is where the programs were and what services to offer. We're trying to compare information and I took a lot of notes to add on to what we're doing. And I just want to thank you all for coming up because it's much needed, as we talk about curfew and other things as strategic planning goals is that you out embrace the thought process as we rebuild relationships between law enforcement and a community at large. I think that sometimes we are separated as a community out of fear of what we don't know. But we must do something. And this commission is comprised to dedicate themselves to dedicate ourselves and making a change and to provide a recommendation to the city council to make whatever strategic plans and outlast that you guys identify, but we just thank you to continue to show up. Don't be afraid to use your voice. Don't be afraid and listen, let's be real. Let's embrace those teachers. You know, we talked about the school systems but we got to embrace those People who are charged were educated in in being over those cases in the school system on a day to day basis. So thank you for coming out. And I look forward to seeing you guys in January as well.
Thank you, Mr. Brown. Other comments from the Commission, Mr. Anderson?
Yeah, absolutely agree with so many suggestions and sentiments that I that I heard from the people that spoke on a microphone. But there are two things that really stand out to me. Just living living near just north Donnelly Halliwell, responding to so many calls where people are perpetrators and victims of violence. And so many intricate, small things are overlooked. So I have a bit of an unorthodox approach when it comes to crime, I always try to keep in mind, what is the incentive of a person doing this. And so I think we need to keep in mind when we structure our programs and make an approach to the youth that we are competing against an economic opportunity in their minds. You have to think, if you are a 12 year old male, and I just want to be very transparent, at that time, you're making decisions to be love, respected and accepted, based on your understanding of it. So this means you know, reciprocity, from the opposite sex, if that's what you like, you want to be adored, and accepted by your peer group. And so you feel like there's nothing in front of you that you can excel in. But you find something in the streets that you're good at. And I'm a really good, I'm not I don't mean to glorify, you know, crime in any way, shape, or form. But you have to look at the economic incentive and understand this is what we're going against, what what can we sell to the youth to get them to buy in to a sustainable future, something, a career, or a financial path over the long term, that you will stay engaged in it. And that also dovetails with so many things that I heard people say, around interest, we really have to be specific and intentional on being analytic, when we figure out the, the interests of the youth. So it starts there, if I can catch you by your passion, and then and sell you a career, or even a job that can that can be a stepping stone into something greater. That's amazing. We can pull all types of millionaires out of the city of Atlanta when our youth because they're very talented. But keep in mind you you're competing with the money in the street, you're competing with the dreams that are not always very practical that we're seeing on social media as well. Social media is specifically engineered to compete with anything else that keeps your time I have I've been a victim of getting on my phone again on tick tock feels like it's been 15 minutes. And it's been three hours. But we live in a world where your attention and your interests are being fought for us. So we have to be aggressive in that same aspect, or looking at our kids. So I don't I don't want to keep us too long. But I just wanted to share, totally agree with pretty much everyone said thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Anderson. Additional comments from the Commission. Okay, and I'll make some final remarks. Thank you, again, everybody who's in attendance today, or watching from home or spoke or share their stories, their ideas and their recommendations. The priority of today's special meeting was really to give us an opportunity to listen to hear and to try to understand and to interact with you to the best of our abilities as we continue to move through our agenda, our objectives to make reasonable recommendations to city council embedded in that are accountability and opportunities for the work to address this issue to move forward. That was the overarching goal, at least for me as the chair of this commission. One thing I want to acknowledge is that there is a collective intuition about what is being experienced in the community and what it takes to address it that I think goes under acknowledged on a regular basis by the larger entities that work on these problems. And this commission in its initial structure, we are still in our infancy we're just starting and we have a very short period of time to make a large impact. But from the beginning we have set out a framework in which we are operating that includes community voice community engagement prioritizes that and does and has asked where are the you Is the conversation, something that's been systemically lacking and work done? Across the country, lots of people in organizations get it. And lots don't, there's always an opportunity to do that better. And so I hear that. As a final thought, a lot of the things that were shared and suggested today are things that have already been in discussion by the Commission. And I don't say that, to assuage you that we're doing all the right things I don't purport to think that we are, we want to continue to engage and interact with you, we want to hear about every single organization that's doing this work, I echo the comment that a lot of the efforts have been siloed. I've worked in violence prevention for more than seven years now. And what the ecosystem looks like for public safety and violence prevention today in Atlanta, at the organization level is much, much different than it did looks much different than it did seven years ago. But what still is missing are these organizations, you as individuals, many people voicing that they are available and want to do the work and many voicing that they're already entities that are doing the work and our visibility of you all as individuals and your efforts and the organization. So we have made it a priority as a part of our framework to start to incorporate those. And I'm looking forward to getting to the list where people have shared what their organizations are, or that they're making themselves available. So please continue to do that. If you can think or know of anyone else who's not here today, who hasn't been able to share the work that they're doing, we will do our best to make available way to get in contact with the Commission so we can learn more about what's already happening, and pursue recommendations that emphasize sustainability, opportunity, supportive evaluation of the work that's happening and growth of that. So we can set reasonable expectations around how long it really takes impact the youth in our communities to affect change, and to not give up on it before it doesn't show immediate outcomes. This requires patience, and it requires commitment. And I hope that's what you get from this Commission. Thank you all. Any other comments from the Commission before we adjourn the meeting? Thank you all so much. Meeting adjourned.