In March the city manager told the council there were “significant quality of life issues” around the Civil War memorial across from City Hall that “must be addressed immediately.” The letter promised three things, all starting March 23. Six months later, the council’s own record has no report on how any of them went.
The order
District 5 Councillor Lisa Santagate filed Order 2623 for the council’s March 9 meeting. It asked City Manager Fidel Maltez to work with the city solicitor, public works and the police “to explore ways to mitigate littering, loitering and excessive noise around the Civil War Memorial near Shurtleff Street, Broadway and Grove Street, across from City Hall.” Two residents, one from Grove Street and one from Shurtleff Street, spoke in support during public speaking.
What the city promised
Maltez answered in a letter dated March 18, printed in the council packets of March 23 and again April 6. It did not dispute the problem. “We know that there are significant quality of life issues in this area that must be addressed immediately,” Maltez wrote. Starting Monday, March 23, the letter said, the city would:
- Resume weekly walk-throughs of the district with Public Works, the police, Inspectional Services and residents. The city had held them every week the previous fall, and the letter says issues noticeably decreased while they ran. The walk-throughs would also look at whether more signage was needed.
- Increase police impact patrols. The letter says the police chief focused on the area the previous fall “following several incidents,” including assigning detectives “to address and take down illicit activity,” and that results were shared with the Downtown Task Force.
- Meet with property owners, naming Jimmy D’Amico, BayCove and The Neighborhood Developers, and restart the quarterly meetings the city had held in the past.
Each measure was something the city had already done and then stopped, and each worked, by the city’s own account, while it lasted. The letter does not say why they stopped.
What happened next
On April 13 the council’s public safety committee, which Santagate chairs, took up a related order from Councillor Todd Taylor. Taylor said the problems near the monument are citywide and that the council should give the city manager its input before measures are taken. Police Chief Keith Houghton told the committee the city conducts a safety walk in District 5 and said he would support walks in other districts. Asked about the old sector safety meetings, he said attendance had fallen off fast, often to a single member of the public.
After that, the council record goes quiet. We searched every council agenda, packet and set of minutes in our archive from April through the September 14 meeting. None contains a follow-up report on the walk-throughs, the patrols or the property-owner meetings, and Order 2623 does not come back.
That does not mean nothing happened. Walk-throughs and patrols are operational, and their results may have gone to the Downtown Task Force, whose minutes are not in the council packets. What the public record shows is a promise with a start date and no report. The council can ask for one; that is what Order 2623 was for.