I want to welcome everyone to our January 9th, 2024 City Council work session.

It is.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Just make one comment prior to.

So uh just so council would know, this past Thursday, we had a the Hampton Roads uh Transportation Planning Organization had its quarterly meeting uh on there's a mayor's task force on gun violence, and uh they sort of um had three presenters on how different cities are dealing with with violence and uh and and gun uh uh gun issues.

And we had our two two folks that are on the task force, the Dr.

Bailey and I got to talk to present or at least uh they were there and made uh presentations and uh did a really good job of explaining the the things that are happening here in Chesapeake, and so I was really proud to see that our city is sort of ahead of uh the game on that and uh certainly doing our part to keep gun violence down.

I know that this issue is not just about that, but it certainly is related.

And I just wanted council to know that uh we were I think came out in a good light compared to other cities in Hampton Roads.

As other cities are doing some wonderful things as well.

I don't mean to say we're doing anything better, but it's good to see that we are taking action.

Could I just interject here and thank the manager and you, Mayor?

Because you do it this is was initially about gun violence, and you too do attempt very well to keep the focus on that when the other cities seem to be going in a different direction.

So our support of the law enforcement agencies, I think it's been very important and very critical, and I thank you both for keeping that in the forefront.

Well, I appreciate that.

That's actually an and we have a wonderful team working on this, and it's an excellent introduction because you are right.

The genesis of these conversations was gun violence.

We we had um some incidents of gun violence in the community, and it's a failed strategy just to think you're going to arrest yourself out of the situation.

And so the the police and our law enforcement, it's a big piece of the puzzle.

Our legislative priorities and getting tools back in the toolkit is a big piece of the puzzle.

Um, but we also have important roles for the infrastructure that that we develop and and and put into place, public-private partnerships, um uh programs and services that we provide in in combination with schools and libraries and parks and recreation.

Um so it really is a holistic strategy, and sometimes when we're bringing things forward for your consideration, we as staff, even and certainly I'm sure the public, we lose sight of the fact that it is a holistic issue and a holistic strategy with lots of different moving parts.

And so when we bring you issues like a budget proposal or a new program or service or a potential um redevelopment opportunity, they can seem isolated from one another, can seem like, well, we're just doing a thing or a tactic rather than addressing the overall strategy of reducing gun violence and improving communities and the outcomes that we're trying to achieve.

So we as a team thought it would be best to take a step back and talk about the outcomes that we're trying to achieve in the community and some of those interrelated parts that are working towards um working towards that goal where we've had some successes to date and where we still have some some work to to do, um and we've brought the experts uh um to to talk to you a little bit um about some of those things tonight.

So with that, I'll turn it over to Dr.

Bailey.

Good evening, um, mayor, vice mayor, and city council members.

It's my pleasure to provide an update on the hard work and dedication of so many people in and around the Campus Stella community.

These outcomes are the results of you, city departments, nonprofits, businesses, and the faith-based community, and most important, residents working together to decrease violent crimes in the community and increase the trust between the partners previously mentioned and the community.

I'd like to introduce the presenters tonight, Campton Landfair, previously the captain of the fifth precinct, and um recently he's been, I'm gonna say promoted to headquarters.

And um, congratulations.

He's like, you see how happy he is to be there.

And um, Matika Sawyer, who is on her way here, and we're praying for her safety and that she will get here safely.

She is the executive director for the League of Advocates.

Um, Terrell Cuffy, um, who um also provides services and serves as the board chair for the League of Advocates, wishes he could be here.

He is actually out of the country and um serving his duty as a merchant marine um for a couple of months, and definitely wishes he could be here, I think.

Also in the audience is the new captain for the fifth precinct, Captain Jonathan Williams.

And um, as you can see, there are multiple resource partners that you'll hear about from this report.

As you can see, I feel really supported from the back.

For those who are not familiar with the background and the formation of the task force on July 27th, believe it or not, it was 2021 that Matika Sawyer, Tyrell Cuffey, and other Campus Stella community members asked council for support in combating the recent acts of violence experienced in their community.

On August 3rd, the first mayor's task force meeting for Campistella was held with Campus Stella's um community members and resource members to develop a plan of action to address the needs of community.

Tonight is just a short summary of an updated report from the final task for that we provided a September of 2022.

This presentation is a result of multiple agencies putting their hard work on one slide.

Needless to say, I cannot do the work justice of what they provided just from a slide.

The request is for each organization to provide information in their own words.

So please realize that it's much more than just the words that are on the paper, but they were all trying to achieve these positive outcomes in which you will hear about.

The themes you will hear one of partnership and outreach.

Outreach in the sense that resources are literally being taken and delivered in the community at the doors of the people in Campostella, and as well as in the community vice having the people come to the resource that may be in the community.

Halfway member I have to double do here.

So tonight we're going to focus about the task forces focus areas, and these are what we are what I should say that the members on the task force determine.

But members of the task force remember included most importantly the community members.

So we're also going to talk about the Chesapeake Police Initiatives, the League of Advocate Initiatives, and then building the trust and the partnerships.

So these are what in early part of 2022.

The task force surveyed the community in door-to-door surveys as well as online surveys.

So what you see are the following focus areas that the community determined in priority order.

In and out of school activities for the youth that included family programs, community safety, workforce development, community beautification and cleanup, which also included food distribution as well as transportation.

From this updated report, you will see these areas are heavy lift.

They required and still require community engagement and partners.

So what you see here are just some of the physical things relative to what we considered as a task force and what you have now.