Good evening.

Uh thank you for joining us tonight.

My name is Council President TJ Clark, and I am joined by Councilman John Gale.

Councilman I can't hear you.

You can't hear us.

Can you hear us now?

Yeah.

You can.

Okay.

All right.

Let me start over.

Good evening, everyone.

Uh would like to call this Court of Common Council public comment meeting to order for today, February 9th, 2026.

My name is Councilman TJ Clark.

I'm the Council President.

I have Councilman John Gale here.

Councilman Alex, sorry, Alex Thomas.

Uh we have on our screen uh councilwoman Marilyn Rosetti, Councilwoman uh Mally Rosato, and that is all.

This public comment is being broadcasted live on HPATV uh dot org.

Comcast Xfinity Channel 96, Frontier Government Channel 6032.

It's also streamed on HPA TV Facebook and will be made available on HPA TV YouTube channels.

Thank you for being here today.

Would like for you to please um listen for uh the following disclaimer.

Public comments shall be conducted in accordance with the following procedures.

Each person wishing to address the council shall therefore upon recognition by the presiding officer, give his or her name, address, and if he or she represents a group, shall in addition state for the record the name and address of said group or organization and shall limit his or her comments to three minutes.

Councilman John Gale will be the timekeeper.

All remarks shall be addressed to the council as a body and not to an individual member thereof.

Any person making personal and pertinent or slanderous remarks or who becomes voicerous while addressing the council shall be forthwith barred by the presiding officer from further audience at said meeting unless permission to remain is granted by two-thirds vote of the council members present in voting.

During the public comment, there should be shall be no debate by the council, although questions may be asked by the council to persons making such presentation.

Thank you for joining us.

Tonight is Keisha Dickinson.

She should be virtual if she's not, you can move on too.

All right, we're moving on.

Let me know if she's here.

Keisha.

Yes, this is she.

Good evening.

Uh, you have three minutes.

Okay, thank you.

All right.

So my apologies for not being able to come in person.

I'm not feeling well.

My name is Keisha Dickinson Volt.

I serve as chairs of the Upper Albany neighborhood revitalization zone, and I am also a member of the North Harford Public Safety Coalition.

I'm here tonight to speak from the perspective of a neighborhood leader who hears from the residents every day about what it feels like to move through our streets.

In Upper Albany and surrounding neighborhoods, traffic violence is not theoretical.

It shows up as speeding on residential quarters, unsafe crossings near schools and bus stops and streets that prioritize moving cars quickly over protecting people.

Residents tell us they plan their walks around fear.

Parents worry about their children crossing the street.

Seniors hesitate to leave their homes.

That is not that is not what a safe, healthy neighborhood looks like.

Declaring stock violence, a public health crisis is not symbolic.

It is necessary step toward coordinating agencies, centering equity, and making safety the priority.

It should have always been.

On behalf of the upper Albany residents and the North Harvard Public Safety Coalition, I urge you to support this resolution and convince to its full implementation.

Thank you for your leadership and your attention.

Thank you very much.

Reverend Henry Brown.

Your name is on the list.

Uh to better protect our residents.

Too many people are being hit by cars.

Too many people are breaking the laws and traffic.

They don't stop for people.

The in and out of traffic don't stop for red light, they don't stop for nothing.

And that has to stop.

We had so many young people losing their lives because of motor vehicles last year.

Malachi Jane was an example.

That young man shouldn't have lost his life if things were in place to prevent.

We'll talk about preventive measures here.

Something to make our residents safe, our children safe.

Amen.

Because there's too much going on with these vehicles.

People don't have any respect for the laws.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Henrietta Beckman.

Good afternoon.

Henrietta Beckman.

Harford residents for over 50 years.

President Mothers United against Islands.

And also a mother, grandmother, great-grandmama in this city.

On behalf of Malachi's family, that we are sorry for your loss in our city.

And we know that cars, motor vehicles, it's a big problem in our city.

We have had mothers who have suffered vehicular homicides in our cities because of people's recklessness.

Their disregard for the laws, the disregard for other people.

So we just want to support this resolution in the name of Malachi James and all this the um citizens and the young people and old people who are some who are afraid to cross the street.

I saw this lady, she was on Omni Avenue going across the street, and she stepped off the curve, and a car was at a light, and it went around another car about to hit the lady.

And we see this all the time.

Cars, you're I'm at a stoplight, and I can look in my mirror.

I see you coming up, and you're in the left lane, gonna turn right in front of me.

You don't know if somebody's crossing that street or you know, a child is walking by people have to respect the laws of the driving.

If you can't do that, then they shouldn't be on the road.

So I just want to say again, thank you for listening to me.

And like again, Sam sorry for your diaphragm.

Thank you, Mr.

Thank you.

Lawrence Williams.

Hi, can you please mute your screen, please?

Good evening.

Good evening.

My name is uh Lawrence Williams.

I'm a resident of Harford, and I live on Edgewood Street, the north end of the city.

I am also a member of the board of Upper Albany Revitalization Zone, and also a member of the Harford Public Safety Coalition.

I'm also an advisor to the Send Pipeline and a member of Harford Next.

I was compelled to join Upper Albany Revitalization Zone because I was concerned about the behavior of people driving through our neighborhood after someone totaled my truck and ran away.

A call to the police told me to call my insurance company because whoever did it is going to say that their car had been stolen.

A call to City Hall told me if I wanted a speed bump on my street, I have to join the NRZ.

So I did that.

So I got a little nervous to this.

Excuse my nutshell.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I believe in working with concerned neighbors to find solutions to issues that negatively impact our quality of life and economic well-being.

Together, we are responsible for the kind of living conditions we have in a lot in our city.

And the big one has been traffic.

You know, on a personal end.

And it seems like on an annual basis, he has to replace that fence.

So that's an economic cost to him.

You know, he's gonna not have a decent property value from trying to sell that corner a lot because of people tearing out his fence and add it to his cost to live in the neighborhood.

Those incidents cost people our neighborhood economically and increased insurance premiums, loss of value to their car, money paid as a deductible to the insurance company, and time spent trying to get the insurance company to give you a fair settlement on your claim losses.

Not to mention paying auto auto-generated tax assessment on a car that had lost market value, some additional costs for just being in Harford.

In addition to the economic cost of reckless driving with our community, there's an undue emotional cost to losing a loved one to the reckless choices of someone else.

In 2019, I lost a cousin to a hit and run driver on Washington Street.

Her name was Charlene Mansfield.

Some of you may know her.

She was 55 years old, trying to walk across the street.

And in December of 2022, my grandson was involved in the accident on Main Street and Trumbled.

His car was total, and he sustained injuries that he would probably have to carry for the rest of his life.

And the person ran away and left him for dead.

25 years old.

Pissed me off.

Excuse my language.

Anyway.

And in September 2023, office of Bobby Garden of the Harvard Police Department was killed in an accident by someone driving in disregard of how his actions could affect others.

I know some of the council are compelled to do something about this issue.

In 2021, Councilwoman Mally Rizzato introduced a resolution to form the Relay Task Force.

The resolution passed.

So people couldn't keep saying someone stole my car.

And other suggestions to change the aberrant behavior of some driver in our city.

Task Force Members God's citations, thanking us for our service.

And we saw little to nothing else except at least three more people dying on Albany Avenue by automobile drivers.

Can you please summarize?

Come on.

Your time has expired.

I'm done.

Let me finish this up.

I submit to you to Harvard City Council.

The time to do something is now.

This resolution name for Malachi James.

There's a list of suggestions and a comprehensive rendering of the challenges ahead and make an Australia safer for us all.

And I suggest that you pass this resolution so our neighbors can have a commitment from City Harvard.

Thank you.

Deborah Davis.

Deborah Davis, Mothers United Against Violence.

And we want to use this opportunity, and I want to use this opportunity to express there's so many folks in this city that have been impacted by automobile accidents.

Violence, which is violence, it equates to violence, the taking of a life.

Our fatalities from last year, I believe it was 71.

And that's not including all of the highways and the byways, 84 and 91.

But in our communities, we need to start to stand up to protect our families, to protect our residential living.

And it is supposed to be residential.

And one of the things that we found was that individuals are reckless and they don't care.

This resolution is just another push of what was started by the councilwoman to talk about how important it is for us to stand up, see something, say something.

This person was able to move up and down the street for over maybe most of the day without anyone making a phone call.

So our call is to make sure that people in our community can use their phones, they use them for everything else, and make sure that we can do prevention.

This mother is lost a 14-year-old for nothing.

And this word should go forth to all of us that have children, family members, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, moms, like Mrs.

Beckman said, walking across the street is dangerous.

And individuals could be on something driving.

We have to keep them off the street.

They're not paying attention.

But this is recklessness.

And the city of Harford has to stand up to prevent and intervene on our behalf so that we can prevent the tragedies that have been happening over the years.

This may be a beginning, but this resolution has teeth in it.

Because it brings the major departments together.

It also helps to bring the community together, the advocates.

I got a lot of moms here.

Moms, why don't you stand up?

We got a lot of folks here that came out because they wanted to know, they wanted to see some change.

They don't want it to be the status quo.

They want change.

And so we're standing here because we want to get in some good trouble.

Some good trouble.

We want to make sure that we can stand and that we can have the army with us to help us move through this resolution.

We want to thank you for listening, but more importantly, we want to give send up prayers for this mom who has had her 14-year-old taken and has been in grief forever.

It never stops.

We're moms too that have been victimized.

So we understand that.

As a mother that have had a child taken, for us, violence is violence.

And we would say no more violence.

Move this resolution through.

Thank you.

Brother Calvin Lovejoy.

All right.

What's up, brother?

Good evening, President, Council, and Council members, and of course, Hartford residents.

My name is Brother Calvin X Lovejoy, 51 Barber Street, Hartford, Connecticut.

I'm a lifelong resident of Hartford, Connecticut.

I stand before you tonight as a father, a community organizer, a youth advocate, a member of the North Hartford Public Safety Coalition, and student minister at Mohammed Moss No.

I come in full support of this resolution declaring traffic violence, a public health crisis, and establishing a vision zero rapid response framework for our beloved city.

But I want to be clear right from the beginning.

Traffic violence is not accidental, it is structural.

It is the result of policy decisions, infrastructure design, enforcement gaps, and delayed action.

And unfortunately, it is our children, it is our elderly in our most vulnerable neighborhoods who have to pay a price.

When a young life is lost on these Hartford streets, like our young brother Malachi, it is called tragedy.

But when we know the corridors, when we know the intersections, when we know the patterns, intervention delayed, then it is no longer tragedy, it becomes negligence.

Declaring traffic violence, a public health crisis is not symbolic.

It is strategic.

Because public health crisis demand a few things.

It demands good data and tracking, rapid response, prevention planning, equity investment, community accountability.

We treat viruses the same way.

We treat environmental hazards the same way.

So why not treat traffic violence the same way?

When the outcomes are just as deadly from a public health standpoint, we must recognize high injury quarters are not randomly distributed.

They are concentrated in hard working neighborhoods in black and brown communities in areas where sidewalks are incomplete, lighting is poor, speed enforcement is inconsistent.

So this resolution, this resolution is also about equity.

It is about justice.

It says that a child walking to school on Albany Avenue, Barber Street, Blue Hills.

Let me say that again.

Blue Hills deserves the same safety protection as someone driving in West Hartford.

As someone who works daily with young people, and I have my co-workers here.

We work with the young people in the city of Hartford.

I can tell you that they do not separate traffic violence from community violence.

To them, unsafe streets are part of the same ecosystem of neglect.

Let me wrap this up.

Safe streets are not a luxury.

They are right, Hartford.

And the measure of a city is not how it protects its busiest corridors, but how it protects the most vulnerable corridors.

Let Hartford show courage, show data, show equity, and most importantly, let Hartford lead with the value that every life in Hartford matters.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Fiel and Haldane.

I'm a resident of Hartford.

I live on Lebanon Street.

I'm also the executive director of Advocacy the Legacy, whose mission is to educate individuals, families, and communities how to advocate for themselves in order to change lives.

We are in support of this Vision Zero Rapid Response Resolution.

The young people and I have been working on walk audits and supporting quit failed projects and traffic calming in the city for a couple years now.

We have seen the results of that work, and we see the results of when the city of Hartford, residents, and organizations come together with an idea and put it into action.

And in addition to all of the articles, items that are listed in the resolution.

We're hoping that as part of this work, we will look at the master plan and revisit it because we also have young people and adults dying, unfortunately, due to traffic accidents, cars hitting people bicycling throughout the street.

So again, we are in support of the Vision Zero rapid response and are asking that this resolution go forward.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Lucretia Williams.

To the council president, members of the council.

I firstly would like to take time to give God the honor and praise for allowing me to have a voice to speak on the unsafe events that has taken place on the streets of Hartford and surrounding towns.

I'm here on behalf of the North Hartford Public Safety Coalition.

I'm also here as a citizen and a mother who has lost two of the most important people in my life.

I lost my daughter, Shemaria Williams on July 5th, 2024.

Right after the celebrations of the Fourth of July, Independence Day.

She left a party to head back to her car on Cleveland Avenue, in which the street was packed to the capacity.

No police patrol, no nothing.

Street packed.

Couldn't even get out the street.

So many cars was there, it was unbearable.

The safety and that manner was a concern to me.

As my daughter approached to get in her car, gun license owners started shooting at each other.

My daughter was hit by one of their bullets in her heart from the back.

She was before she got shot, she was trying to get out the crowded, the packed street.

She couldn't get out.

Before she can get out, she was shot.

She wasn't in no dispute, just an innocent young lady, beautiful, beautiful lady, young lady.

I mean, she worked, she worked her butt off.

She worked with the mental health disabled people.

She worked with the drug addicts.

Just she was she worked for Dungarvin.

And she was just a bright, innocent loss of life.

I also lost a brother in 2010, gun violence.

He was shot nine times, and he was burnt up in a car on Pembroke.

I want to send my condolences out to the Malachi family, sending love and light.

And I let y'all know God is in control.

That's it.

That was his child.

The same way I right now, I'm feeling right now about my daughter.

My daughter was his child before mine.

So I hold God to my heart.

I let him walk with me, talk with me, because that's my strength.

To the city councils, presidents.

If you can hold a place in your heart to just think about the loved ones you may have lost, not due to gun violence or road rage, but just the passionate in your heart to look and hear from the peoples that want safety.

This is the capital.

Our capital is worse.

It's like I never seen nothing in my life.

And I'm a 45-year-old resident of Hartford.

And I just sat back and just watch and see the death, the death toll.

They try to cover it up, but it ain't no covering it up no more.

People is really losing their lives.

And I just want to say, I ask of you all as we bring forth the bills, the proposals, the resolutions.

We ask that y'all just put your heart in it and just listen to how we feel about us losing our family members.

Like I'm overwhelmed, but you know, I'm about to wrap this up because I ain't even go off the script, but I feel like at this point in our lives, we have sat back and let too many things go by without letting the people hear from us.

The people need to talk and be able to speak to you all so you when you all go to do these bills, y'all are able to stand together and put your hearts together and come up with a good resolution.

You know, I think that is one of the main things.

If you all are open to just coming together and making a resolution to make Harford safer, and that's all I asked, and I want to say blessings and sending love and light, y'all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening to this council and to the residents of the city of Hartford.

Of course, I am the pastor of the Metropolitan AM Zion Church on Main Street, as well as a resident that live on Ridgefield Street.

Because of my denomination, I didn't ask to come to Hartford.

The Methodist Church decided to send me to Hartford.

And because they sent me to Hartford, my family and I, we moved to the residence in which we live on Ridgefield Street, and excited about perhaps taking my two young kids to play in the park.

Strangely enough, as I decided we were going to walk over to the park.

We were met with all types of traffic that was rushing down Ridgefield.

And immediately at that moment, I decided then that I don't think that's the place that we're gonna play.

And I offer these remarks on my behalf and on behalf of so many that are here tonight simply because from my perspective as a pastor, far too often we have a daunting task of delivering farewell news and in hope to give good news to families who have lost loved ones.

And in fact, I think every single last one of us can close our eyes and we can picture people.

We have known friends and family members, high school teammates, co-workers, someone whose life needlessly ended far too soon because of a crash on our streets and in our city.

Think about it, friends.

The number of deaths, the number of injuries per month on our roads, people are driving at high speeds, driving distracted.

We have a crisis in our city, and this is an urgent matter.

Kids deserve to feel safe while walking to school or in the park.

Seniors and moms and dads who we watched walk to bus stops deserve to be able to walk in a clean way on a clear street and not have to worry about jumping out of the road because someone is riding fast on the road.

And sadly, I've watched drivers pass people at high speeds who are riding bikes or at student dismissals.

You would think that some of these drivers would slow down, and I feel like they speed up instead of slowing down.

In fact, some of our intersections have a lethal reputation.

And I'm hopeful, very hopeful that this council will continue to make this a priority so we can have safe streets for walking, for biking, for skating, and however people get around in our city.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Pastor AJ Johnson.

Good evening, Council President and members of the council.

My name is Pastor AJ Johnson, and I'm here representing the North Hartford Public Safety Coalition.

A coalition of residents, faith leaders, neighborhood leaders, and advocates committed to making public safety proactive, equitable, and accountable.

We are here tonight because traffic violence is not accidental.

It is predictable.

It is preventable.

And when we fail to respond with urgency, it becomes normalized.

Hartford adopted Vision Zero years ago, and that commitment matters, but a commitment without structure does not save lives.

Without clear timelines, cross-department coordination, and accountability, we're left reacting after tragedy instead of preventing the next one.

This resolution tonight, this resolution changes that.

It declares traffic violence a public health crisis.

It requires rapid safety reviews after fatal in serious crashes.

It prioritizes high-injury corridors, and it enters and it centers equity for the neighborhoods that are most impacted.

Tonight, you heard from a mother who lost her daughter while she was doing nothing wrong.

You heard from neighborhood leadership describing streets that feel unsafe every single day.

Those stories are not separate from this policy.

They are the reason this policy is necessary.

We also lift up the memory of Malachi James, a young life whose name should never have to be invoked to move us to action.

Malaskai's story reminds us that behind every statistic is a child, a family, and a community forever changed.

This resolution is about ensuring we do not continue to add names to that list.

And Council members Rosado and Rossetti for showing up beyond these chambers, specifically attending our North Hartford Public Safety Coalition research action where we engage directly with Mayor Cantor of West Hartford to better understand what Vision Zero looks like in practice and how it's saving lives there.

That kind of leadership in willingness to learn matters.

This resolution says Hartford will no longer wait for the next name, the next visual, or the next family to grieve before acting on behalf of the North Hartford Public Safety Coalition.

We urge you to pass this resolution and commit to its full implementation.

So Vision Zero becomes a standard.

We are held accountable to, not just the goal we reference.

Thank you so much for your leadership, and thank you so much for your vote.

Thank you.

Next speaker, Beverly Hines.

I would just like to encourage everyone who has signed up to speak.

If you can please keep your comments to three minutes, we do have still more speakers to go.

So just be very cognizant of that.

Thank you.

Good evening, everyone.

Good evening to the council.

And this weekend I was hanging out with Harriet Tubman.

And I was talking to her about what was happening here.

And this was what we spoke about.

She said it's okay for me to go ahead and tell you this.

We have walked with our faces looking for the sun.

Weight on our shoulders, a written script rolled in our hands.

I've got thoughts in the front of my mind, wondering why our families just can't have fun.

Our streets are constant battlefields, moving weapons, whether the cars or the clapping of the guns.

Together, we're advocating for safer streets and homes.

All across the city, families are dying.

Can you hear them calling?

Calling me to answer.

They're continuously weeping.

I can feel it in my bones.

Early every morning, before the sun begins to shine, we hear sirenes wailing.

In these streets and homes, we are surrounded by danger, wading through bloody hardened streets.

But you know, our minds are made up.

We must stop the accidental spilling of our blood.

As we take the back road to safety in jail cells and ER rooms, followed by R.I.P.

and concrete tombs.

That's why I'm here to stand up.

Take my people with me.

Together, we are declaring we need safer homes.

From Rawson to MLK to Weaver.

I hear safety calling, calling us to answer.

We just can't stop crying.

We gotta keep pressing on.

Our children only envision what's in the other cities.

It might be hard to accept, but I'm not standing alone.

The Lord sees what we are doing, and we shall not fail them.

We have to do it before the stars fill up the sky.

So I'm here to stand up, bring all of Hartford with me together.

We are pleading just for safer streets and homes.

We are calling, calling West Hartford because the Hartford homes are weeping, calling us to answer the phone lines, busy tones.

Today, as we stand up, take our people with us.

We tread across the river, inviting East Hartford.

Come on to I hear Malekai calling.

He's calling us to answer.

He says we gotta keep on walking just to save our homes.

Far across the river, Middletown is mourning.

We can feel it in our bones.

We can hear Malachi calling.

He says, Change the streets of Hartford.

Man the streets of Hartford.

Clean the streets of Hartford.

Preserve the families of Hartford so our children will be free to roll.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Cheryl Banks.

Cheryl Banks.

Okay.

Moving on.

Hollotis Holloway.

Hi, good evening, City of Council, President, and City Council members.

My name is Royal Saez.

I am a family member of Jalidas Holloway.

I'm going to read a statement on her behalf because this is really tough for her right now.

Quick note for her.

She likes to say this resolution honors my son's life and legacy.

It is a start to help people become more aware that if you see something, say something.

Again, my name is Royal Sayez, family member of Jalidas Holloway, inaugural flow artist of the city of Hartford.

My name is Jalidas Holloway, and I am here today as the mother of Malachi James.

On Christmas Day, while most families were opening gifts and celebrating, my life was forever changed because of a high-speed collision involving a nearly 7,000-pound cyber truck.

My 14-year-old son is gone.

And his father, sister, and two-year-old niece were left broken and fighting for their lives in the wreckage.

I am standing before you to support this resolution because what happened to my son wasn't just a tragedy, it was a wake-up call.

No mother should ever have to experience the soul-crushing pain of burying her child.

No parents should have to walk past an empty bedroom because the street, because the street wasn't designed for safety.

We need more than just reminders to slow down.

We need a street that forces people to slow down.

Please do not wait for another life to be lost before you decide that our safety matters more than someone's high-speed vehicle.

Let Malachi be the last.

But I'm gonna just um take you a little bit back in time because I have more receipts than a lot of folks that's sitting in here right now.

When they opened uh Clark Street School first year, first year.

Kid was hit 10 years old, had a twin brother, was hit and killed on the corner of Barber and Capem Street.

Later on, there was a kid um that was hit by drunk drivers, not drunk drivers, but uh four kids in a stolen car at Keeney Park.

And then I listened to the pastor talking about bringing his kids over there to play.

This young man lived on Mansfield Street, and he was pinned to a tree by four guys in stolen cars.

Now I've had the I've this this this grievous I've had has been ongoing.

I actually uh spoke with um with uh Medina and Thody before they moved up in the ranks and moved out of out of the Hartford area.

We um this this whole thing with with with the kids driving and stuff and not have a license.

If you go over to the um school down here on Albany Avenue on Blue Hills, in that parking lot, there's a load of kids that go there every day with no license.

You know they don't have license, you know, they're driving very expensive cars and they're just hanging out over there by the library across from the McDonald's.

So I brought that to the attention of the police department.

I don't know if I brought it to the right place because I I don't know if there's any changes that have been done.

But I want you guys to be aware that that exists, and uh someone asked me, well, what can we do about it?

Oh, let me get this in before my time ticks off.

Well, what one of the things we can do is we can we can mimic what they're doing in Middletown.

They have the cameras up, they're taking pictures of license plates, and people are getting shot charged money, and that they're having it, and and the money increases with every increment that a person gets hit.

So we need to think about that as um a method of preventing all of this ignorance that's plaguing the streets of Hartford.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ken Green.

Ken Green.

Oh, there you go.

Good evening, uh, council people.

My name is Ken Green.

I live at 223 Gramby Street in Harford, born and raised.

Uh, I'm not gonna repeat what I've heard this evening because you've heard some powerful statements.

The poem I just heard from the young lady with the children was magnificent.

I want to talk about uh Sister Williams, who said she lost her daughter, brother Williams uh who said he was on a committee and a resolution was passed a few years ago to address this issue.

And I also um want to say that we have to uh I support this resolution uh vision, but I think that we have to do more than just have a resolution to talk about what we need to do.

I think Pastor Johnson and Brother Lovejoy made very clear what the resolution has to do.

Resolutions by itself doesn't change things unless we put some action behind it.

And as you heard before, the residents of the city want action more than they just want words.

So I'm not gonna repeat that because they've laid out the position.

I do want to say that when Sister Williams asked us to stand and to take a moment of silence.

That is a moment where you as an individual can reflect on what you can do to make your city better.

What you can do to be a safer driver yourself, what you can do to talk to your family and say we all have to be more responsible because it does take some personal responsibility from all of us.

And when we get behind that will, and as a professional social worker that deal with the site, when we get behind that will, there's a lot of issues about who we are that we have to practice.

We have to practice patience.

We have to be aware.

We cannot be distracted, and we have to be responsible.

And when you get behind the will, be very careful.

As Brother Phillips just said, there's a lot of other people that won't be responsible.

Be careful out there.

This uh proposal is a valid one, but let's put some action behind these words.

Thank you.

Up next, Dr.

Walton Brown Foster.

Good evening.

Councilman Clark, President Clark, and Council members and residents of Hartford.

I come before you because of an agenda item that will recur later, but I I can't proceed without extending my sincere and deep condolences to all of the members of the Hartford community who are suffering from these circumstances and those who've lost loved ones.

I didn't I came prepared to talk about something else, but I would be remiss because I represent an organization that serves the community of Hartford.

And these are the kind of things that our organization reaches out to you to help with.

Members of the Greater Hartford Chapter of the Lynx Incorporated.

Thank you so much.

And thank you, Councilman Clark.

Thank you very much.

We have three more speakers to go.

Next is Jennifer Holmes.

Good evening, Council members, community leaders, and friends.

My name is Jennifer Holmes, Vice President of the Farmington Valley Chapter of the Lynx Incorporated.

I am bringing greetings on behalf of Trina Williams, our chapter president who is unable to be here this evening.

I too also want to extend our sincere condolences to the many families that have been affected this evening and extend to you our condolences, our deepest sympathy and our support.

We are deeply grateful to the Hartford Court of Common Council for the recognition during Black History Month.

For us, this moment is not only about celebration and especially in light of today's testimonies, but about reflection, reflection on over 45 years of service in the Greater Hartford community.

Our chapter was founded in 1979 on a simple but powerful vision that friendship and integrity, service, and friendship could be used as tools to transform lives.

Since then, our members have worked conscientiously and consistently across five areas of service, supporting youth, advancing the arts, addressing health disparities, mentoring young people, supporting civic engagement, and sympathetic folks, being there for our communities, registering voters, being involved in the political process for neighborhoods, providing scholarships and standing in the gap for those facing socioeconomic hardships and tragedies.

What makes our work meaningful is not just what we do but why we do it.

We believe that service is an expression of love for our community.

We believe that service is an expression of love for our community.

We believe in investing in youth and that it challenges and changes generations.

And we believe that when women come together with purpose, lasting change follows.

So on behalf of our chapter, thank you for seeing our work, valuing our impact, and allowing us to be partners in strengthening the city.

We are honored to serve, and we thank you.

Thank you.

Laver and Terry.

LeBron Terry.

No.

Okay.

Our last speaker, Michael Downs.

Good evening, Council members.

My name is Michael Downs.

I live in 74 Rosemont Street in Hartford.

And I too uh send my condolences to those that lost loved ones to the uh streets of the city of Hartford, uh, the drivers of the city of Hartford that drive in the city of Hartford.

Because I'm well aware that speed kills, reckless driving kills, blowing by stop signs and stop lights kills, and uh somehow that's got to stop.

You can pass all the laws you want, and and that helps, but it's really got to be uh a will, a political will, and a will upon the people of the city of Hartford to um uh be more vigilant when they're driving an automobile, and remind their neighbors and friends to also be vigilant and um also try and uh get the laws enforced that uh uh prevent that uh are against people uh speeding and against people going through stop signs and stoplights and driving recklessly.

Um the main thing I wanted to address tonight is uh education.

The uh Hartford Board of Education, the Hartford Public Schools will be uh have are really engaging now in uh a budget and how they're going to uh balance the budget and and send uh a budget request to the city council and the mayor, and uh I just think that the city council should be thinking about that too.

We have uh three sources that require a lot of political will, guts to go after.

One is the large corporations that uh trillion dollars worth of corporations in the city, and uh that uh many here feel they'll pay their fair share of the tax.

And uh there is also the the uh 550 million dollars that the uh state of Connecticut is owes it past pilot, past pilot, and then of course, um there's the uh fact that the city is responsible for transportation of students.

Uh not to city, excuse me, the state is responsible for the transportation of students, the responsible for integration of schools, and uh they should take over that.

She now know about that.

So I did send her a text over the weekend, but the problem is she thinks that she has all the calendars here.

Can you please excuse me?

Well, can you please use description?

And then when you click into them, all right.

Well, anyway, you you you can reclaim some of your time.

Uh I'm just gonna end up by saying that the state should pay the 300 uh three 30 million dollars in uh in the transportation costs of the city of Hartford.

And uh that would greatly uh alleviate the uh uh the uh imbalance of the uh school budget.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Okay, since we do not have any other speakers that signed up, uh yes.

Yes.

First of all, I just wanted to say, you know, uh can you bring the mic down?

Yeah, I I feel very sad about everything that I heard today.

Um I'm surprised.

I came here for different things to talk about, but I think this is important to tell you that yes, there's too many reckless drivers here driving without a license.

Um, no registration, no insurance, and I am also a victim three times.

I've been hit and run.

In different places, and the police says there's nothing we can do, there's no cameras here.

And one of them it was really bad, and thanks God, nothing happened to me.

And it's happening every day, and right now the streets are not clear enough.

It's even more dangerous now because the cars are speeding, and we don't have enough space to drive.

And yes, we need to do something about policing in in the city of Hartford.

I don't know if it's about the budget to hire more police officers, but I want to tell the community.

A lot of people don't want to be police officers anymore.

Because they say they either get in trouble because they say this or they say that.

So I don't think he has nothing to do with not hiring police officers.

They are telling me if we touch them, they say discrimination.

If we do this where they say this, so we yes need more police officers, but I don't think it's uh it's a fault of the city of Hartford.

I think we should encourage more people to become police officers, and I really feel bad for the parents that have lost their family.

I really felt bad.

Hartford is really in bad shape about you know um drivers, reckless drivers, no license, no insurance.

And then when you go to the court, they say it's nothing we can do.

They they they take care of the uh offenders and not the victims.

That's another thing that we need to fix back in legislature.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you.

You you have something to say?

Okay.

Wait.

I know.

After Mr.

After Mr.

Cask is Mr.

Katz did did sign up, I mistakenly omitted Zania Purt, um, who will be after Mr.

Katz, and unfortunately that will conclude public comment because we still have to attend to the business of the council.

If you would like to address the council, you can please do so by emailing all of us or come next month on the first sorry, the second Monday of the month to uh address us publicly.

Thank you.

So because I put up my hand and I'm gonna go to the way I just wouldn't be back on the we can we can have a discussion after this meeting.

We still have to conduct the public comment.

Thank you.

Okay, so you know I I gave up my three minutes before, but I I just wanted to add something to uh uh that's germane to the evening.

I'm I am a huge proponent of cameras at intersections.

It really does work.

It works because ten years ago I was driving around Washington on a quiet autumn morning, and I went over ten miles past the speed limit, and I got a 99 dollar ticket.

There was nothing that I could do about it but pay it.

Anytime I drive around Washington, I'm in sure make sure not to go past the speed limit.

So uh cameras work, and I know the the converse of the argument is we're losing our independence, we're losing our privacy.

We lost our privacy when we went into the information age.

Put cameras all over the place.

Like tulips decorating our dreams, finishing scenes in the fabric of our beings.

Where my hands and feet, where my hands and feet as they meet with others will leave prints that change and rearrange the patterns of our tails.

Tired of streets painted red, where drops of children paints blood.

Where spots are dark, bodies are bodies left a mark without getting a final say.

Thank you very much.

This concludes our public comment.

We will uh start our city council meeting at seven twenty-two.