All right.

Well, good afternoon, everyone, and welcome um to the May meeting of the Vision Zero Task Force.

A couple things to to talk about to get started.

But before we jump into it, I'm gonna ask folks to um introduce themselves.

And in a couple cases, we have folks who are sitting in uh for other members, so please just note that.

But I'll start.

I'm John Barth, I'm a member of the City County Council, and I'm uh chair of this committee, and I'll uh pass it on to Councilor Nielsen.

Uh thank you, Chairman.

Uh Andy Nielsen, City County Counselor District 14 representing the city council.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair, Derek Cahill, uh City County Council District 23.

Hello, uh, I'm Elena Jones.

I am uh here on behalf of Abby Brands for Department of Business and Neighborhood Services.

Good afternoon, Addison Pollock, Director of Community Engagement with AARP Indiana.

Good afternoon, Ernest Malone, Indianapolis Fire Department.

Abby Hanson, City Controller.

Good afternoon, thank you, Mr.

Chairman Lucas Knee Camp with the Marion Kennedy Prosecutor's Office.

Good afternoon, Todd Wilson, Director of Department of Public Works.

Megan Vukasich, Department of Metropolitan Development.

Taylor Feierstein, Director or Director of Healthy Communities at Health by Design.

Good afternoon, Matt Thomas, Deputy Chief of Operations for the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department.

Okay, thank you to all the members.

And if anyone is interested in making public comments, there's a sign-up sheet on isn't on the podium.

On the podium, thank you.

Okay, so just a few comments um and opening remarks.

Bear with me, this is a little esoteric, and uh some people in the room were with me last night, but there's something um that happened in my district this past weekend that I've been thinking a lot about that has some relevance to here today, I think, and it's that uh on Sunday morning um there was uh at an Airbnb uh multiple shootings, including one fatality, and um which is a uh a tragedy um that I've been spending uh nearly all my time on uh since then.

And last night we had uh I along with the Meridian Kessler Neighborhood Association had a uh public forum where hundred plus people came um to talk about their uh their concern, frustration, anxiety um with what happened.

And one person um during the a really um uh meaningful and um consistent engagement um of QA between the folks who were attending and and the folks who are serving on a panel stood up and and said, um, I just don't understand how we're at a point where um hu humans people are treating other people in this way, are being so um uh disrespectful but also disregarding of um of uh human life and of other people for their own convenience or for their own self-aggrandizement or whatever it may be.

And when I went to respond to her, you know, there's it it you know it's almost it's really an abstract question.

How do you respond to that, right?

And so the first thing that popped into my head was I said, hey, listen, let me just tell you the first thing I think about, and that's that ever since the pandemic, I mean before the pandemic when uh President Lewis and I um passed the complete streets ordinance, but then especially sort of accelerated during the pandemic has been this issue that we're all working on, which is uh how do we make the streets safer for all the users?

And the fact that even though um Councilor Cahill, Councilor Nielsen and I and uh President Lewis um have passed ordinance after ordinance, we we've made some meaningful and important improvements, but still it doesn't change the fact that there are folks out there who um are driving in a way that is reckless and dangerous and um not respectful of other people and is resulting in maybe they get to to where they're going one minute faster, two minutes faster, but in in the process they're making everyone's life uh more dangerous.

Um and I think about that all the time because I I happen to live, I'm I'm I've uh happen to live near a large university where every single year uh a thousand experienced drivers leave the neighborhood and then a thousand inexperienced drivers come in the neighborhood.

And so since I lived so close to the university, I I experienced um a lot of uh questionable driving.

And those folks are in and I guess the point I'm trying to make is that the work we're doing here is the same thing I said to the woman last night about the shooting, which is the only way we can make improvements is by everyone working together, right?

And I've said this phrase over and over um when it comes to vision zero, is that going through the process, this challenging process we've gone through in the last couple years of writing this ordinance, working through it, having the task force be convened, having the ongoing process of engagement that Health by Design managed for us with pop-up events all around the city, creating the actual action plan, all of that is to create that sense of community and that sense of unified purpose so we can get everybody on the same page and we can achieve something really important, which is this incredible goal we have that we're trying to achieve in 10 in 10 years.

So now it's an exciting moment.

I mean, every moment's been exciting because everything's been progress um and walking in the right direction.

But now we have a 10 year plan, and um, even though we've only taken uh a short step towards it, this is um uh we're six months in to it to a 10-year plan, and we're following the ordinance and having this this update uh opportunity and and public engagement opportunity.

So the thing I think about a lot is I think every counselor on here, and I'm sure DPW has the same experience where we have a lot of people coming to us all the time who want um this improvement or that improvement or or XYZ, and then as we've talked about in this room many many times, just with limited resources, and we have our controller here, I'm sure she'll remind us at some point today that we have limited resources.

We have to make you know tough choices, and the tough choices come from um having this plan and executing on it.

And so I'm excited to be here.

I'm excited that we're able to report out this first uh um six months of effort.

But you know, we have years to go and a lot more engagement that we need to do and a lot more work that we need to do, but we come a long way, and I'm really excited to have this first annual report.

Um, so we're gonna turn it over in a minute to to Leandre.

Oh, oh, and I and and one more thing I do I do want to say is um something else I've noticed is that um not only I, but I'm gonna use myself as an example because I just did this recently, but many counselors are really t taking um an effort to start chipping away at the work of Vision Zero and um accomplishing our goals by doing actions in their own district, right?

They're and I'm just giving an example.

I had I recently held uh a meeting, um, public meeting at the College Avenue Library where I asked DPW to come and um review the community powered infrastructure program, uh specifically thinking about 46th Street, but people came from all over my district to talk about it, and uh one of our task force members over there came and he presented on a tactical urbanism project he's working on.

Um, but I think those even though we have this um work plan that we're working on outside of the four corners of the work plan, there's other work that's happening.

And I I I've passed um an ordinance recently that made the entire Butler Talkington neighborhood association a low um neighborhood um boundaries have a lower um speed limit, and I just because of that I got an email today from someone in Ridding Kessler who wanted to do something similar.

I did the entirety of Canterbury neighborhood is now lower for that same reason.

So these actions are happening.

Um we're making uh meaningful progress.

I I I wish um we could go faster.

I wish we had the resources um uh uh to to do everything we want to do in a short period of time.

Um but like I said, we have to make we have to make intentional choices to make um uh consistent progress so with that let me um before I turn it over to Leandre to oh and and I'm sorry I keep interrupting myself but I I do want to do uh make one more comment and it is that um uh uh DPW um the direct Todd is here and and and I'll say this and and uh the whole point of uh vision zero is that everyone every discipline here is working together in tandem to to execute on this but just there's no way of denying that a lot of that burden falls on DPW right there's just it's just a fact and um in that public meeting about the community powered infrastructure that I was just describing I made this point um uh that it's been a big journey uh for me and and Andy and and and President Lewis um and DPW working together over time but over uh time uh DPW has really oriented towards um the kind of initiatives that we that we're really hoping for and I think it's been really impressive to see um the change and the in the culture and the orientation towards towards towards safety I think that's been uh meaningful I think uh uh director hergert and and now director wilson have both been instrumental in that but also I want to point out uh Daniel and Chris out in the audience they've also uh been really important uh to that progress as well so I want to make sure we're recognizing the people who are really doing the work to get this done okay now I promise I'm actually gonna move on um but before we go to um uh the vision zero administrator to um do uh his update I want to see if the counselors up here have any any comments to make um to get started and then if any any task force members do so um uh councilor neels and council cale any comments you'd like to make uh thank you chairman I'll be I'll be quick um yeah I think as as you've identified we've we've come a long way and I think we've heard uh from the community as well the need to you know to obviously create some uh budget permanency to some of the issues that we're trying to achieve and I know that's gonna be the work that we're gonna be doing um in this budget uh even though we're gonna have our own set of of challenges uh but I think it's something that we've been able to chip away at through um other fiscal ordinances but I I think we heard loud and clear from the community last year the need to program um funding for um additional vision zero initiatives into the budget and it'll be something that I know that the three of us and the entire city council will be working on as we are looking to address um other capital needs uh in the city so appreciate your comments sir and I'll kick it over to someone else.

Uh counselor cale I have some comments after the uh presentation here but I'll I'll reserve until then thank you though okay and before I do want to see if any task force members have any comments like they like to make before we start just raise your hand.

Okay well I do um want to acknowledge um Stephanie uh just stepped in and I know this is your first minute of your first uh your first time as a task force member but she was originally appointed um by President Lewis to serve on the task force so if you just pull that the little um lever back and speak into the microphone and just say um uh who you are and and who you represent and then and then you're a new task force member I'm Stephanie Patterson from Butler Tarkington.

And I'm just hoping hopefully I can um enjoy this I think thank you thank you Stephanie it's great it's great to have you here um okay with all that as by way of background let me turn it over to uh Leandre Level um our vision zero administrator to review the 2025 annual report uh thank you Mr.