Note to Wilmington City Council — Ready, Fire, Aim Is Not A Public Safety Strategy

Last night there was a meeting of the Wilmington City Council Public Safety Committee and of the Committee of the Whole — intended to discuss the budget amendment that would authorize two new Inspector positions and and a Chief Information Officer for the WPD. What you could tell when the conversation started was that this amendment was intended to pass out of Committee that evening to be ready for a vote this Thursday, and Council President Gregory thought he had the votes to do it. (And I’ll remind those following this tale that this “budget” amendment was passed to the Public Safety Committee, not the Finance Committee where Gregory has less control of what gets said.) While it was not clear how all of the Councilmembers would vote, after overwhelming public comment AGAINST this amendment, the vote was postponed until after more public comment next Tuesday.

Council President Gregory kept repeating that there was a disconnect between all of the neighborhood groups and individuals who were adamant that the Mayor adopt the WPSSC recommendations and the push back he got from both some Councilmembers and the public last night. He seemed upset by that and the fact that he was disconnected from that told me that he isn’t especially connected to the people he is supposed to be representing. There was a great push by Wilmingtonians shortly after the report was released largely because of the pending budget process. Even though it may not seem like it, but people do pay attention to what happens in City Council. And it was widely understood that the Council would have its best leverage for accountability and even for better adoption of the plan during that budget session. As it turned out, Council didn’t use its cards well here to focus on getting the recommendations adequately reflected in the budget process or even in using that process to get better accountability. Still, the Council did add funds for an Academy if needed and certainly funds to manage cameras better. Once the Council passed on its best chance to ensure that the WPSSC recommendations were implemented, the public energy for implementation also subsided. Because it is clear to me that many people understand that Council missed its chance and (in light of the “Plan” released by the Administration) that there wouldn’t be an effective implementation of the Commission’s recommendations. Add to that, an effort to hold Mayor Williams accountable for implementing the recommendations was undermined by Harris McDowell and Bobby Marshall — in spite of their constituents asking them for help.

Still, last night, plenty of Councilmembers were doing their best to help provide a fig leaf to the Administration — that fig leaf being that they are responding to the public:

Public Safety Chairman Michael Brown said the department needs any tool that will help them quell the city’s crime problem.”I don’t want to go home knowing that we didn’t give the men and women of this police department of this city all the resources we could,” Brown said.

“In doing this plan we will be doing what the professionals have recommended,” said Councilwoman Hanifa Shabazz, who seemed to support the funding bill.

There’s more that’s not quoted by the NJ, including softball questions from Sherry Dorsey-Walker designed to let the Chief claim that not approving these positions or funds would contribute to the status quo. And Theo Gregory also claiming that he wouldn’t want to be accused of not supporting Public Safety.

What I see from this is people who are writing their campaign literature for 2016 AND people are simply are not in touch with the people they represent. Most people in the City already get that the WPD is well behind in terms of strategy and technology, and well aware that this is not the best managed organization. They also get that throwing more money at this fixes nothing. The “professionals” referenced by Shabazz recommended a great many improvements for the WPD that they are not going to implement. These same professionals said that the WPD has all of the resources they need to get their job done — with the addition of some technology and training to come from Federal grants. These same professionals specifically called for greater accountability for the WPD, that the City Council has yet to come to terms with. As a hint — Chief Bobby Cummings has been asked a few times in recent days what the crime numbers are that show improvement. He doesn’t know them off the top of his head. This doesn’t even compute, really — if you are concerned with driving down numbers of violent crime, you should know where you started and should be keeping track of daily improvements. This is your indicator of the lack of seriousness around management and in implementing these recommendations.

If you need another indicator, the so-called “plan” presented by the Administration as their approach to dealing with the WPSSC recommendation claims that they’ve already implemented many of the recommendations already. And that they implemented them before March 31, 2015 — while they were understaffed and working Operation Disrupt. I made the point last night that I did not understand how an organization that has claimed that it has already implemented much of the WPSSC recommendations could ask for more management with a straight face. Council President Gregory proceeded to try to lecture me about that “implemented” means, and that bit of mansplaining may help him rationalize what he is doing, but it doesn’t change the fact that the City’s strategy was to declare victory, get some more money and go home. Improvements to the WPD is not what was on their minds.

As of now, no one knows what will happen in Dover — it may be that the City has to come up with funds to plug a deficit created by the State’s budget process. But safety or no, the city just provided the WPD with a $55M approved budget that the professionals agreed was more than enough money to get the job done. A this point, the tools that the WPD needs to improve safety is focus on improved management and processes AND an effort to get the department into the 21st Century — like Camden and Philly have. The WPD has said that they’ve implemented much around the recommendations that address these, so they should be financing additional needs from the efficiencies they should be getting from this effort. And they should come back for more funding from taxpayers when they can demonstrate some real improvements.

The next Public Safety Committee meeting is currently set for Monday July 6 at 5:30 pm. Last night, there was discussion of this meeting happening on Tuesday, so I’ll pay attention to how this works out. But try to come down to speak for no additional funding for the WPD until there is a serious commitment to implementing the WPSSC recommendations.