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Session 1854 <br />October 7, 2002 <br /> <br />in a separate account. He saw nothing in the minutes about the Council providing the <br />money for the match. In fact, Mr. Sharpe had asked how the expenditures were <br />recommended and the response was that they were provided by the Police Department <br />in their budget proposal. In prior years, there have been issues about these monies and <br />how they were spent. The figures that the Council approves and the amount that's <br />actually provided by the BJA do not coincide. In fact, a public hearing is a required <br />before the grant is issued. This year's grant application closed July 24, prior to the <br />public hearing held here at City Council; therefore, he's not sure if the City will get the <br />money or not. Also, back in April 17, 2000, there was a public hearing but the grant <br />deadline was April 7, 2000. At one occasion, Mr. Lieberman questioned the absence of <br />people and how the Hearing was supposed to take place; the City Manager answered <br />that it was the federal government's job to take care of that. There are a number of <br />other issues on this grant and he has some more work to do. He is amassing more <br />information and he'll pass the information on to whoever is interested. He wants <br />someone to investigate this matter to make sure that the Police Department gets <br />monies it's entitled to and spent for the purposes for which it was intended. In going <br />back over this, there are figures that are not accurate. It's been said that we got <br />$100,00 last year but we're only getting $40,000 this year; when you go back and look, <br />we didn't get $100,000-we got $100,000 from another program; we received over <br />$600,000 from the Cops Program. He wants to be sure that the information is provided <br />and is accurate. <br /> <br />Richard Dockett, 6844 Crest, reported threats made to him by Rodney Williams. The <br />police were called twice and eventually five officers arrived. Each officer asked him <br />what he wanted to do; he stated that his life had been threatened and his peace <br />disturbed. He said the police were talked about him and walked off. Mr. Dockett said <br />that he has done a lot of work with the Neighborhood Association and that citizens like <br />him should not have to tolerate this from police officers. The police are supposed to be <br />there to serve and protect. He said that they were disrespecting and disregarding <br />citizens. One police officer told him that someone, who's a known criminal element and <br />he (Mr. Dockett) had a "Hatfield-McCoy" feud between them. He said that the police <br />know him, that he is the president of the Night Watch program but the police are <br />delivering messages for these people. He asked how local government and the police <br />can expect cooperation from citizens when the police talk to them like "children on <br />someone's plantation down in Mississippi." He asked that the Mayor, City Council and <br />City Manager contact the Police Chief and department heads and bring about attitude <br />changes as well as training the police officers not to create a hostile environment for <br />residents. This behavior discourages people from calling police who they only want to <br />enforce the law. Business people are being discouraged from investing in the area <br />north of Olive <br /> <br />Mary Hart, 6901 Cornell stated that those complaints about police attitudes were not <br />unique to the area north of Olive. She has also found police officers dismissive and <br />disrespectful. She doesn't really see "community policing" except in a few officers. <br /> <br />7 <br /> <br /> <br />