"Curfew" not really a curfew, But It's Still A Good Idea

Just about anyone who lived in Geneva in the1950s or 1960s remembers some kid getting into trouble and being brought home to their parents by the cops. Capraro, who lived on Cortland Street back then, recalls police were a regular presence at the old school playground. Those days are long gone-- the stuff of nostalgia-- but holding families more accountable for the actions of their children is still a good idea. We need to provide our police with resources for dealing with juvenile violations without requiring them to ‘babysit’ kids. After listening to what Charlie Davis, head of the Dorchester Ave Neighborhood Watch, had to say about his group’s proposal for a “curfew,” it makes sense to us. Only we wouldn’t call it a curfew.

We did some research on “juvenile curfew laws.” [Click here for a report from the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice] Technically, a curfew is setting a specific time that people have to be off the streets, or in their homes. Oftentimes, the curfew is enforced through general sweeps of neighborhoods, bringing any curfew violators to a central ‘holding center’ for processing before release. [See more details here] So, our initial reaction to a curfew is that it overburdens our police and the taxpayers by requiring labor-intensive enforcement and construction or renovation of some space to serve as the detention center.

But that’s not what Charlie Davis’ proposal calls for. According to Davis, children under the age of 18 would still be allowed out at night. It’s when they misbehave that things would change. For certain classes of violations, the police would be empowered to bring children home to their parents, instead of down to the station for elaborate processing. Their parents would have to take responsibility for their children, receive an appearance ticket and have to pay a fine, similar to the way parking tickets are handled. This seems reasonable and we think it would be effective.

As we see it, the proposal accomplishes three important objectives:

1. It empowers the police to re-connect children with their families almost immediately, without requiring them to get into the “family counseling” business. Therefore, they’d be doing less social service work, and would be back on their beats.
2. It provides for simplified follow up for certain kinds of violations. Serious crimes would, of course, not be handled in that manner.
   
3. Its primary goal is to involve families in crime prevention. It’s pulling families into a Neighborhood Watch of their own children.

A real curfew (like those in large cities such as Rochester, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, etc.) is aimed at reducing violent crime—crime committed by youth and crime where youth are the victims. These curfews are major operations, with entire police units dedicated to enforcement. However, there is no conclusive evidence that the curfews work. Rochester’s curfew did not show major results in its trial period, and Monroe County Supreme Court Justice VanStrydonck cited a 2003 study of municipal curfews when stating that the promises of curfews, “embraced by legislators of various municipalities - both large and small is often in conflict with the reality of the effectiveness of these ordinances. Curfew laws are said to provide legislators with the ability to project an image of being for law and order and of being tough on crime. However, a growing body of evidence gained from the study of the effectiveness of these laws 'fails to support the argument that curfews reduce crime and criminal victimization' committed by and upon youthful citizens.” In other words, an actual curfew, which the Davis proposal is not, would not likely work.

What does work in reducing crime is prevention, and the Davis proposal is essentially a prevention program involving families and communities.

We think the next step here in Geneva is for Council to see the Neighborhood Watch’s fully developed proposal and solicit input from the police officers, perhaps through a briefing from Chief Pane. We can then ask City Attorney, Clark Cannon, for a legal opinion both on issues of legality and enforcement. In our view, it shouldn’t take more than a few weeks to have a proposal ready for a public hearing. In the meantime, we encourage interested residents of all ages, to get involved in the community effort that Davis is leading to move this proposal forward.
The next meeting will be Wednesday, May 30th at 6:30pm at the Geneva Public Library.

Correcting Council’s “Revisionist History” with Real Facts

As described in our post about the last City Council meeting (Hindsight is 20/20) a number of claims were made under the guise of “New Business” that we didn’t get a chance to respond to. There had been a public hearing about the Kirkwood property that night, but no discussion of it was had until after members of the congregation and their attorney had left. If we had known that the end of the meeting would turn into a public hearing on us and our blog, we would have been prepared to respond in the following way:

First, we were criticized for posting images of the Kirkwood property and church membership. Those photographs were offered to inform the public what and whom was being discussed. The church is at the end of a dead end street and the site for sale can only be accessed from their private property. The argument for not selling the land to the church was based on the land’s potential for ‘a larger economic development use.’ Councilor Greco says that the pictures were offensive and embarrassing to the church and its neighbors. How so? The permission to access the site and to take the pictures was given by the church and there aren’t any pictures of the neighbors, so where’s the problem?

Next, Councilor Greco invoked an urban legend regarding the 9/11 memorial that is now located in Canandaigua. He claims it didn’t get placed in Geneva because Council objected to the image of prayer on it. In reality, the monument was proposed to be located in the former park on the corner of Lake and Exchange Street. Why do we refer to it as the “former park?” Because the Hampton Inn now sits where the park used to be. When the Fratto family approached the city about the monument, we were already in the midst of discussions about the Hampton Inn (in the back room). But we were told that those discussions were “confidential” and couldn’t be shared with the public. If we had accepted the monument, it would have been dug up and moved somewhere six months later, which seemed inappropriate treatment for a monument. But we couldn’t share that reasoning with the public, so other people filled in the blanks (including the Finger Lakes Times) and started a rumor that it was denied because it depicted prayer. Council declined the monument (as a majority), for reasons having nothing to do with prayer. It would be nice if Councilor Greco would deal in facts rather than rumors.

Then Councilors Greco and D’Amico attempt to discredit us with their assertion that we, Augustine and Capraro, somehow refused to participate in the neighborhood meeting between the church and its neighbors. Here's what council was told in a memo from the City Manager:

“Clr. Greco, in conjunction with Mark Venuti and the Kirkwood Ave residents, has organized a meeting on Tuesday (6pm) with the owners of the Church. It will be held in the Church.”

The City Manager in no way indicated that this meeting was a public meeting that other councilors could attend. In fact, if we had attended, there would have been a quorum present, meaning that the meeting would have been in violation of the Open Meetings Law and everyone would have had to go home because there was no public notice of the meeting provided. Even the Times' city reporter, Craig Fox, wasn’t told about the meeting, which really communicated to us that this was a closed-door session. Funny that other councilors seemed to have received a special invitation to attend.

In his typed out speech, Councilor Schroeder attacked Augustine by accusing her of opposing various projects because she “smelled a rat.” Let’s check the City Council record. The first was the Lyons National Bank project. Multiple councilors (Augustine included) expressed concerns about the speed with which Council was being asked to approve the project, and with the apparent lack of concern being shown to local businesses being affected by the project. Augustine was especially angered to hear that the project had been in the works for almost a year before Council was informed. A year certainly would have been plenty of time to bring the business owners along and prepare them for the changes. At no time did Augustine claim to “smell a rat.” After the project was approved, several residents and business owners came forward with concerns that management staff at the new bank had been employed by the City during the time the bank project was being considered. This information came as news to many on council, Augustine included. It never factored into the public discussion of the project, but perhaps it should have.

Schroeder went on to criticize Augustine for joining Councilor Nyrop in opposing tax breaks for the Lyceum Street Housing project. The reason for the opposition was clearly explained: Geneva cannot afford to give tax breaks to profit-making entities. The proposed housing was not low-income by local standards, it was in direct competition with private rental opportunities. Again, concerned citizens raised the issue that the City Manager was a board member of the very entity requesting the Payment in Lieu of Tax (PILOT) agreement. But this was not the reason Nyrop and Augustine voted ‘no;’ perhaps it should have been? Schroeder also mentioned the debate about the Main St. gas station, which has already been discussed here and the former firehouse behind city hall which is the subject of an upcoming post. Augustine didn’t vote against projects because she “smelled a rat” or suspected a “conspiracy.” She voted against projects that were done in haste or without the best interests of the community at heart.

It’s clear that some Councilors are using the same old tactics of personal politics to draw attention away from the facts; but we can’t figure out what purpose that serves.

Hindsight is 20/20: ReRuns of Meeting Show "New Business" is the Same Old Business

The agenda of our last council meeting (Wednesday, May 2nd) looked pretty harmless, on paper. Unfortunately, the real agenda that was played out before the people was anything but. In drafting this post, we reviewed the video footage of that meeting and have included links to clips of it. Just when we thought Mayor Cass was getting it about the need for our meetings to be well organized with a proper agenda, he found a loophole, and used it—once again—to take us by surprise. Concealed under “New Business” was a pre-orchestrated attack on us and our blog, reminiscent of what usually stays hidden in the backroom. [See it here.]

Led by Councilors Greco, Schroeder, and Cosentino, with the Mayor passively looking on, the chaotic assault served no purpose except for them to vent their anger. OK, so the blog makes them uncomfortable. We knew that. But if they truly wanted a serious discussion about the blog, wouldn’t they have included it as an agenda item? But the Mayor said Council didn’t need a “topic” to have a discussion, even if it goes on for almost an hour. In other words, anything goes.

We did our best to respond civilly to each attack that came our way, but, we have to admit they were difficult to deal with: complaints that were hard to follow, prepared statements that were nothing but catch-alls of for past grievances, coordinated messages boiling down to one thing: they don’t like the blog. How is that “New Business” for Council?

Councilor Greco led things off with a report that he had received complaints from Kirkwood Avenue residents about the slide show of the Geneva Hispanic Church property. He made a reference to its being “offensive” because it includes an image of prayer [See GenevaCCM3 here.]

Then there was Councilor Cosentino’s claim that our blog is “anonymous” because we don’t sign our postings. Please see the Augustine/Capraro signature at the bottom of this and every post. [See his comments here.] Even Councilor D’Amico got into the action to point out that we did not attend the meeting at which Councilor Schroeder said the decision to ambush us was made.

Schroeder read from a prepared speech. [SeeGenevaCCM8.] Still under New Business, he covered the Lyons Bank project, the Lyceum Heights housing development, and the City Hall/Firehouse improvement plan.

Had we known that the council meeting was going to be a Public Hearing on us, we might have been prepared to offer facts to counter their opinions. You can find those facts here, in our latest post “Correcting Council’s ‘Revisionist History’ with Real Facts.”

All in all, the New Business on Mayor Cass’s agenda was the Same Old Business. Why can’t we have well organized, properly run, professional Geneva City Council meetings?