Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Adam McFadden on July 17, 2011 at 8:41am

Margy, this was not an open letter it was addressed to three people  and coppied to nine council members. I don't need this type of publicity because most people wouldn't and don't understand it. The letter made its way around city hall and eventually the press got it. I chair public safety for our city and it is not the first letter or email where I have shared my concerns. What the public does not know is all the communication that has gone on about this issue not just from me but others in City Hall.

 

Public Safety disaster quote is dealing with the actual management of how we use our resources to keep us all safe. We have no Strategic Plan and I have asked for one for the last four years. If you look on the website of other city's the promote it so everyone knows. Depending on where you live in our city you get a different response to crime? We are not in the policing business we are in the PEOPLE business. Which means we all expect the same level of service no matter where we live. 

 

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Permalink Reply by Margy Meath on July 17, 2011 at 10:31am

Thanks for sharing a bit more detail Adam. I am all for a publicly known Strategic Plan re: safety and our approach to crime. It would be great to get public input into this process. We've done a lot of talk about 'community policing' as a concept but no clear discussion re: what that means, how it gets implemented, who decides if it changes, etc. Going back to sections *might* work but i don't pretend to know all of the logistics as to how/if this can easily happen.

I guess my other initial thought about the letter is this: if it was meant to be confidential I"d be concerned about it how/why it was 'leaked' to the media. If it represents your current thoughts on the state of our public safety system I'd rather be hearing these things in the public meetings that I attend. IF in the 19th Ward we have an issue re: racial profiling of young black men then we need to have young black men attend the public safety meetings and become part of the solution. It has always been obvious to me that the majority of people who attend these meetings are white - and not necessarily representative of the current demographics of the community. 

Public safety is a HUGE issue here- the numbers of shootings, stabbings, burglaries, assaults, etc are driving away good people. THey are keeping others from moving INto the neighborhood. I will appreciate ANY efforts that you and other city officials, with the input of community members, make to address this problem so we can all experience a safer community.

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Permalink Reply by Adam McFadden on July 17, 2011 at 12:20pm

The letter was meant to be confidential and I know who leaked it and why? Has alot to do with my re-election. The motive was to upset a certain population so they would not vote for me.

I have no issues with RPD I have issues in how we manage our resources. Just like the point you made about parking on Thurston Road in comparison to the parking at the flying squirel. Or some of are real open air drug markets that flourish without any efforts to go after all of them. These are management issue that the council really has no authority over. Management of the RPD or any City dept is the responsibility of the Mayor. The council sets laws, approve budgets and contracts over ten thousand dollars.

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Permalink Reply by Margy Meath on July 20, 2011 at 7:51am

I am curious about "the motive to upset a certain population so they would not vote for me". What population are you referring to?

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Permalink Reply by John Boutet on July 27, 2011 at 1:38am

I know this Discussion has drifted all over the place in discussing the RPD "Out of Control" quote out of Adam's letter.  Tuesday 26th I finally saw a copy of the letter and though it might be of interest since most of the discussion has been based about talk and conjecture about the letter but it has not been posted her.  Here is a link to the letter:

Council member Adam McFadden's letter

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Permalink Reply by Ken Maher on July 27, 2011 at 6:56am

Thanks, John. If I didn't live in the City and know about some of the shameful activities of our police officers, I would have seen this letter as aggressive and antagonistic. Since I am aware of some of these activities, I find this letter quite reasonable and hope it gets the responses it deserves. Law enforcement in Rochester has seriously deteriorated in recent years, and we need more voices like Adam McFadden's to speak up.

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Permalink Reply by John Boutet on July 27, 2011 at 10:12pm

I can't believe I missed the link to the letter both time I looked through that article!  I was even looking for a link to the letter the second time I looked through the article.  To much in plain sight I guess ;-)

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Permalink Reply by Louise Wu on August 11, 2011 at 10:22am

I know this is everyone's favorite subject =)  !!  Here is a full press conference video about the illegal eviction over on Appleton St.  Channel 10 interviews Virginia Henry, home owner tossed out by a predatory real estate company (Larry Magulli, ERA REO specialist) with the help of a city marshal (Sande Macaluso) and the police.  She still doesn't know where all her possessions are.  I think the police can reach some understanding about their involvement in civil matters, and not giving these home owners such rough treatment.  I'm really wondering why these cases in the 19th Ward always seem to involve Marshal Macaluso and this agent from ERA real estate, Mr. Magulli.  They did this same kind of sketchy eviction involving Fannie Mae (formerly Countrywide) here on my street with my neighbor too.  Does the RPD investigate this kind of fraud?    Here's the video:     http://blip.tv/indy-tv/take-back-the-land-press-conference-on-evict...

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Permalink Reply by DeWain Feller on August 13, 2011 at 10:08pm

It is important for the sake of our community that we lower the temperature of the discussion about evictions a few notches.  We need to channel the energy about this discussion in positive ways that will help our neighborhood.

 

While there have been serious issues with some practices of some mortgage agencies and their legal contractors, not all evictions are illegal or inapropriate.  Nor is there any substantial evidence of inapropriate behavior by the RPD.  The RPD is merely carrying out the orders of the courts.  The vast majority of evictions, while they are extremely unfortunate, are ultimately the result of the fact that the owner could no longer maintain payments on their house.  It is important to keep in mind that a mortgage agency does have the legal and moral right to repossess the merchandise that the buyer did not complete the purchase on.

 

While I don't know the details about 11 Appleton, I do know that the house has been deteriorating recently.  When I was passing out flyers protesting the (now defeated) junk yard proposal down the street, I was shocked to see how much the building had declined when I was saw it up close.  Allowing the status quo to continue with this property would have been damaging to our neighborhood.

 

The best thing that we can do to maintain the dignity of people who need to be evicted is to allow the police to do their job without turning evictions into confrontational battlegrounds.

 

I would much rather see people putting their energy into things that could allow people to continue paying their mortgage (e.g., more jobs and more access to jobs in our neighborhood, and more code enforcement to prevent our property values from sinking below the remaining principle on mortgages) than to direct anger toward evictions.  Evictions are simply the symptoms of the problems that we need to address.

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Permalink Reply by Mark Sweetland on August 14, 2011 at 12:35am

I agree completely. 

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Permalink Reply by Ken Maher on August 14, 2011 at 2:36pm

I agree that lowering the temperature of the discussion about evictions and channeling this energy in positive ways that will help our neighborhood are both necessary to addressing the rash of evictions boarding up homes in our neighborhood.

 

However, it is just not true to say that there is no substantial evidence of inappropriate behavior by the RPD. Two recent and widely publicized RPD actions related to 19th Ward evictions belie the claim that the RPD was merely carrying out the orders of the courts. One was the arrest of a homeowner and RN standing on her own front lawn, still in her pajamas, who merely came out to ask the police why they were evicting her neighbor across the street. The other was the clear harassment by the RPD of folks gathered at a peaceful meeting to discuss ways of responding to that eviction. For those who don't remember that incident, a group of police officers arrived outside the meeting place with tape measures and issued parking tickets to every car that was parked over six inches from the curb. If either of those incidents was court-ordered, then the problem goes much higher up than the RPD.

 

Yes, evictions are certainly the symptoms of problems we need to address, but community organizations need to put their energy into things that could help people to continue paying their mortgages and not leave the moral leadership in this matter to those whose methods we may disagree with. If we can't do anything constructive, we are leaving the solutions up to folks who may be more interested in being destructive.

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Permalink Reply by Margy Meath on August 14, 2011 at 2:53pm

Ken-

Just to be sure that we are accurate in these things:

the arrests on Ravenwood (in March) were related to the eviction on Ravenwood, however, the parking issue at the Flying Squirrel (in June or July) was related to the meeting that occurred after the Emily Good "incident" (i.e. long after the arrest but shortly after the arrest went public/viral).

My ORIGINAL post about RPD was related mostly to the issue of Adam's letter re: RPD.

I think that the eviction issue has gotten somewhat intermingled with the Emily Good arrest and all of it has been mixed in with discussions and/or accusations of racial profiling.

I suggested a while back that the people who are really concerned about the eviction issue, etc may want to volunteer to help out with the 19th Ward Community Association Housing committee. 

 

 

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