The South Bend City Council met the evening of Monday, December 14. The council got started by first amending the agenda by omitting an item, "before we approve the agenda I would like to have a motion for the agenda amendment," said Mayor Struck. The council approved the amended agenda by excluding a development fee schedule that was still under review, and could not be voted on. There was no correspondence and so Mayor Struck moved the meeting to the next item on the agenda, which was a resolution that pertained to an Interfund Loan that would come from the HUD Fund and go into the Sewer Fund. The council voted and approved the Interfund Loan and then moved to the next item, the second reading of the 2016 budget, which the council voted on and approved. Council Member Bob Hall had a comment on the matter: "Last time we had several people asking questions about the budget," Hall explained, "I hadn't perused it that carefully. In years past, at least a couple of times we have had a special workshop prior to the first reading. I think that would be a good idea, an open meeting open to the public. In addition if on the same piece of paper the estimated fund balance, the previous budget amount and then the new budget. If it was on the same page it would make it easier for me and the public," Hall proposed.
The council moved right along to the next pair of items on the agenda, which was an engineering contract for the water treatment plant Expansion project. "This is a contract with Gray and Osborne Engineering to switch to the new filter system. This is the contract for me to sign for them to do the work, do I have a motion," asked Struck. The council approved the signing of the contract, and approved the same company to do another project at Fliess Creek as well.
The council next approved a memorandum of understanding with the PACCOM Member Agencies, that placed certain parameters on how the money from the one tenth of one percent initiative will be spent. The council voted and approved the memorandum.
The next segment of the meeting was taken to hear from the department heads, where Chief Eastham of South Bend Police Department spoke, "It's been suggested that the South Bend Police Department sits around talking to each other in parking lots and only makes traffic stops. Besides all of the civil situations that we deal with, there's the traffic, DUI's, drug cases, animal calls, citizen assistance aside, we've dealt with 21 domestic calls, 12 burglaries, 14 assaults, 28 thefts, and 8 suicidal calls."
Eastham went on to talk about how many man hours are put into all of these cases he listed, and how these people are paid less than most police. "This department not only does these things but works in between doing these things," Eastham explained. The Chief of Police stated that this was his answer to the
last meeting's suggestion that the police department is not worth the money that is being spent on it.
The next South Bend City Council meeting will be held January 11, 2016 at 5:30pm.