And that We get Getting everyone is 05:30pm, on Wednesday for the 15, 2026 when the public's in the room, city county building. Welcome to the public safety. U.S. Communities in county council will start introductions of our council members on this committee counsel being. Thank you, MR. CHAIRMAN Josh Payne district 21. Thank. Thank you, MR. CHAIRMAN Brand Delaney district 2 on the North side. Good evening, CHAIRMAN Counselor Wells District 11 West Thank you. CHAIRMAN Jessica McCormick district 16 West Side. Thank you. Cal stuff comes Thank you, MR. CHAIRMAN Dan Boots, District 3 Washington Lawrence townships. Thank you, MR. Chair Frank Miscarry District 19 southeast side. Thank you, MR. CHAIRMAN Am a district 15, the Far East Side. Thank you. Council is Leroy Robinson chair the committee representing District one first a proposal. 74 2026 appoints brianda
landing. Early intervention Planning Council Council do it. Thoughts, comments. Thank you, MR. CHAIRMAN, I am honored to be appointed by the majority leader of the City County Council to be the the Democrat liaison to the early Intervention Planning Council and succeeding PRESIDENT Maggie Lewis and that her position on the council and also would be serving with counselor from the Republican Party I'm just hoping that I can build on my experience as a deputy prosecutor and trying to help eliminate child abuse and neglect and juvenile involvement with the legal system. One of the things that I've already been tasked with this trying to review the ordinance as it sits in the Marion County book of ordinances and trying to make
sure that we're following state law and that goals and objectives align with state law, ordinance. So I've already got my work set out in front of me and I'm honored to serve. Figure counselor anyone on the committee care to speak to propose 74. Anyway, your does cause to 74. Seeing no to attend emotion. Those are probably moved and seconded propose number. 74 pre and Delaney, all those in favor signal by saying Aye and those oppose. Motion carries counseling. And I spoken previously with our council attorney about this and I will be abstaining from the vote. Ready. The proposal passed unanimously. Up next, a poll. 75 2026 point shes been Tucker. 2 citizens points complaint board must talking will come forward. Please. MR. First of all, thank you for wanting to volunteer on this.
All too important board. So we do appreciate you for that. We do have your resume in front of Did you speak briefly about what you like people to this board? Yes, so my name is Jasmine, Tucker, and I appreciate everyone for being here today. There's a few reasons interest in police complaint or elect to say that. I've been very adamant for the past year. Showing up consistently want to bore me is just showing my interest in here last time. The last guy in. I worked closely youth and families and communities help people navigate cross crisis situations connect them to resources that they need through the work that I do also have the opportunity to understand what first
responders are going through as a crisis Navigator. I am a first responders will. But also experienced a system on a community member site. I've had to help relatives and our community members, resources, such as felon, complaints. And so I think I lived in professional experience will be addition to this board. Because of that bounce perspective, I understand the importance of accountability for the community while also understanding the realities responsibilities of law enforcement. And as the millennium also believe that I could help bridge the gap between generations bring an understanding between those value tradition and also I'm calling for more transparency
interests. And then lastly, my work across Marion County and other surrounding counties in the state of Indiana has shown how deeply the system's impact people everyday life and if selected. I will also approached this board with fairness, integrity in the open mind. Thank you so much for your for your comments. And for the was to those guys read here. Pretty some of your message to Greece, a billet with that in social work comments or questions from councils. Constantly. Thank you, MR. Chair and thank you as Tucker. Just I know that you were here last month I appreciate your willingness and effort to come back. I think it bodes well for you that you came back twice for us. I think you're going to be a good servant for community. Thank you. Thank you. Accounts, additional comments or questions. Anyway, your does care to speak to this
proposal MISS Tucker. Signatures and emotion. Most probably moved and seconded from number. 75. All those in favor signal by saying aye, those oppose motion carries. Thank you as Tucker. We'll see you here in a few weeks at a full council. Thank you. Feel and serve. And up next to proposal, one presentation is proposing 99 2026. Authorize the city Annapolis to advance the curfew hours to public safety curfew hours. Pass with to I c 31 dash 37 dash 3 dash 4 and chapter 3.81 Section 103, to 105, Levi's cold. And who speaking from impd. Thank you, CHAIRMAN. Your first few few few months ago, it's been eventful. Even 30 good. The. Well, sometimes you now. Let's
make it less eventful. Let's hope. Thank you so much. Speak to this proposal. 99 for us. Please. Yes. I'm going to speak my perspective of why I feel like we should have the emergency curfew and acted and how did we get here? Last year following the tragic downtown shooting the Night of JULY 4 early MARCH morning hours of JULY, 5th, we lost a 15 year-old and a 16 year-old downtown with 5 additional people shot. 2 of those 5 were also juveniles. Since then impd implemented stricter enforcement of the existing juvenile curfew begins staffing. What we called then a reunification center. We're calling it now a connection center during specific
weekends. When a young person is out past curfew. We're engaged in concerning behavior. Rest is really not our preferred option. We want a meaningful intervention. The convention center serves as a safe place where juveniles can be connected with trusted community partners. To provide resources, food and support services. Parents guardians are contacted and brought into the conversation because keeping our kids safe is a shared responsibility. Following the JULY 4th incident last year know juveniles were actually brought to the impd Juvenile Reunification Center and no enforcement was needed in 2025. So far in 2026. Only a handful of juveniles have been brought to the connection
center. Parents were contacted and all we're very appreciative of the early positive intervention by impd in our community partners. That outcome shows that enforcement and awareness can make a difference in keeping young people safe. So what are we seeing now? We're concerning trends in incidents of youth violence. Incidents involving teens are increasing, particularly during late evening and overnight hours. And I'll just give you some statistics to compare. 1st quarter of 2025. We had 41 homicides. Of those. 41 in the 1st quarter, 3 of them involves juvenile victims. That's about 7.3% So far in the 1st quarter of 2026. We've had 28 homicides.
But still 3 of them have been juvenile victims that represents nearly 11% of are homicide victims. That's about a 4% increase over last year of the number of homicide victims that are juvenile. So that's a concerning trend. And I'll just point out that overall our numbers of homicide victims and non-fatal shooting assault victims are down. Year-to-date were down about 31%. The concerning aspect of that is that percentage of those victims that are increasingly do not. Well, speak to our non-fatal shooting assault victims of the same time period. 1st quarter of 2020 5, we had 101 non-fatal shooting assault victims. Of those 101. We had 18 of those that were
juveniles. That's about 17.8% So far this year. Again, our numbers are down. So we've had 90 non-fatal shooting assault victims. But 20 of them have involved juveniles. And that's about 22.2% of our non-fatal shooting assault victims that are juveniles. Additionally. We have some concerning trends across the country. You MAY have heard of teen takeovers. We had an advertisement here in town at the end of MARCH was advertised on social media castle to mall takeover. Now we intervene proactively address that. It turned out to be nothing in that case. But these teen takeovers typically organized on social media. They result in fights property damage, gun violence. And at
times that. I'll give you some other examples from across the country. Typically when we see these trends, social media doesn't know geographic boundaries. Word travels very quickly. And our teens we know are very in tune with social media and those trends. So in Los Angeles in MARCH, MARCH 22nd more than 100 people 100 100 young people took over an intersection. They basically trapped people that were on a city bus vandalize the bus with a spray paint graffiti and we're setting off fireworks. And Chicago in APRIL, they had teen takeover of teens jumping and running on cars and Hyde Park, vandalizing and damaging over 30 cars in that neighborhood. Also in APRIL, in Detroit, dozens of teens flooded downtown streets running through the area and a gun was
fired at some point. Multiple occasions in the dc Metro area, the Navy Yard in particular, they've had teen takeovers in that area preventing local residents and visitors from using the space down there. It has also resulted in violence and bites. And then some additional examples locally of what we've seen. Police activity related to juveniles this year. Just this past weekend. We had a proactive street takeover detail. Spending is what we call it. And our officers were proactively addressing that activity in our city. It always picks up when the weather gets warmer and we have that activity this weekend. This weekend we arrested a 13 year-old that was out at one 30 in the morning was armed with an ar pistol. 13 year-old was accompanied by a 20 year-old that was armed with a Glock handgun with an extended
magazine and a machine gun conversion device. What could go wrong in that situation? There's no reason for a 13 year-old have a gun in the first place or be out at one 30 in the morning. So in FEBRUARY of this year, we made several arrests involving juveniles that are related to crimes of violence. We asked for arrested 2 teenagers for the DECEMBER murder of a 55 year-old at a gas station on the north side of town. We also arrested a 16 year-old for a murder that occurred in NOVEMBER another the teenager. We also arrested another 16 year-old and a 17 year-old for a fatal shooting. Of a 17 year-old and a non-fatal shooting of another 17 year-old. During the arrest of
that 16 year-old our officers recovered 9 pounds of cocaine, 6 pounds of fentanyl, 4 pounds of ecstasy pills, ecstasy pills. 19 firearms machine gun conversion device. And extremely concerning was the fact that 3 children in that residents were exposed to fentanyl. And then another all just final example that mentioned before I move on is in FEBRUARY of this year, we did have an officer-involved shooting in which our officers were attempting to stop a vehicle with shooting suspects in the vehicle. 2.16, year-olds and one 17 year-old that were in the vehicle fired upon the officers and the over firearms recovered in that vehicle. And one of the juveniles had a machine gun conversion device. That
happened just before 10:00pm. So. Those are just some examples of what we're seeing here in town locally and what we think is coming based on the action national trends and intelligence information. Our priority is public safety. We owe it to our youth to keep them safe and out of harm's way. By using every tool that's available to us to do just that. Response to what we have seen so far this year. Past summers, we need to intervene early. In a non-intrusive way. And provide support to our young people. Curfew, announcements or curfew enforcement allows us to do just that. And an earlier curfew allows us to do that sooner. We have to use the tools. We have the tools that we know from past
experience work. Keeping young people out of situations where they are more likely to become victims or be involved in violence is a priority and a shared responsibility that I think we all have. This is about safety, accountability and awareness for both teens and their parents. It's not about punishment. It's about partnership and prevention. Parents and guardians play a critical role in knowing where their children are and who they're with. And the earlier curfew provides a clear expectation and helps families make safer decisions. It also gives impd the ability mitigate potentially dangerous situations sooner. So some final thoughts. If we can keep even one family. From experiencing loss to the unnecessary violence. Our efforts are worth it. The city of Indianapolis 9 remains
committed to working with community leaders, parents and elected officials to keep our young people safe. For a few is just one tool the city is using to keep our young people safe. We have the youth violence Reduction initiative, the Connection Center Phs is work with the elevation. Grant recipients in promoting summer job opportunities parks through Project Indy. It is taking all of these tools and will take all these tools and more to keep our kids safe throughout the summer. One quick question for me. You get a quite a examples of environment, the south there. That's the men and women of law enforcement do with every day. So we want to thank them for doing that. Number one, your staff. Secondly. Do you think that the curfew hours could have prevented any of that? Are? I think it's possible and I have some more
data. It's it's really hard sometimes to. A draw a cause and effect conclusion from data. But I can share the numbers with you just a. For your own curiosity. So before the curfew enforcement last about JULY 18th 2025. There were 4 homicides involving juveniles that occurred during curfew hours. There were 6 that occured outside. So a total of 10 that occurred before began really enforcing curfew in advertising proactively that curfew enforcement. After we started enforcing the curfew after JULY 18 to 2025, we had 4. And so far in 2026. That's too. And I like I said, it's really hard to draw a cause and
effect conclusion. But overall, those numbers have been down after curfew enforcement. But those percentages of our youth involved in violence is increasing. And that's a concern. So do I think that curfew hours adjustment is going to solve our youth violence problem. No, it's just one piece in one aspect that I think we can proactively take to address what we've been seeing and make one small step to Toward prevention. Thank you. Chief comes to question counselors. Just Mccormick counts. Thank you, MR. CHAIRMAN, I know we're going to talk about the dates, but other than that. Different from last year. So could you just highlight like what's different from the one
put the ordinance year? What we changed? What's different than this other than that date that we're going to talk about. What do you mean as far as the the ordinance, the action, I guess more that the what we passed last year when we enacted the curfew. When we start to get started, enforcing it, there's nothing else changed. My understanding is just an adjustment of the hours by 2 hours, which is the same thing that we did in AUGUST, right? So that I guess that's what I'm asking, right. Like it's the same process saying will be doing okay. That's that's what that's what I'm recommending. Perfect. Thank you. Tell around. Thank you. The chief Terry and thank you for everything that you and your staff do in. I know one of those police shooting
took place out in my district and I'm glad everyone was okay. My question to the curfew just to piggyback MR. CHAIRMAN's question because I know by extending the curfew hours about 2 hours and I know with the summer hours coming up right. And we talk about the summer jobs now with the summer jazz be offered in the daytime be out for, you know. At the noon late evening because when I think our teens and I think about crime crime to me doesn't have a time 8. It can. You know, just today seeing somewhat get in. So I just if you can speak to that, as you know, because when we talk about curfew, we always identify and not just in
curfew. I just feel as though across the blow we identify problem. But sometimes we don't have a solution. And so I want to make sure that we even though some of the things that you outline earlier that was taking place around the country and other cities. And you guys are thinking proactively, I want to make sure that. We are connecting the dots. And, you know, we identify problem. But, you know, let's continue to for that solution. Absolutely. And I think what we have learned was even though we didn't take any youth to the Connection Center reunification center in 2025. We did expand on all our community partnerships in that
process and those community partnerships did play a key role already in 2026 and providing resources to a family. I can't speak to the summer jobs hours because it's not a. Program directly responsible for. But I do know that there have been conversations with community-based organizations and other city agencies about that need to provide those safe spaces for used to gather during those peak, I think vulnerable times, which is, you know, the weekend nights right? And throughout the summer, it's sometimes the weekdays to write when kids are now not in school. But I would I would just I don't know if this is really speaking to your question or not, but the their legal defenses to that curfew ordinance that. Would never prevent somebody's going to or
from any job even if they were out after that curfew and the direction that we give our officers on curfew enforcement, Israeli behavior based. We're not just out trying to stop any youthful appearing person for walking down the street. We're looking for disruptive, disorderly criminal concerning behavior. Before we intervene and even make an attempt to enforce any kind of curfew. And then again, are, you know, for peak times. Our real goal is to get to the root Why a kid might be out unattended or by themselves provide resources through community-based organizations to them and their family. Going to give
Okay. Motion to CHAIRMAN. You turn your microphone on, motion and proposal number 99, MR. CHAIRMAN, I move to a man proposed in 2026 by the leading the language that is speaking the route in at the underline language to read s Paulo section one of the city County Council finds that conditions do exist within the county there by establishing that the current curfew hours are later than is reasonable for public safety. Section 2, the cat, the city County Council here by that's public safety care. Few hours has established in Rep Co sections. 3, 8, one dash, 1, 0, 3, 1, 0, 5, section 3 in compliance with Rep Code
chapter 3, 8, 1, section 105. The implication of the public safety curfew hours. Shell expire 60 days at that. This ordinance goes into effect section for this ordinance shall be in effect from at there is passage by the Council and compliance with Indiana co 3, 6, dash, 3 dash, 4 dash, 1, 4, Most on the floor. The second motion second counselor comments. Come as a cow suit. Hour. Thank you, chair of just to help me understand the point of going down to 60 days on this. I'm just thinking through this. And if we vote on this and Thank you MAY and JUNE. And then we have come back and do this again to
where if we put budget one 20 week ago, MAY JUNE JULY, AUGUST. And I get says summer. That kind take out some of the repetitive work to none of us having to come back and do this again gives impd the village fully do their job to have wellness act. What's the point? Cutting in half? If you feel the go to chief, it was chief will speak to that. Respectfully, I would request a longer term for that. These trends tend to be something that are. I would say longer term for us to really measure rather than shorter term. And I think 60 days is is a really tight turnaround for us to see any potential impact. I would really like to see us do this throughout the summer and then evaluate at the end of the summer. Councilor comment. Do our CHAIRMAN, do you know or do we have the reasoning? Why was there some code or
something or following why we cutting it to 60 from one 20? Because I agree with later Mowery. Today, 60 days is JUNE 14th, which summers to starting some of our kids. 120 days is AUGUST 12th in most of back-to-school by then. So if we're thinking about the purpose of doing this and the free time that they have. We will be doing this again in JUNE. Peers who will speak to the 60 days for someone 20. I can't speak on behalf of my conversation with counselor Allen who recommended this and because the ordinance technically is supposed to be not supposed to be proactively looking the the language of the ordinance. Would be something public safety event occurring. Now that causes the hours to change. And in my conversation with counselor
Allen, she wanted to see it n occurring within within the county versus in Chicago or somewhere else. So she was looking for things that were happening here in the city. Currently and thought that she did not see enough evidence at that point. It to justify doing a whole Hosmer. Plus, like I said, the ordinance in the statute part, particularly say that you're supposed to. Retroactively versus proactively. Thank you. Just are having speak to peers. Just answered my question. Okay. Councilor a leader Mary. I appreciate thanks for your next mission there Council Didn't you just say that? We're of on average so far. Here for just you. Violence, the number of views that are homicide victims in the number
of youth that are non fatal shooting victims. There's a larger percentage of our overall victims than this time last year. Yes, that's increasing. Thank you. I appreciate go into more detail there. You know, I'm I'm looking at this and, you know, I get that. We have to have evidence you know, something's going on and for fun or for us to do this. I think one percent higher than last year is enough evidence for me to keep it one 20 the and slush to 60. So. I will not be in support of this amendment this evening. I encourage my fellow councilors to not support this amendment as well so we can try to give the ability to do their job fully ramp up. And so within 60 days and then as soon as they're really getting ready. So, you know, they get there get the job done. We're going to come back and do this again. Let's give them the opportunity to do their job fully with 120 days and Bike
Council McCormick said that puts us AUGUST 12. Believe she said so. Gives them plenty of time to get back school as well. And gives Proposal the ability to do its job. Thank you. Thank you. Leader Council being. Thank you, MR. Just want to echo the words Our here. Feel like the chief did a very good explaining the current situation. We find ourselves in. We should certainly celebrate the shooting trends and gun violence trends are are going in the right direction. But it does seem, but there's ample evidence to why we need to keep the curfew 120 days you know whether or not this is actually working, given the, you know, some of our you find trends are going in the. Wrong direction does seem that that's a national trend that maybe we are not immune to. So I don't see any reason why it
would be taking tools out of the tool chest for impd. So be voting no on the amendment. Becomes a question coming bank accounts to bring this to come question the amendment. Constantly. Thank you, MR. My initial question was really answered by ares. First question. But a follow-up. It 2 council Pierce. Is there any guidance and state law that range that we have to be between for the timing on this. Guests are accounts heart. I think we did this last year. Know we did this last year, but curious. What was that event that occurred that? Allowed us okay. Don't need to answer something I'm sorry. We'll know the answer to It was the 4th of JULY was the event that was yes, sir. That was that PRESIDENT That occurred that. Had just moved. It is 120 days last year. Yes,
sir. Cost to comment. Thank you, MR. CHAIRMAN. So for council peers were talking about like that, the the history, but we're being reactive to rate. So if we look at the year-to-date trends and then we look at the annual trends of summer activity for juvenile, great white for issues. Can we cannot be or justification to have it be 20 days that historical data that we have combined with information about the year to date. Is that sort of? So I am not a judge so correctly. Can just tell you and there are no cases on this. So I can just tell you that what the language of both the ordinance in the statute say is that the public, hours are later than is reasonable for public safety under conditions that exist in the consolidated city. That exists not exist.
Did or will Also good? Because you're out and motion anymore comments about your motion. The reason why I wanted go ahead and do 60 days. I know we're talking about last year to this year and as I've mentioned earlier, we always talk about a problem, but we never come up with the solution. And for me is we have to give these teens something else to do and we have not done that and I never want to play the blame game because I know last year we ran into this problem where everybody was blaming us, the city county counselors. We wasn't doing and impd wasn't doing enough. Parents wasn't doing enough. The community wasn't doing and the and when I think about that, this is an all around community problem for all of us that we need to
take a hold of. And that's one of the reasons why I want to pull it back and skill bat because we MAY see something different this year, right? It MAY, you know, because each year could be different, even though you see that slight number rise by is just not a large numbers. And the in 2 with a lot of in your in your presentation. And again, I do understand about being proactive. But we haven't gotten there yet Brien. So I never like to speak on things that haven't happened. And so I encourage my fellow colleagues to support the in less go back and go back in the bayou, waited and less come up with some solutions for our teens, but this But the summer months. Just a
council meeting. Thank you, Mr. CHAIRMAN, again, just want to reiterate, I think if we were all listening to what the chief just said outlined those examples that were given. I think clearly the atmosphere exists in the city for us too. Lower to reduce the curfew hours. So I hope everyone would vote against this amendment and MR. PRESIDENT, I would respectfully request a roll call. Vote. Council art. Yeah. Just want to make that clear and agreements with my colleagues in the front row that this is I mean, we're talking 60 days. It's I think the prudent thing for us to do as a council body just to make sure that we've got it so are covered. We can we can do a solution at the same time. I mean, whatever that looks like with, you know, we've got we even spring this coming up the
and so if there's, you know, programmatic ideas that we want to try and think about through that time weve got time to do it. But I mean, it's a small small price to asked us to do another 60 days just in level of proven safe so. I'm not supportive of the amendment today. Thank you all. So anyone your audience speak to the motion to amend proposal number 99. You know, you come forward, officer coming up here. Okay. Sure. State your name for the record. Please case So just read a statement for clarity. Yes, before we open Florida public comment, would like remind committee members and the public of a few ground rules so everyone can have a fair chance speaking be hurt. is important that we each observe the following rules first, each speaker will be limited to 2 minutes. Second, any public comments most recently relate to the agenda
items and consideration. Speakers stray from the item and consideration or become unduly repetitious. MAY be asked to move on to the next point conclude their comments. Finally attendees who cause disruptions to prevent the committee from proceeding to nice agenda in recently efficient manner will be removed. Please remember the some types of certain speech incitement to violence are not protected by the First Amendment at all. We would do with those issues if they come up. But we don't think it will. And now MISTER Chair, if a committee member asked for consent to adopt these shows, we can proceed to public comments. Council's consent. Got think you MR. Can come forward. Please. As I stated earlier, work with children's and families in. I can see your name. But Kelso Valley counsel counsel Alan, I have
to agree with her because when you're working with in the community, you will know that they need things to They have a lot of idle time on their hands. And I agree with the I agree with the increase of the crime rates in a lot having to do with juveniles. But we also do need to give them something to do. We are investing a lot of time into proactive things and we could be prevent invest in our time and money to prevent Measurements like engage in those community-based services or, for example, connecting with more partners in the community to get these kids some job so they can stay out the streets in him being. Just using time wisely, especially during the summer. I do agree it is going to be a situation where if we don't do these things are going like get them programming or get them jobs. We are going to see increase
violence crime. But again, it needs to be re-evaluated in 60 days so we can even see if this works because I don't want to happen. Is what seems to be a disturbance or a crime or what with visually looks like something is causing a huge to be apprehended by law enforcement just because there are hanging around the summer and it's given. It's given its given leverage to stop these youth it. I just want to make sure that we're not just preventing, but we have actual solutions place. Thank you so much. There's been a motion on the floor has been seconded, MR. Thank you, MR. Cherish want to reiterate Naicco Council heart was just saying earlier is that we can do 2 things at once we can walk and chew bubble gum at the same time. We can have this at one 20 days. We can work on solutions of creating programs and opportunities for the youth that will give them something to do during these
hours. There's no reason these afternoon mutually exclusive. I still don't see a reason why we cut this in half. So. Encourage my fellow councilors to vote in. It's not some sporting this amendment and keeping as is. Thank you. Thank you, Counselor Council government, thank you, MR. CHAIRMAN, MR. Kerr, thank you. The first 2 things they were when we started this conversation at the top of my paper is proactive and preventative. So you have it the way you discussed it and I literally just for a walk and chew gum on my paper because this is multifaceted, great weather. We say it takes a village or, you know, we're talking about what organizations can do. Impd can do some things and this is something they can do right. So there are other says the council, the administration, other departments, other
agencies, our community partners, that can all do things. And so this is an issue that is an answer by one. Question. One idea, it's a multifaceted plan. And I think anything that can strengthen that. It's something that we can do for our kits. Thank you. Council counseling. Thank you, MR. I agree with the whole notion that we can implement preventative measures while also having a curfew. But something that comes to my mind is the mother is really choking up at Lake. There's no price that I wouldn't pay to keep my son alive. And if we can do something really small, we're talking about 2 hours for 120 days. If we can do something so small to League literally and emotional about this to prevent the death of
another child in our city. I think this is the least that we can do, but I don't want it to be an empty promise. I think that, you know, once I was just approved by this committee to the early Intervention Planning Council like this. For me, it's not an empty promise like it's coming from. A place of care for the youth in our community. And I think you for standing up and saying that in supporting counselor Allen and bringing that that late tonight. So thank you. He Thank you for your support and counselor Delaney. I like that. You said this is not empty promise because everybody that I've been very and that it into I've got a gun violence reduction strategy been very supportive of organizations that actually do this where
and I'm not against the curfew hours is just 120 days because when we talk about the connection center, what I don't want to end up happening is something start off. So smile. And they get into the system and then it continues to grow. If we can find other alternatives to help these children are these young teens. That's what I want to do. Not only that we do have organizations that have the the, you know, walk around downtown and, you know, try to engage the teens. And also, as I said earlier, it's not just the one person's problem is everybody's Yes, we do want to
live in a city that is free and clear of gun violence right in it just saving our youth because I've spoken at enough fuels. And I do want to see another baby. Ivan, other mothers, our father have to put their child to, you know, very their chops. I don't want Thank you for your support. And again, I encourage my fellow colleagues to support the amendment and also that need to add one more side. When we talk about doing something smile, we also have to contact our business partners to to see if they will open up their business is poor at teens. I'm not gonna Collin of businesses out, but I did do that last year and I
did not get a response. And so that's hard. And counselor, Dan Lanning, when you say let's do something that's what I I tried to reach out to different business is just to do that and no response. And I've had had conversations outs. So so if that helps, when we talk about doing something just know, I took that extra step to do that. Thank Thank you. Council clerk roll Call. Vote proposal. Number 99 motion to amend. Counts. Allen. Yay. Council know council vote nay. Council wells cow. So did my knee. Council heart Hart ne Council miscarry miscarry Council cormant. Mccormick. Now. Council Mowery no accounts, profits Robinson, Motion fails comments or questions on the proposal. Number 99, without
the Amendment Council wills. Thank you, MR. CHAIRMAN thank you for your and And healthy conversation that I think the current counselor Allen and thank you, chief for your presentation for bringing this. I think the data are the events. A narcissist statistically significant and would would agree with with my colleagues on that. My comments and questions MR. CHAIRMAN or around like how we help communicate this without sort of maybe an obvious precipitating event considering it's county wide. I know impd is wonderful in working with our town partners Speedway. Clermont even are Donut County Partners, Hendricks County and the like, but really want to make sure educating parents and teenagers MAY be in the same
but different ways. And and I I think the communication team is going to do a good job, getting that but really want to make sure. I would be remiss CHAIRMAN Boots if we didn't talk about the opportunities that do exist currently and and our parks are hiring. You can work at pools. You can work at golf courses on our rivers on our reservoirs. And I can tell you there's even lifeguard training coming up next weekend kids are going to be tired by the time. 9 o'clock hits. If they have some of those jobs that pay really well here in the city and connect them to some really awesome opportunities to spend time in community. And it's a different way. I as a parent
of a teen make my student be in the streets. But in a way that she's in service, doing healthy things with a lot of sunscreen on. And I would encourage us to continue to push our kids into those spaces. We could use some more roller rinks, but that's for a different conversation, Mr CHAIRMAN, but would like to ask the chief or even the communications team that there's anything we can do to help spread the word into the communities with school leaders and things as you know, get that kicking. I think it'll take effect right there on MAY. The force. So so we actually already have established communication with the schools and there should
be a message that shared from me to the local township principles and the school leaders that they will be then sharing with their parents and students as it relates to messaging around curfew. And I do want to I guess, emphasize all of the the legal defenses to the curfew. See here. So they're not in violation of the statute. If they're accompanied by a parent guardian or custodian or an adult that specified by a parent guardian or custodian. Okay. That encourages families to do things together for one thing, which I think is also important. There's also additional things that would be a legal defense to the statute. Child is participating in going to or returning from lawful
employment. A school sanctioned activity, religious event and emergency involving the protection of a person or property from an imminent threat of serious bodily injury or substantial damage. And activity involving the exercise of the child's rights protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution or article one, section 31 of the Constitution of Indiana. East freedom of speech or the right of Assembly. And activity conducted by a nonprofit or governmental entity that provides recreation, education, training or other care under the supervision of one or more adults, which is some of the programming. I think we've all been referring to throughout the evening. Or if the child is participating in an activity undertaken at the prior written direction of the
child's parent, guardian or custodian. And the child is engaged where the child is engaged in interstate or international travel from a location outside of Indiana to another location outside of Indiana. That one is kind of obscure. So all of those reasons, I think encourage parental involvement in the decisions that they're making as a family or or the decisions of the teenager. The youth. And I think that's a foundational piece as important. A important part of this conversation. They would like to just clarify that the point of the connection center is truly a diversion away from the system into resources and that connection. It's not putting kids into the system.
Certainly our role is to ensure public safety. And if we have a criminal acts that we're it. Police intervention, we're going you know, take action in those instances. But true curfew violations really weren't a deeper conversation that does involve those community partners that we've been partnering with the and connect those families to those resources. Thank you, chief. There's a comments council moved. Thank you, MR. CHAIRMAN, thank you. Chief Terry, what does happen when a child is brought to the reconnection center they recorded, is there any permanent record made? No. No, they're just there's like a kind of some brief survey questions and take questions that we asked just about them. And then that they're really literally Guided to the service providers that are
there and there's a spread of snacks and food available for them. We provided transportation to people in the past and the service speak directly with the parents and the used and really after that point in time, the the police officers, the we really try separate ourselves from that important work that can be done from credible messengers in our community. So just to confirm they are not put into the system so to speak, correct. Final comments or questions and it will be audience cure to speak to propose a number. 99. Seeing none. The chair emotional proposal 99. Most. Probably second will do a recall 99, please. This court. Was at me they thank you. Boots high
Kelso wells. I Kelso Counts the heart. Council was scary mask. Gary, I council Clement McCormick. I council I Council Robeson Robinson. I thank you. Motion carries. Thank you so much. Thank you, Chief. Thank you. Team. The into this evening's the presentation by MISS Katie, how in Hunger Network presentation? He you do have a hard copy in front of you is how will come forward. Thank you all for your time tonight. Allowing us to be here tonight. My name is Kate. How I'm the executive director of in The Hunger Network. And I'm here with my colleague Laura Dogs from Purdue extension Marion County. And we're actually here to talk about the Indianapolis Food Access Advisory Commission on which
we both serve. We have presented about the Food Access Advisory Commission at the Community Affairs Committee in the past, but never to the Public Safety Committee. And so we're glad to be here tonight. We work very closely with the Office of Public Health and Safety. And so think this might be the better place for us to be presenting communicating in the future. So we're really just going to give you an update on the work of the commission and share with you some things that we would like you be aware of. Some things that we're working on in the community. And I'm going to start off and I'll pass it off to Laura. It So the Indianapolis Food Access Advisory Commission was established by ordinance from the City County Council in 2021. And I believe Laura and I have both served on the commission since that time. So we've been around a while now. It's a 13 member commission at
some of the members are appointed by the City County Council, some by the mayor's office and some by Marion County ag Agencies pretty extension, which Laura's position. And then also Marion County Department of Health, Public Health. Our goals are really broad to promote policies relating to food equity in a Trish U.S. Food access which touches a lot of things in the city. We're here to provide independent community-based advice to policymakers, local organizations and funders regarding food initiatives. And we serve as a way to empower stakeholders and community members to speak out or to think about talk about policy issues. So over the past few years, we've identified 5 priority areas that we really want to focus our efforts on in the city in terms of improving food
access. The first is the federal nutrition programs snap with school meals and some other smaller programs that we think are important to help the people in our city and trying to figure out how we can better connect city residents to those programs. Another idea that we've been working on for a while is developing in since sustaining a food hub and will go into each of these and more detail in a minute. But these are just the broad priorities supporting urban, urban farms and urban growers within the city. Creating and maintaining a food equity plan, which is about to be released. I think this week even and then food waste production is a newer priority. One that we haven't delved into too far yet. But something that we think is important for the So I'm just
going to give a little bit of background on the Indianapolis food landscape to give you an idea of why we're working on this. What we're concerned about the next few slides are going to show you our data from the in The Hunger Network, which is my organization. But we work very closely phs. So study that we that I'm going to be talking about here for a couple of minutes was released at the end of last year. It was data collected in 2025. In collaboration with DR. Shelley Settles who's here who formerly was with Indiana University now is back working Phs and a longtime collaborator colleague. And so very glad to be working with again. So she and her colleague Denville Duncan at did the study with advice and input from in The Hunger
Network and it was funded Phs and the Central Indiana Community Foundation. So we talked to residents of Central Indiana, some Marion County and the surrounding counties to look at, you know, what's the status of food insecurity in our community? And I hope you're shocked by the number that 40 54% of central Indiana respondents experience some level of food insecurity in the past year. That's number If you look at the usda data, it's much much higher than those national studies. Would tell you and it's not because food and security is high are much, much higher than it is elsewhere in the country. It's because of the way we're measuring food, insecurity when a lot of the studies actually interview people and ask them, are you food insecure and kids have enough
food to eat people are hesitant when you're talking to them. One-on-one to tell you about their food and security. But we used anonymous online survey that people could respond to and the folks that that said that they had experienced food insecurity wasn't everybody. Saying I'm food insecure today. It's that at some point within the past year they struggle to put food on the table so that might have had to use a food pantry or get help from a family member. So it's that in security around, where will the food come from? And that financial insecurity that a lot of our neighbors are experiencing right now. I won't go through all of the data. You've got the date in your hands. And the full report is on our website. It's a it's something that we need to be thinking about in our city that these numbers go up year after year after year and while we don't have control of everything at the city level,
there are some things that the city can do to improve these numbers. They also want to point out that we found the same same level of food insecurity across the region. This is not an Indianapolis problem. It's the in Hamilton County and Shelby County across the region. 53% of Marion County, PRESIDENT Said that they were food insecure and 54% across the region. So really there's no difference there. People are struggling all across the country, putting food on the table. And then we found that there some interesting. Patterns, households with children were more likely to have food insecurity. Obviously fewer income earners in the household and more mouths to feed means you're more likely to have your budgets
stretched. A lot of the people we talked to were working families. I believe that 86% of our respondents had at least one wage earner in the household to these are not people who are unemployed sitting on the couch and struggling to feed themselves or people, hard-working families that just aren't enough money to pay their bills and to buy the food that they need. And if you have struggles with paying your rent, you're gonna pay your rent before you buy food. Because you have to pay that rent. You're going to be evicted. You're going to be on the street, but you can skimp on food. You can buy cheaper food, you can buy less food. You can get help from community organization to put food on the table. And that's what we're finding. People are doing. Folks who are self I think that makes sense.
They're more likely to be food insecure, folks that are Uber is are doing sort of gig, work are more likely to have struggles with consistent food supply. And then as I mentioned before, it's not just city, rural communities and suburban communities as well that are experiencing food insecurity. And then just briefly, this will be a little hard to see on the screen, but you'll be able to see it better on your hand out. We collect in the hunger network. Looks data every year on where the meals are coming from. So what programs and organizations are providing food to our community what percentage of the food comes from those sources you can see at the top rate this was data from 2024. So 205 million meals provided in the food assistance system just for Marion County. And half of
that came from snap. And I'm going to tell you in a minute, what's happening with snap right now. So keep in mind, we rely very heavily on snap. And whether or not you think that we should be the federal government should be Pete feeding people. It is. And that's where the food historically has come from. And we are now cutting back on those programs is substantially the next biggest source is orange junk, which is the school and summer meals. That includes both the Summer Food Service program and The Sun Bucks Program, which was in Operation. At that time. And then there's a few other programs, federal programs with the teeth that program which is come usda, commodities that distributed from leaders Foodbank to food pantries and then a few other
smaller senior feeding programs. If you add all that together, that's 3 quarters of the food supply coming from federal government programs that are administered by the state of Indiana. And even I assume many of you have been the Gleaners Food Bank. There chunk is 14%. Think about how huge that places and all the food that goes through there. It's by football fields of food and it's still a small sliver of the pie. And so we can't just expect that the charities are going to make up for the federal programs are getting cut. So this is data that just arrived last week looking at what's happened with snap participation as the programs have been cut. So last year, the one big beautiful Bill act that was passed in the summer made substantial cuts to snap program and those cuts have been rolled out sort of in stages. So some of those
things got implemented in the fall. Some got implemented earlier this year. Some have not yet been implemented and are on the way. So this isn't to the bottom yet. And since AUGUST 2024, and Indiana snap participation has dropped by 11%. And I just told you that we had 54% of residents in our community who are experiencing food insecurity. So it's not dropping because people are doing okay and they don't need help with food is dropping because we put more and more restrictions on the program, made it harder to access nap and people are falling off because of increased work requirements. For instance, one of the things that went into effect is people who are homeless now have to work in order to get snap. If you're homeless, you got a lot of challenges in getting to work is probably not top of your list. And so where we're adding layer and layer of
restrictions that make it harder for people to get help with food. And then if you look here, you'll I'm sure you all heard about the government shutdown and the impact on snap snap benefits. We're not going out the door during the government shutdown last fall and you can see that the more dramatic drop in snap participation during that time. It hasn't bounced back because people. Fell off the rules because they couldn't get approved during that time or they thought was not worth it. I'm not gonna be able to get this. I'm not gonna spend the time. It's a very arduous process of applying for snap yet to produce bank statements. You have to produce pay stubs. We have an asset limited, Indiana, see have to prove that you have less than $2500 in your bank account in order to be able to
get snap. So there are lots and lots of hurdles for people to get approved. And some people just quit trying. So I want to talk about a solution. Another talked about the problem. So Indy 100 network has a program called Fresh, which is the Food Research Services Hub. We started this program 2 years ago Arpa funding that came from the city. Thank you very much. And through the Office of Public Health and Safety and the idea was to give one-on-one assistance with people applying for snap who want to get connected to with who need to learn how sign their kids up for free school meals who want to know how to find a food pantry or where they can get a free meal. Any other food program that might be available to them. And so we actually have people come into our office. They meet with our
one of our food resource navigators who provide information on all of those things. The goal is to remove as many barriers as we can. People finding and accessing food by giving them that one-on-one help with application and finding locations. You made some of you MAY have heard about community compass. I hope most of you are all you have. It's an app that we in the hunter never developed with the Office Public Health and Safety many years ago. Now. So some people just use community compass. They don't need to come in and talk with us. But if they have more complicated needs or they have low literacy are technology challenges. Those are the folks that we see that come in for that extra help. So in 2024 with the arpa funding, we
had 2 full-time and one part-time employee and we in the first year that we operated. We served over 3700 visitors gave out 546 bus passes provided 6400 meals through emergency food distribution. You can see all the data there in 2025. The arpa funding was gone. And so we had to dramatically scale back the program. We applied for grant funding in just 2 were not successful in telling that story at that time. And so we've been kind of a hobbling along with one part-time person. So that's why the numbers have dropped off. But that one part-time person is doing a lot of work and he helped 1000 people on his own last year. We help
people, you know, apply for snap. The documented snap snap results at the bottom is not just people that we helped apply, but people we were able to call back and hear from them that they actually got snap benefits. So we try to reach out to folks after we've helped them with an application. They do is pick up the phone. But we know that we're making a difference with the people were helping to apply. I mentioned community Compass. Oh, this is that you have a smaller number of people that fresh is helping. But the people with the highest needs and a lot of folks are just going straight to community Last year, community Compass, busiest 187,000 times. We a dramatic spike during the government shutdown. So we knew people were going there to find help.
And that those uses were from over 54,000 unique individuals and average use is 3.4, 4. So people using and they're coming back. They're finding it helpful. I'm gonna pass it Now to Laura who will talk with And thank you again for letting or some of that tell you a little bit about the concept or the food hub as it is one of our priorities heading here. A Mac user. So I don't even understand this. So if you're not. If you don't know what a food hub is, it's a hub where food is aggregated from the community. It allows small growers and mid size growers 2. Add their food to other folks. Food to they have enough food to potentially serve schools and institutions are aggregating their food to get into the community and
increases the likelihood that folks can eat that local food that schools can purchase that local food and it increases the opportunities for small and mid size growers to. Continue to sustain their business, which can be difficult, especially in urban settings. So that is one of our priorities that we've been working on this is just a little graphic. Our colleague from jump in for health put together. But it gives you a little bit about and understanding how how the food comes in and then how the food goes out. There's been some progress with the food hub in central Indiana right now. There's a proposal for 20,000 additional square feet for storage and distribution and partnership with a bunch of community organizations to do that. It will be 4 million dollars. They're estimating to
develop and build out that that food I don't know that they've started actively fundraising for those dollars shot. So, yeah, that's we'll hear more about that as that program continues. A little bit more about urban farms. It's a role in the commission to serve as a policy advocate. Our goal is to hear from the community voices about the problems that they're facing in their neighborhood and bring that to you at the council. So we have our friends from the Indy Food Access Coalition here to meet with us and talked a lot about what they're experiencing and their knowledge in the community. Our hope is to be able to bring those policies and programs and front of the council and others to help support urban farms. Those things include everything from
the challenges that local growers have and detaining land. The financial sustainability. It. Doesn't really pay well to produce small amount of produce and livestock. Labor and workforce limitations that they face, whether wages or just finding the part-time staff, too, to do that work. It's seasonal often which also creates limitations. There are some policy in zoning barriers that growers let us know about that. We are in a position that we hope to come educate the council about how it's impacting them. And market access. Purdue extension. We do programs that help educate folks on how to take their
products, their produce to market. So that's just something when you think about the development of urban farms and why that's a priority for the commission. We also, as Kate mentioned earlier, are committed to creating and maintaining a food equity plan which will be released an APRIL here in the next week and are the concept of that is culturally appropriate food and just small things like what we consider healthy might not be nutritious. What your grandma considered healthy when she put it on your plate. Might not actually have been healthy at all. We have a lot of refugees our folks in our city who aren't used to the
food that we eat here or grow here. So we're really looking for ways to make sure that people have equitable access to culturally appropriate foods. Some of the things that will be released and the equity plan include the funding priorities, the capacity building needs policy change as it relates to. Some are in school lunches as well as worker wages community engagement. The equity plan utilize community voice and all of its research. Our last priority, which was only recently added to our list. So we don't have a lot of updates on that. But there are other cities in the country that are doing great things with food,
waste reduction. We have lots of opportunities in Indianapolis to improve our food waste reduction programs. So we're looking forward to presenting that as we continue to develop with the word of voice of the community on what they want to see and how we as commissioners can bring that forward. Chief guys to consider. I think that's all we have. Any From my colleagues. Yes, canceling delaying the. Thank chair. Just wondering, I know at the very beginning you said that there's appointees from the City County Council. Could you know who who those folks are? I'm one of them great. So I think when the commission for first was started, the staff of Office of Public Health and Safety suggested nominees from organizations are different
level areas of expertise. I think it's outlined a little further in the ordinance, but you don't have in front of me. My role is representing 3 of the food, the hunger, food and security space. So that is the area that I was nominated for an appointed for and believe Juli Burns from jump in for helping kids was also appointed by the council. But I don't know if I'm one of our folks Phs couldn't remember the who is appointed by the council. It can certainly good evening council up. Keep it that Alexis, we were deputy director of public health for the Office of Public Safety. Just wanted to acknowledge there's a number of 13 total that have various appointments originating from mayor's
office or council. There are also a couple of vacancy. So we will get you a whole list of who is currently serving what their term when it expires and then any vacancies that now exists, would be great and just interested more in the governance of it. And I was looking at the ordinance and things like that. So thank you. Absolutely. Thanks. Yes, certainly. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. MADAM Vice chair this is very dense and this is very, but I I've heard this presentation being on other committees as well. And so this is really refreshing, though, to hear from sort of the public safety space. So kudos to you in the team and the good work that Purdue extension. Doesn't things like that, especially with our schools. I think our schools only and that I think could really dovetail into some of these products projects,
especially some of these urban farms and students are actually in school when a lot of the harvest is happening. You know, we're waking up our gardens right now. A lot of too. And so that time really can be better utilized. I think by fire students as well. But I want go back and underscore the data that you highlighted the very, very beginning said things like Fried 3 or 4 with the pie chart when it was the day to collect good for that. Will live with what is the time for Get the data were collected from FEBRUARY to APRIL of 2025. So that's before any of these new snap restrictions went into effect a And that's kind of what I was afraid of. MADAM Vice chair. I think the government shutdown not only
like impacted snap, but i think food insecurity became exacerbated and as a parent, I was kind of joking to myself like working families, households with children and, you know, teenagers, some of you can really eat a lot and it's so expensive in groceries have just exponentially, you know, gone outgoing, gone through the roof. And so I know that this has just really put really hard train. So it doesn't surprise me to see that data from when the when the government was shut down and people having to reach out multiple times for support. I think the one last fall was more almost 40 long. And then another one more recently. We do have a lot of federal workers here and families who are impacted so thank you for bringing this to us today to
this particular committee. And please don't hesitate to let us know how we can continue to support you. Thank Chair. Thank you. Council heart. Thank you. So one thing I want to dive into is a conversation I had with the another community leader in regards to this Medicaid because they really came at the same time, requirements from the same time. Mentioned one of the 3 qualifications earlier, which was a work requirement there are other opportunities for people to which include volunteer work. And that's the part that I want dive into. And I think that I'm glad to see director Merkley here because I think we have an opportunity city and it's something that we as a council should be considering. But there's a lot service
providers within the city that need a ton of volunteer help and where there's an opportunity think the city potentially the off a smoke oath and safety is helping to aggregate those service providers. And we already do to some extent. But being able to then connect individuals who need to either get volunteer hours or some sort of ours to be qualified for these benefits. But Utah lies in the city as that aggregate function to connect individuals to service, providing opportunities. And I think that can help folks get the hours. They need to be qualified for volunteers to ultimately get snap or whatever the Medicaid benefits required. But there are things we can do and those are very low-cost things that we can do to connect. People make sure that they're getting some of the and if not the work requirements. Thank you.
That's a great idea. Does anybody else have any questions? Concerns anyone from public like to speak? We have one I Harrison to cope part of the ad the Annapolis. Collision. So one of the things that we talked about was, for example, the council heart was conversation we had about was a how do we? Volunteers, whatever conversation was about, how do we aggregate aggregate, volunteer opportunities to help supplement out these these opportunities with organizations and tying that into public safety is firm i as a good idea because we were talking about earlier in a public safety issue issue with the students and, you know, young adults is that there's not any opportunities for these kind of things. So, you know, with the with the idea of having the ability to kind of like volunteer with food organizations. See that happen to growing sidling up to the
volunteering side with the food banks, things like that. Gives a lot of opportunities so that he could have, you know, more of an integrated where people learn more about where their food comes from. They learn more about working with the community. So I think that the idea of fun for everyone, you know, work with, you know, for it, which again, I think the intervention is what one of the the chief was talking about was interventions. What they put focus on. And I think that intervention starts before before they're on the street. It starts. You know, in your community and how do embrace community will one of the big things is urban farms that there's a lot of opportunities at finer farms that does these kind of programs where they
have at-risk children who come in, served time or had some, you know, some issues in the will then be trained with an ag license and having opportunities as well. So tying the food and with the idea safety I think is is a perfect idea because, you know, I you know, I can describe to as hierarchy needs. It's, you know, food and shelter. And, you know. Being one of the 2 being ones is if you're hungry, then you're more likely to go out and try to find food. And how do you find food while you know you down luck and have nowhere else to go. I mean, sometimes, you know, it's violence takes place there. So thank you. Thank you. Would anybody else like to speak to this presentation? Just like that one might thing. I am so excited to see the development of the urban because I do think that this would take care of some of food scarcity
that we often talk about in different areas of the city. So anything that we can do to support started having this conversation last year. So just to see it roll out you guys are looking into this just know that I'm very supportive of anything that you out me when it comes to urban farm. Me also thank This office has appeared and a couple community events that I have partner with my church But the last couple years. So thank you all that you do in that area. If no one else has anymore questions or concerns for the in the Hunger team. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you.