Over the past several years, I have personally reached out to all of our local politicians with safety concerns and concerns about our school district on how to get that on track and help others in our community grow as one. I know what it is like to grow up poor and in group homes, and by the age of eighteen, I was figuring out what my next move to survive would be. We can do better if we want Utica to be the best city we know it can be.
I emailed several times in the past and even spoke to everyone at city hall about no more divides. City hall officials must make time once a month to meet with the school district about all topics and learn to share services. Since this is a city school system, think about it: Each common council member represents an area of the city, and each city department has a specific job working for the city, so why would they all not be expected to sit down together as one?
Work on city clean-up plans around every school building to ensure that the streets, signage, and more are always in excellent working order (which we all know they are not). I recently asked the city to work on the entire side street at Kernan, which is a considerable safety hazard. No road should ever look that bad without someone noticing. The city needs to do something on its own about it. Then the school district should contact city hall demanding something to be done.
We need to start 24/7 policing around every school we own to show the force of security year-round and not just for a few weeks, so we need to ensure we have the police numbers to make this happen. Our schools should be the safest place no matter what in our city, but that has not been the case with the fights right on school property, shootings near or at schools, and lockdowns throughout the school year due to violence.
Have our police force actually train our security or pay for our security to take the phase 1 training at MVCC before they are allowed to step foot in our school buildings. This is needed not just to improve school security , but for our employees to know they have peace of mind and can mentally and physically have a better shot at doing a good job. Our security should have some primary defense in place if a large fight breaks out, like pepper spray at least. We do not need anyone other than police carrying guns.
I know we have events with police and the kids in the area, but what about events with our security officers and the kids? It only helps bring them all closer together. We need our children to understand the purpose of police and the purpose of security officers to break down the barriers of how people feel around them.
