Resolution to Censure

          On Feb. 18, I received a flurry of messages at around 11 p.m. An ice and snow storm had landed a one-two punch on the city’s streets, making some of them extremely dangerous and virtually unusable. I learned that a child in Ward 3 suffered a traumatic brain injury, and their parent sprained their wrist, both from slipping on the ice. Both were admitted to the hospital.

          Soon, the neighborhood on Linden Street was reporting to me that cars were sliding down the hill, and they were worried about potential collisions at the busy intersection of Linden and Market Streets in the morning. It was late at night, but I knew we could not afford to wait until the morning to address these treacherous conditions. That would have been unacceptable. It's my duty to ensure that the city doesn't endanger its residents, so I needed to do something.

          I called the fire department, and the call was picked up by emergency dispatch. I was told by the dispatcher that they could send sand. To me, that didn’t seem to be enough to remedy the increasingly dangerous conditions. Dispatch suggested I call elsewhere if I wanted anything besides sand but wouldn’t give me the phone numbers of anyone on-call. We had a short, fruitless exchange about which individuals I could or could not hope to reach that night.

          Finally, one of my constituents, after being hung up on by dispatch multiple times, demanded to be put through to the police, who sent an officer to take a look at the road. The officer, upon reporting to the scene, immediately slipped and fell on Linden Street. He radioed back that the road should be closed. And so the road finally was closed, averting any serious accidents.

          During that initial call with dispatch, where I was being repeatedly told that the only solution that could be provided was sending some sand, I was taken aback. Was the city really willing to be that reckless with the safety of my constituents? And so I reminded the dispatcher that as a city councilor I had a responsibility for ensuring my constituents' safety.

          At the next city council meeting, I gave a speech about the events of that night, highlighting our failure to promptly respond to an emergency. The dispatch person answering the phone was not at fault; he was just doing his job. But the tools the dispatcher was given were insufficient for handling the emergency that night. And rather than addressing that, the city council chose instead to address my actions.

          I'm by no means perfect, and certainly we might all handle calls differently if they're not crises in the middle of the night, but I was caught between frightened constituents and a disengaged emergency response. No one is at their best when they're exasperated with a customer service representative who repeats company policies but can’t do anything to actually help, and this was my situation, but it was far more serious.

          Instead of getting to work fixing any policies that made that call so difficult, the city council issued a resolution to censure me for my vigorous advocacy for the road closure. I think safe streets are priceless, and I also believe that as a representative of the public, my phone call had to make it very clear that Ward 3 was facing an exceptionally hazardous scenario.

          I hope this entire sequence of events eventually leads to the city implementing better policies for dealing with late-night emergencies. Until then, I am grateful that constituents continue to trust me with their needs, knowing that I will never stop advocating for Ward 3 and that I am working to raise the bar for what we should expect from city government. This September and November, let's vote for people who care about our safety and take their official duties seriously.

          If you want to learn more about the resolution to censure, I'm always happy to meet with the public and talk face-to-face. I’m in my office in Thorne’s Market seven days a week, and I'm always just a phone call or email away.