Merced to talk safety in downtown
The Merced City Council will study problems facing downtown during a session prior to the regular meeting Monday.
The study session begins at 5:30 p.m. Monday at City Hall, 678 W. 18th St. The regular meeting begins at 7 p.m.
Mayor Pro-Tem Josh Pedrozo and Councilman Tony Dossetti met in September with downtown “stakeholders,” a term often used to refer to business owners, residents and anybody else interested in the topic of discussion, according to city records.
The number of complaints coming from stakeholders had begun to rise in recent months, records show. The complaints were related almost entirely to public safety.
The stakeholders at the meeting said police do not patrol the area often enough, dispatchers do not act professionally and officers respond too slow to calls, according to records. Panhandling and drug use are also a problem among the homeless who loiter downtown.
City leaders do not deny these issues, according to records, so the stakeholders at the meeting said they feel ignored by public officials.
The stakeholders also questioned whether the Merced Main Street Association has been effective in its use of the roughly $60,000 budget handed over to the organization in January. Before that, the city decided what to do with that money, which had been identified for use for marketing, cleanup and public safety.
The stakeholders at the September meeting said there were fewer events this year to promote downtown than in past years.
City staff has recommended the council audit the association’s efforts in the last year, as well as the work done by the Continuum of Care, a coalition of homeless advocates that receives local and federal funding.
At the same meeting, the council is set to get an update from the Finance Department on the forecast for the next five years.
The council has also been asked to appoint members to the Ad Hoc High-Speed Rail Citizen’s Advisory Committee. The committee has been a point of contention for the council.
The council did not take the committee’s recommendation on the firm to hire for local station planning. Some questioned the expertise of the committee. The council instead did its own interviews.
City Council meetings are streamed live on the Internet; a link to the meeting and past videos is at www.cityofmerced.org. The meeting is also shown live on Comcast’s Government Channel 96.
This story was originally published November 15, 2015 at 2:33 PM with the headline "Merced to talk safety in downtown."