Tabling the truancy ordinance? How hard is it to understand? Was it not explained properly to you? Are you having trouble grasping that fact we NEED to have kids in school between 9-3:30 and yes there SHOULD be penalties, STIFF penalties for those who simply won't follow the rules?
Ypsilanti residents don't ask a lot out of our city council, we're a fairly live and let live bunch but with all the crime going on as the economy bottoms out, should we also have to worry about teenagers causing mischief of worse when you could simply hold their parents accountable? DO SOMETHING and tabling the issue is NOT what you should have done.
Lois Richardson, D-1, felt that a fine could be bad for parents. Uh, Lois, that's the damned point. If it's voluntary or has no teeth why even bother? Each and every city council member who voted to kick this down the road let down the very city residents you are paid to look after. That would be ALL Of them except William Nickels, D-2, who did the RIGHT thing in not voting for the delay.
Stop mollycoddling truant teenagers, stop mollycoddling inept or uninformed parents, stop worrying about each and every person being notified, just do it and stop being so soft on something that requires some teeth.
Simply gutless...
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Sorry - I disagree with you on this one.
1. We already have state laws to punish truants and their parents for not attending school. See my post on my blog if you want to read what they say. Council ought not be wasting time by simply duplicating existing laws, albeit with slightly different wording.
2. The real question everyone should be asking is why is the school district (which gets state money independently and budgets for liaison officers to investigate and charge truancy offenses) pushing the task off on our cash-strapped City? We ought not be spending city money on this while eliminating positions, when money has already been allocated by the state to another agency to do precisely the same thing.
We don't need more laws, Johnny, what we need is for the laws we have to be enforced. That is a management issue.
After some of these issues are resolved, it may be appropriate to enact a new ordinance -- I don't know. I think the pushback you're seeing is because it's all too easy to oversimplify the problem by enacting an ordinance that conveys a get-tough approach while not really changing anything or doing anything new. When that happens, we merely avoid the more arduous task of getting to the root of the problem and then trying to come up with a meaningful solution through real dialogue and debate. The latter, in my view, is more likely to actually work.
trusty getto--
It seems like a simple enough thing to have the same ordinance in Ypsi and Ypsi Township and Pittsfield Twp. I really think the thinking behind this by people like Lois Richardson and others is misplaced--an inconveneice to parents, I think it should be, it needs to be.
At some point we need to hold parents MORE accountable.
Thanks for the comment and disagreement, I really do enjoy lively debate!
I will be over to check out the laws by the way.
Also understand, I'm a cranky old dude with no kids so I HAVE to take my postion as it dovetails with:
"You kids get out of my yard!"
And stop making out in my begonias!
As a member of Council and someone who has yet to see the merits of this ordinance, allow me to offer you a clearer view than what you read in the Ann Arbor News.
This ordinance would be enforced by the school liaison officer. When I questioned the Chief of Police, he said that she spent the overwhelming majority of her day IN schools and that the odds of her actually being able to enforce this were slim. It's true this would be another tool to help her more effectively do her job, but it would be a tool that she rarely used.
I asked him specifically on what impact this would have on crime -- specifically how many incidents during the past year he could attribute to youths during school hours. Again, he stated that he could not produce that information and did not recall daytime youth crime as an issue.
I asked what impact this would have on the City Attorney and our contract with him. He stated that prosecution for this would not fall under the current contract and would be an added expense. Said another way, we would be spending City taxpayer money to correct a School District issue. All this talk of "cooperation" is really the City assuming expenses of the YSD.
More importantly, the handing out of fines by the courts is at their discretion. This means the City Attorney could do several hours worth of work (i.e. bill the City) and we wouldn't be reimbursed by the offender. We'd simply have to eat the costs and find offsets in other services the City provides.
Just because two other communities adopted this ordinances doesn't mean we should. It's bad ordinance that shifts the burden to the City. We shouldn't be adopting legislation like that just because it's common with the Townships.
I appreciate your sentiment that parents should be held accountable. Under current Michigan Compiled Law, the school district is the body who initiates the process of enforcement. If truancy is an issue in the schools, the school district needs to take action to have the law enforced. For them to farm out enforcement to the City at our cost is not responsible leadership.
You say it was gutless not to adopt this ordinance. I believe that adopting legislation that is merely symbolic is a sign of incompetence.
Brian Robb
City Council, Ward 3
brobb [AT] cityofypsilanti [DOT] com
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