Adam Interviews City Council President Melendez about top budget priorities

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — Rochester City Council President Miguel Melendez stood flanked by four other city councilmembers at City Hall Thursday saying the group has a plan to, in his words, “cut through the noise” and deliver on issues that matter most to residents.

Dubbed the “Pact with the People,” the plan prioritizes bolstering public safety services, improving housing options and making it easier for people living in the city to find a job.

Melendez along with Vice President LaShay Harris and Councilmembers Mike Patterson, Mitch Gruber and Bridget Monroe hope to use the upcomnig process to push this agenda.

Another goal of the pact is to separate the group from of the other issues that have drawn attention to city council.

Melendez talked about all this with Adam Chodak as they walked down North Clinton Avenue Thursday afternoon.

Adam Chodak: One of the goals in doing what you’re doing is to cut through the noise. What type of noise are you talking about?

Miguel Melendez: I think what we hear in the community is often different from what we hear at City Hall. And getting out of the ivory tower for me is important and listening to people and what I hear all the time from community members is that they want safer neighborhoods, they want quality housing, they want equitable access to opportunities and that’s the energy I want to focus on with City Council and I think we have a very good opportunity through the budget process and policies to unite around those issues.

AC: Some of the messaging that I’m hearing is criticism of police. Is that the case? And if so, what’s your take because they say a lot of the people don’t feel safe with the officers.

MM: There’s certainly a balance to be struck in these conversations. We have situations where maybe officers shouldn’t be the first responders to certain things. We have the PIC team now. We have mental health services that are out in the community, we’re also looking at community responder models. And I think in the upcoming budget we’ll look at ways to augment some of the services and have different responses to low-level opportunities or low-level issues. That being said I think there’s a demand for police services that when I’m out in the community people want policing, they just don’t want to have the challenges of potential abuse or misconduct and that’s why we created opportunities to address that through the Police Accountability Board, but beyond that it’s really focusing on a place where there is community policing happening in the City of Rochester.

AC: Do you feel that a lot of your constituents, especially those who are people of color, feel comfortable around law enforcement?

MM: I think it’s a mixed bag and there’s a lot of work to do but what I hear consistently when I’m knocking on doors and talking to neighbors in this community and many other communities across the city is they want those services to be in their neighborhoods, they want to feel safe and I think there’s better ways to create bridge-building opportunities and to do more community-based policing.

AC: I’m thinking one of the pieces of messaging that you might consider noise was the resolution for a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza. Could the argument be made that you can chew gum and walk at the same time?

MM: We can but I think what’s most important to the folks in the City of Rochester is that we focus on the issues that’s are right in front of them, out in the street and I want to make sure that we bring that emphasis back. Safer neighborhoods, quality housing, and equitable opportunities. I mean, those are thing that resonate with people and I think there’s a lot we can do within the context of city government to bring that to the forefront. Last year, around quality housing, we had a housing task force that created a lot of recommendations that provided us a blueprint, but we have to do more on the investment side and what I’d like to see is more home ownership opportunities, more commitments to quality affordable housing being built in the city, I know we’ve done a lot, but there’s more to do and we have a lot of vacant properties. We have to come up with strategies, whether it’s through the Land Bank or other strategies to not only acquire but then invest in this properties so that the future of Rochester is stronger.

AC: And we’ve done stories on this when it comes to housing. We have landlords in the community who don’t live around and they let the homes fall into disrepair, how do you address something like that?

MM: I think there’s a multi-prong approach. We’ve been enhancing code enforcement for the last two years. Last year, we added more code enforcement positions to the budget, it takes some time to get up to speed on those things but my hope is regardless of what neighborhood you’re in in the entire City of Rochester that everyone has the same housing standard, uniform housing standard. Certainly some neighborhoods are going to have more investment than others and we understand that, but from an equity standpoint we want to make sure that we have uniformed processes in place at City Hall and city government.

AC: What do you think when you hear people say don’t go into the city or don’t go into that neighborhood?

MM: As a lifelong city resident and as someone who walks all sorts of neighborhoods throughout the city, the City of Rochester is a beautiful place, we are not without challenge, there’s no question about that, but to me the greatest asset in the city is the people and what you find is as you engage with people in these neighborhoods, they want to see a thriving city too, they want to see opportunities come, they’re invested in the future of Rochester and we have to prop that up, I think it’s very easy for to focus solely on the challenges, but when we have so many assets here in the community it’s important that we don’t lose sight of we can change the dynamics here.

AC: Do you worry that creating this kind of 5-4 image will create division within the council?

MM: I’m certain not everyone will be on board with everything in the plan, but it’s my hope that where there’s alignment that we come together and I think there’s enough meat on this plan that we’ re introducing – the Pact of the People – that’s focusing on safer neighborhoods, quality housing and equitable access to opportunities that every councilmember can find something we can collaborate on and my hope in intoducing this with my colleagues is to really get everyone focused on the issues that we can impact, the issues that we can work on in the city budget and the policies we can create down the road.

AC: Anything else that I might have missed here?

MM: I’d like to add a little bit more about equitable access to opportunities and what that means to me. We have a lot of jobs here in the Rochester region.. We have a lot of programs and services and what I’m hoping to do through the city council is focusing on things like having a Rochester first hiring policy where if we’re giving resources to a small business in our community, it is our hope that they would consider hiring Rochester residents first whether that’s contracting work, whether that’s startups, really want to create an environment in which city residents are prioritized and I think we can do that not just through policy but through how we invest our dollars. We have the REjob (Rochester’s Environmental Job Training) program that has been longstanding in the City of Rochester, we have the brownfield training in education, I have the Roc the Block employment fair that I do every year with the workforce development program with the city. So bringing resources and opportunities to the people so that they can find pathways that work for them. One of the other things we’re looking to invest in is the Career Pathways to Public Safety which is in collaboration with the school district to introduce young people to the various fields of public safety, not just policing but the fire department, ambulance service, 911, these are all fields that we struggle to fill the jobs and I think it would be great to have city residents be in the pipeline for those.

Watch the full interview

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