Knight Chair in Investigative & Enterprise Reporting
Finding problems facing small cities — continued
School in embarrassing condition, police harassment, sex offenders and a monkey in a tree
A few of the cities we surveyed had significant issues that didn't fall into the top five categories of most important problems.
While we didn't survey school board minutes, discussion about a deteriorating high school showed up in the minutes of a Mount Vernon city council workshop meeting. One citizen called the school “outdated.” According to the meeting minutes, another citizen commented that the old high school is an embarrassment to Mount Vernon and to her. The same citizen went on to say that she has shown visitors where her children attend school and they can't believe the condition of the old high school.
Also in Mount Vernon, citizens complained about police harassing African Americans. One citizen told the council that he has seen the police stop African Americans and then follow them through two stoplights. Another citizen said she had filed complaints about possible harassment and had not heard anything from the police department.
Complaints about public safety operations were also heard at Albert Lea city council meetings. Citizens complained about sex offenders living near an elementary school. The discussion was started by an “initiative petition” that called for an ordinance limiting where sex offenders can live in Albert Lea. According to the minutes, a citizen said he had collected 910 signatures. Citizens were concerned that the city doesn't notify residents about where sex offenders live.
In Sikeston, the city council also dealt with a petition in which a citizen wanted the city to remove a monkey that had attacked a child. According to the minutes, the citizen showed the council a T-shirt that her seven-year-old grandson had been wearing when the monkey attacked him. The council responded that city staff would “look into the matter.”
More comments, more problems
We found that the seven Midwestern cities we surveyed share many of the same problems. However, our survey is by no means a complete composite of each city's ills. Cities are sure to have problems that are not discussed at city council meetings.
By our count, Albert Lea had the most problems, according to the number of complaints brought to the city's attention. It also had the second highest number of public comments at city council meetings, with 186. Owosso led our survey, with 301 public comments but had the second highest number of problems.
City councils with fewer public comments at their meetings discussed fewer problems. Beaver Dam had the lowest number of public comments, with six. And Sikeston came in second with seven public comments. Both cities also had the fewest problems of the cities we surveyed.
From our survey, we learned that cities with high rates of public comment cannot necessarily count on their cities to solve the problems.
In the surveyed cities that recorded a low number of public comments, there still is no way to conclude whether these cities are necessarily better places to live. It could be that there are so many problems that people have gotten used to them or don't feel comfortable talking about them. The cities with more problems may not necessarily be bad places to live, either. They could be great places to live because the public is involved enough to participate in city council meetings.
But all cities have problems. The cities we surveyed offer a look at what's being done about them.