100 days since he made history in Shreveport. Now Mayor Cedric Glover is reflecting over his term so far as the city’s first African-American mayor. Ed Walsh talked with the mayor in the studio on KTBS 3 First News Thursday, March 8, 2007.
Ed: “You look back now on 100 days, do you have any accomplishments so far in your administration?”
Mayor: “Just the fact that we’ve been able to get out, and meet and talk to and interact with so many people in this great city. I won’t sit here and list for you all the things we think we’ve accomplished within these first hundred days, although we think we’ve done some significant things. But the opportunity to be able to get out, talk to, hear from, and interact with folks from every segment of this city, and to hear from them what it is they want to see the city of Shreveport/Northwest Louisiana become. I think it’s probably the most significant thing that we’ve done so far, but there’s so much more that we’ve got in store.”
Ed: “Tonight is the last of your town hall meetings, that series. A lot of times we’re hearing the same themes coming up at all these meetings: code enforcements, crime. In terms of dilapidated houses and other problems in neighborhoods, what can your administration do, what is your administration planning to do?”
Mayor: “Well, the other reason as to why I decided to go about undertaking the town hall meetings was to make sure that those things that I believe are the priorities for our city are, in fact, the things that the people of this city want to see done as well. When you’re talking about public safety, code enforcement, improving the quality of life, growing the economy, I mean, that’s what’s been the wonderful thing about it: I’ve seen just that. When it comes to code enforcement, we’ve got some problems here, and I’ve shared that with the folks that we’ve spoken to throughout the previous six town hall meetings, and we’re going to go and fix that problem. We’ve got some good people in there, but I’ve told them that we’ve got to do better. And we’re going to accept the challenge of retooling, revising, and revamping, how we go about doing the job of improving our neighborhoods throughout the city.”
Ed: “Mayor, is that a city problem or does this also fall in the state, because I understand the state legislature also dictates time frames in which the city can act on dealing with dilapidated and other abandoned housing.”
Mayor: “Well, the state addresses in terms of how you can go about adjudicated property, and being able to take possession of it and then put it back into use. And so there are some issues around there that we’ve dealt with down in Baton Rouge over the years. Senator Jackson and others have taken some steps that have made that process a little bit better. One of the things that we’re looking at for this upcoming legislative session is how we can make that process a little cleaner, and a little smoother, because one of our objectives is to reduce the number of problems and issues that code enforcement has to deal with, by putting many of these adjudicated properties back into use, either as a housing development, or as a commercial development.”
Ed: “Let’s talk about crime now. Although crime rates are dropping here in the city you say it’s a perception issue when it comes to crime in Shreveport. What do you hope to do, what do you hope to accomplish with the police department, to give residents the feeling that they are safe in their neighborhoods?”
Mayor: “I think the problem exists at both levels. If you live in a neighborhood, right now, where there are burglaries or armed robberies or drive-by shootings, then certainly the problem is real. There are other folks though, who live in portions of this city that will never be touched by crime. However, they fear the potential. And so we’ve got to address the problem at two different levels; both in terms of reality, and in perception. My belief, is that what we need to do, is be more pro-active in terms of how we go about engaging our crime problem in this city. And that is to go out, and have our police officers actively seeking to prevent bigger crimes, by focusing on some of the smaller and more minor issues before they become bigger problems. One of the concepts is referred to as the “Broken Windows” concept, used by Mayor Guiliani in the city of New York in the early ’90s. It’s also been used in Boston and other cities. Where we focus on how it is we deal with things like broken windows, code enforcement issues, loud music, other things that represent disturbances that rob people in our communities of quality of life, and prevent us from being able to feel safe and secure where we are. So that’s where we’re going to start our focus: being more pro-active, and not just simply waiting for crime to happen. And that’s something I’ve heard from every segment and sector of this city, whether we’re dealing with neighborhoods in District A, or neighborhoods in District D. All of them voiced the same things. They want us to have a safer city. They want us to grow our economy. They want us to improve our quality of life.”
Ed: “You’re also being an advocate for allowing more police officers to be able to take home their vehicles, actually offering them tax credits, if they purchase a house in the city.”
Mayor: “Certainly, we want to increase the level of police presence throughout our neighborhoods. We want to encourage those police officers to be active parts of the neighborhoods in which they live. To become a part of the neighborhood watches, the neighborhood associations, so that we create a larger presence throughout the city of Shreveport. We also want to encourage police officers to come out, and really engage our young people as well. To not just see them as law enforcement officials on the job during the daytime, but also someone they can relate to, as individuals. So, we’ve got a lot of things we’re looking forward to doing in terms of law enforcement. Also, we want to look at terms of how we can increase the number of officers that we have in the city of Shreveport. One of the things that we’ve done for years is simply acquire new police officers by having new classes at the academy. But we also saw for years, before we were able to increase the salaries for our officers and improve the benefits, many of the departments who came from outside of this region, who recruited our officers because they knew that they were well-trained and well-qualified and brought them into their communities, whether that was Kenner, down in Southwest Louisiana, or cities over in East Texas. Now we’re looking at the possibility of being able to say, not only do we want to grow our own new police officers, but in order to increase our numbers at a quicker pace, is it possible for us to be able to go into some other areas, find some officers who may be a little less-paid, a little less-compensated, and say to them ‘there’s a great opportunity for you to come to Shreveport, if you’re willing to come in and join the level excellence that we want to have in our police department.’ “
