But some committee members were concerned that the council had not been adequately advertised, which they said could have led to low attendance. As a compromise, Swan said Police Chief Randy Adams told committee members the council should hold a few more meetings.
In October, Adams said the advisory council was a pilot program to determine community need and that if, after six months, public input remained low, the advisory council would likely be closed and folded into a small public portion of the quarterly committee meetings.
“As an experiment, I think it has served its purpose to see if there was going to be a reaction from the public, or if it was going to be used by the public, and we haven’t seen that,” Swan said. “I haven’t seen it materialize, in my opinion.”
The group acts as a subcommittee to the 25-member committee and has no power to set policy or even directly recommend it to those who do.
The advisory council’s seventh meeting is scheduled at 6 tonight at City Hall. After the meeting, the council, as well as the committee, will take a break until September.
“We’ll see what the turnout is,” he said.
So far, it has been extremely low, with the shortest meeting recorded as 8 1/2 minutes. Audience members typically consist of the same two or three people, Swan said.
And those who do speak rarely bring up issues about public safety concerns, he added.
But Elen Asatryan, who sits on the larger partnership advisory committee, raised concerns about whether the advisory council had advertised enough to the public.
“We haven’t done enough community outreach,” she said.
Maria Rochart, who serves on both boards, said she believes the meetings have been adequately publicized, but that public interest just isn’t there.
“I don’t know why they don’t come,” she said.
