City Council President Nieves Seeks Public Safety Solutions

News release from City Council President Aidee Nieves:

City Council President Aidee Nieves announces today the formation of a multi-stakeholder, working team to identify public safety innovations. During a summer of protests in support of racial justice, the City Council heard from residents and made a commitment to pursue new approaches to public safety. The newly formed Bridgeport Public Safety Collaborative will spearhead this effort.

“We heard from the public and had many conversations with residents over the past few months and it is clear that our community is calling on us to re-examine how we approach public safety in the City of Bridgeport,” said Nieves. “We know that change is needed, but the Council cannot do this alone. We need the help of stakeholders at all levels to identify solutions and generate ideas that will lead to lasting change.”

The Collaborative began its work in mid-November and will continue through March, meeting approximately every two weeks. Their goal is to produce a series of policy recommendations for public safety innovations customized to the Bridgeport community. The working team consists of a diverse cross-section of Bridgeport stakeholders including:

• City Council President Aidee Nieves
• Councilman and Co-Chair of the Budget and Appropriations Committee Scott Burns
• Lieutenant Manny Cotto of the Bridgeport Police Department
• Anna Cruz of the Bridgeport Board of Police Commissioners
• Cooper Mead of the Bridgeport Health Department
• Constance Vickers of the Mayor’s Office
• Rev. D. Stanley Lord of the Greater Bridgeport NAACP
• Jason Ayala of FaithActs for Education
• Gemeem Davis of Bridgeport Generation Now
• Iliana Pujols of the CT Juvenile Justice Alliance

Former Bridgeport City Council Member Maria Zambrano Viggiano has agreed to serve as a pro bono advisor helping to lead the implementation of the initiative.

The Collaborative will use a policy implementation framework developed by researchers at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government called Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA). Using the PDIA approach, the Collaborative will break down public safety problems into their root causes, identify areas where action should be taken, and search for possible solutions. The goals of the group align with City Council resolution 130-19, passed by the Council in July 2020.

“This team will not be another group that meets just to talk about the problem. This team will be made up of people who will work hard to investigate the reasons for the problems and find tangible solutions that we can implement right away,” said Council President Nieves.

Burns, the Budget Committee co-chair, agreed. “We expect this team to work hard, be accountable for finding solutions, and to be a voice for the various stakeholder groups involved,” said Councilman Burns. “From the budget committee’s perspective, we are always looking at ways to allocate the city’s resources in order to maximize the well-being of our residents. This will be challenging work, and I look forward to helping this team to make robust recommendations to push our city forward.”

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12 comments

  1. Any chance Aidee can put a “Collaborative” together to find out how much the attorney’s tabs are that Joe hired for him and his inner circle during the Feds ongoing investigation? A month or two ago it was $600,000,yet the council doesn’t dare rattle that cage and take a chance of angering Joe…
    PS. Ernie,before you tell me Perez and Dunn are reimbursing their share,I’m not talking about them,I’m talking about Joe and all the others..

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  2. Aidee Nieves has said enough by doing NOTHING between July 2020 and now.
    I said back then it would be worse to say and do nothing than to do a little. But it does not surprise me that she did just that. This is her leadership style. Grab the headlines and do nothing. But wait. And wait. And wait.
    Now she can form a committee that will not be constructive but will try to look like it’s doing something.
    To all of the people who agreed to be members, let me warn you. If you want real change you will not get it with her.

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  3. This is from the News release from City Council President Aidee Nieves:
    “City Council President Aidee Nieves announces today the formation of a multi-stakeholder, working team to identify public safety innovations. During a summer of protests in support of racial justice, the City Council heard from residents and made a commitment to pursue new approaches to public safety. The newly formed Bridgeport Public Safety Collaborative will spearhead this effort.” Well, this is nothing but pure bs, City Council President Aidee Nieves needs to start with what Mayor Ganim said in the Conn. Post Sunday, “Ganim offers no timeline on launching new Bridgeport chief search.”
    “Three months after Armando Perez’s arrest for allegedly cheating to become police chief, it is unclear when the mayor will launch a search for a permanent replacement.”

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  4. I don’t know who her cheerleaders were when she gave the Council a shot, but I think they have a lot of soul searching to do the next cycle. I go way back with Maria Valle and Lydia
    Martinez, my dear friend of many decades, I can’t believe they let this happen. FYI, Joe’s not going anywhere, and if by some chance he does, there will be a special election. Who thinks she would ever be considered?

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  5. Mayor Pete, of South Bend IN, a recent Presidential candidate, wrote a book in the past year called TRUST.. He tells of how Ronald Reagan often repeated the Russian saying, “Trust but verify” that entered it into our political scrapbook. He follows it up with the observation that a really trusted relationship would not need verification but that is where we are today.
    So we often rely on the Freedom of Information laws and their administration efficiently unless an organization has legal structure that will not submit to FOIA. We recently saw that was the situation with the Dalio Foundation putting up $100 Million for CT education benefit, but since taxpayers put up a lot of money too and were not going to learn what was ongoing, the deal did not get done.
    Now in Bridgeport we learn that the organization formed to review the variety of issues in the City raised by the “defund momentum” and with City employees as well as representatives of significant City groups who do their best to represent the people are a group that legally does not open to FOIA.
    Aidee is out of touch in not realizing how important transparency is when trust has fallen so low on the street and in homes. There is a middle way and it should be sought. Does anyone care in showing real work, in real time, that is observable in the form of action, financial and personnel change? Time will tell.

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