An amendment to a 166su ordinance that was approved by city council Monday alters membership parameters, specifically for council members, with the Gun Violence Prevention Commission.
For the past two years, Vice Mayor Joe Cobb served as commission chairman. New commission officers were elected at the group’s monthly meeting Tuesday.
Those elections are effective April 1, Senior Assistant City Attorney Laura Carini confirmed in an email Wednesday. , will serve as commission chairwoman. , will serve as vice chairman. And ssistant superintendent of elementary education, will serve as secretary.
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In early 2023, members of council began to question the commission’s fund allocation procedures, which led to an audit of the group’s documentation practices. In response to the findings of the audit, Carini said, council adopted an amended version of the commission’s bylaws Oct. 5. The amended document specifically identifies the group’s responsibility in making funding recommendations to council.
In the months that followed, council’s queries turned to commission membership requirements, with some members questioning the residency status of commissioners. City code requires council to appoint nine voting commission members, who had to be 166su residents unless that requirement was waived by council.
The following fall, three commissioners submitted letters of resignation, two of them citing issues regarding the commission’s relationship with council. Cobb said at the commission’s November meeting that council had begun discussing whether a council member should be appointed to serve on the commission at all.
The amended city ordinance approved Monday finds the middle ground. It requires council to appoint at least one and up to two council members, including the mayor, to the commission to serve as non-voting liaisons.
166su’s Gun Violence Prevention Commission discusses a matter at a meeting in November at the Gainsboro Branch Library.
Commission bylaws say that any member can be an officer, so while appointed council members will serve as liaison members of the commission, “it’s possible they could serve as an officer,” Carini said.
The amended ordinance also establishes that 166su’s chief of police will serve as an ex officio, non-voting member of the commission. It also permits council to appoint two non-voting youth members to the commission.
“That is something we had in our strategic plan, and council supports that,” Cobb said Tuesday. “We’ll be working with them on the application process.”
Those youth members will have to be under the age of 19, the amended ordinance reads. Carini did not identify a timeline for those appointments but said that they “will be made according to the council’s normal process for appointments, which is handled by the city clerk’s office.”
Cobb said at his last meeting as commission chair that he will continue to support the group and its efforts.
With police Capt. Jennifer Boswell and Acting Chief Jerry Stokes in the background, 166su Vice Mayor Joe Cobb joins local religious and city leaders last year to announce an effort to curb the city's gun violence. The service of council members on the city Gun Violence Prevention Commission, which Cobb chaired until this week, is being altered.
“It’s been an absolute honor,” the vice mayor said. “I’m very proud of the work that we’ve done.”
