City Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay, the Dayton City Commission meeting will now come to order. Would you all please rise for the invocation and remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. This evening, the invocation will be given by Commissioner Fairchild.

And Commissioner Joseph has a moment of silence. Want me to start, Commissioner?

Yes, please. Thank you all. I'd like to take a moment for us now to honor the life and memory of young man Pierre DeMoss Bell. We hold his family, his loved ones, and the entire community, especially the Haitian community in Springfield, in our thoughts during this painful time. With this moment of silence, we honor his dignity, his aspirations, and his memory. With just a moment of quiet reflection, please. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner. And for our prayer tonight, Wendell Berry passed yesterday. And Wendell Berry was a Christian mystic, a farmer, an advocate for economic and racial and social justice. And if you're not familiar with his writings and his poetry, I encourage you to become familiar. So I have a poem for our prayer tonight from Wendell Berry. It's entitled, What We Need Is Here. Geese appear high over us, pass, and the sky closes. Abandon, as in love or sleep, holds them to their way. Clear in the ancient faith, what we need is here. And we pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be qui

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right, Ms. McClendon, may we please have a roll call?

May I have a motion to approve the minutes of the August 26, 2026 meeting? And there are some corrections that need to be made.

It has been properly moved and seconded to approve the minutes of the August 26, 2026 meeting. All in favor say aye. All opposed say no. Any abstentions? Ms. McClendon, are there any communications or petitions this evening? There are none, Your Honor. Thank you. And this evening, we have a presentation on the semi-annual IAA report. Mr. Parlette, please proceed.

Thank you very much. Commissioners, any questions or comments? Commissioner Beckham.

Thank you, Your Honor. Just a few. First of all, thank you for this comprehensive report. It's the first time I think the IAA update has come before us, at least in the time that I've been up here. So it's good to see this work being done. I am curious, given the number of sustained complaints, Could you speak a little bit more to what the nature was of those? It did sound like there was some patterns around just how the engagement with the citizen was going. But I'm curious if you could maybe speak to what the key consistency was in the sustained complaints.

All right, thank you for that detail. The other thing I quickly say, I was involved in the police reform work. I was specifically on the use of force committee. So I recall having pretty lengthy discussions about de-escalation. So I appreciate the recommendations along in terms of building on that work. I'd be curious to know, AT WHAT POINT THE POLICY REVIEW COMMITTEE WOULD BRING THOSE FINAL POLICY CHANGES FORWARD? IS THERE A TIMELINE THAT'S BEEN SET ALREADY OR IS IT STILL IN THE WORKS? DO YOU WANT TO SPEAK TO THAT?

Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Fairchild.

Yeah, thank you for this report. It's very helpful. I'm curious, what happens when in your review your assessment differs from I assume it's the Professional Standards Bureau that's making these determinations. So there was two cases where you looked at the cases and you said, these really should have been sustained. But that's not what the Professional Standards Bureau had determined. What happens at that point?

Okay. Would that then possibly be a reversal of their decision or is it just looking forward to how they might do their work better in the future?

Thank you. And Chief Henderson already kind of shared my second comment, which I was on the training police reform group. And I remember that conversation about where de-escalation went. And there was originally going to go in use of force, but as Chief said, we moved it out because it should be broader. And so I think your recommendation is in spirit with what the reform group was doing and getting better language and then training that's consistent with that language will be helpful. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Fairchild. Commissioner Shaw.

Yes, thank you for this report. It is helpful to us to kind of understand the process of how this works and I was really just interested. So you said that, I was looking for this sheet now and I can't find it, that there has been an uptick in, I guess, discourtesy or, tell me again what you said.

That makes sense to me. So I'm interested in understanding how that is then reported out. How do the troops kind of get informed that, hey, there has been this uptick? What's the process for kind of correcting that? Does that go to the chief, to the professional standards?

Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Joseph.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for this report. This is excellent. You all know that I had hand in writing this, so it's always exciting to get your reports. It's great to see it come alive. And I have to say, Commissioner, your question about what happens when she sees something that doesn't mesh, I was like, come on, answer it right, answer it right, and it's just as we envisioned. You went and you talked to the right people, and if there were additional sanctions needed or changes needed to be made, they were made, and that's the process that we really fought to have included because too many

You're welcome. Thank you, Ms. Brown. And I, too, want to echo my colleagues. A number of my questions have already been asked. But I do want to pull on the thread just a tad bit from Commissioner Shaw's point. When you mentioned, Chief, that the staff PD, many of our officers, five years or less. So with that, there will take 30 days for the policy, if you will, to be updated, to be revised, whatever have you, once it goes through the various different process. The question that I have is, so what are the immediate, if you will, solves to the trends that we are seeing that Ms. Brown has noted

So not... So it's not simultaneously worked, right? You want to focus on those individuals, but you also want to set the tone throughout the organization, right? You just don't want to, you want to make sure before it even leads to any others that we're adopting that behavior, that it is overall the sentiments of the organization, right?

Okay. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. Ms. Brown, thank you very much for your report. I really appreciate the work and the comprehensive review. And thank you for going into details and providing the additional context and giving examples as to why and how de-escalation can be best suited and utilized through the various situations. Mr. Parlette, Ms. Brown made a recommendation some time ago. Do you know where we are on her initial recommendation during the last review where, I believe, and I'm paraphrasing, that we need to perhaps have more of a user-friendly process in terms of how the publ

Ms. McClendon, are there any deletions or, let me ask first, excuse me, additions, deletions, or comments to the calendar?

Thank you, Ms. McClendon. Mr. Parlett, are there any additions, deletions, or comments to the calendar this evening?

Thank you, Mr. Parlett. Ms. McClendon, are there any citizens that are registered to speak this evening on calendar items?

Thank you, Ms. McClendon. Commissioners, are there any comments to the city manager's recommendations this evening? Commissioner Beckham.

Yes, Your Honor, just a few. I want to... lift up the organizations that are recipients of our community development block grants. All of these organizations are doing very safety net type of work in our city from Daybreak to Homeful to YWCA, Miami Valley Meals. So I'm glad to see these come forward. Also, Mayor, I just want to thank you for bringing the resolution forward in regards to the THE FUNDS THAT WILL BE GENERATED BY THE FUNDS THAT WILL BE OFFSET THROUGH THE GENERATION OF THE NCA. SO I APPRECIATE IT. THOSE ARE ALL MY COMMENTS.

THANK YOU, COMMISSIONER BECKHAM. COMMISSIONER FAIRCHILD.

Yeah, no, I just wanted to thank you, Mayor, for bringing the resolution and colleagues working together. The community hasn't been able to see the resolution yet. It does several things. One of the things it does is to dedicate a million dollars to neighborhood development. That million dollars is part of the, you know, we had these three recommendations from the Greater Downtown Dayton Fund Committee, which Commissioner Shaw co-chaired. And in there, the recommendation is that um particularly the remote tiff is generating money that can be used for downtown development which creates the oppo

Thank you, Commissioner Fairchild. Commissioner Shaw.

Thank you, Commissioner Fairchild, and thank you, Mayor, for bringing this forward. This was a good process. We worked through this together, and I think we came up with a really good resolution here that we all want to improve the neighborhoods. You all want to press economic development out into the neighborhoods, and I think this NCA tool is going to go a long way to strengthening that. So I just want to thank you and appreciate it.

I just want to add my thanks. I know it wasn't always easy, but I appreciate your legwork, and thank you, colleagues, for working together to get this done.

Thank you all. Again, sentiments are the same. I also, too, want to thank the community. Thank you for your voices. Thank you for your advocacy. Note that the neighborhoods are, in fact, important to all of us. We want to make sure that that work is done with a healthy balance and in tandem. As Commissioner Fairchild has mentioned, there's no one over the other or And so with this resolution that we have before us, it codifies that work. It allows us to be able to move where the work is necessary. So again, thank you to the community. Thank you to DUER, Dayton Unite for Human Rights, Dayton Te

Thank you, Mr. Parlett, and Ms. Screech, thank you for raising that point. Mr. Johnson, thank you for your comments. You have provided us with a proposed resolution. Thank you very much. I would definitely take time to read this. Some of my colleagues, they were kind of flipping through and going over it as well, so this is something that we would definitely take time to review and digest to see if there is something that we could... proposed for consideration for commission consideration. Ms. Lamance, thank you. Commissioner Fairchild has already spoken to the points in regards to what you ra

You're under our move that we approve the city manager's recommendations. I second the motion.

Thank you. I'm jumping in. Excuse me. It's been properly moved and seconded to approve the city manager's recommendations. All in favor say aye. All opposed say no. Any abstentions? Legislation, Ms. McClendon.

Thank you. Ms. McClendon, are there any citizens that are registered to speak this evening?

Thank you, Miss McClendon. Mr. Prowlett, do you have any closing comments this evening?

Thank you. And the assailant was apprehended?

Thank you, Ms. McClendon. Commissioners, do you have any closing comments this evening? Commissioner Beckham?

Yes, Your Honor, just a few. I certainly want to thank all of the residents for their comments and concerns that they raised this evening. I want to thank Commissioner Joseph, Commissioner Fairchild for the moment of silence for Mr. Pierre Demaspelle. Such a tragic situation for a really promising young man who is very adjacent to this community. So my prayers and condolences to his family and all affected by that. A lot to address. Specifically, all of the feedback on the IAA. I appreciate that tool, as I said after the presentation. This was one of the initial occasions in which I got to see

Thank you, Commissioner Beckham. Commissioner Fairchild.

Yeah, thank you, Commissioner, for your comments. Thank you, citizens, for being here and your comments. A couple to respond to Mr. Klein. That intersection is two blocks from my house. One of your neighbors was knocking on my door. getting signatures to see about putting flash, we have the petition here so if you want to sign that. So I think there's still a question about is what is the best way to look at the civil engineering in that intersection to make it as safe as possible and that's something we can work with staff to come out and evaluate. and see what the best solution is. And you k

Yeah, thank you. And I think, Ms. Lofton, were you in that briefing on the fatalities? No? Okay. Well, I'll have to go back and try to get you some guidance on that, Mr. Parlett, on that briefing. I do want to acknowledge Cornell is the main connector between Salem and Gettysburg. And people utilize it a lot, many at high speed. In our... Police and EMTs use it quite heavily too. I'll be interested to see what the data shows, but because of that usage and the kind of straight shot between Salem and Gettysburg, it lends itself to people being reckless. Mr. Johnson, I appreciate the report you s

Thank you, Commissioner Fairchild. Commissioner Shaw?

Thank you to both of my colleagues for addressing some of these issues, especially the traffic issues, which are a problem all over the city. I know that we were able to capture data with regards to the red light and the speed cameras to be able to notice trends in there when we turn them on. You know, the traffic issues go down when we turn them off. They go back up again. So I think there's a way to... be able to capture data and to learn from it and then make the appropriate adjustments in the areas that we need to do so. So I'm glad that we're at least looking at that and I would encourage

Thank you, Commissioner Shaw. Commissioner Joseph?

Thank you, Mayor. Three things tonight. First, I want to give a huge congratulations to our environmental management team at Water, our Water Department. They got an honor on August 19th. They got a 2026 Source Water Protection Award for the work they do protecting our drinking water. You all know it's a huge priority of ours and the entire city to make sure our residents have clean, accessible water. And they're the ones on the front lines. We're lucky to have folks who take good care of this, one of our most important resources. And I want to thank the team. And Mr. Harlett, please pass thos

Thank you, Commissioner. I, too, want to acknowledge all of our labor organizations and the work that they do on a continuous basis. And I hope that people take the opportunity to, in fact, enjoy the holiday and to recognize the work that is being done. And with that, in observance to the holiday, a waste collection will be delayed a day. So if you have normal collection on Monday, your day will then be moved to Tuesday. So please make note of that. Thank you, Mr. Parlett. And thank you to my colleagues for uplifting and a moment of silence for the young man. who passed. I really appreciate it