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Hardy Brown
1/18/23
Comments for the City Council Meeting; A resident of San Bernardino, living on
the Westside in Ward six.
As we enter a New Year of 2023, we have a great opportunity to begin a positive
and new direction in this city we all love named San Bernardino. My
congratulations to newly elected and historic Mayor Helen Tran; the first Asian to
lead our city; and congratulations to Council-Members Theodore “Ted” Sanchez,
Sandra Ibarra and Fred Shorett reelection to the council.
Believe it or not our current San Bernardino City Unified School District Board of
Education is Dr. Scott Wyatt is the first Asian and Vietnamese heritage leading the
district.
I am looking forward to us moving forward in our city as we give independent
thoughts and ideas during discussions of issue but arriving at consensus support
once the council reaches a decision. I am sure each of you had your own views
and criteria in making this decision on selecting an interim City Manager but you
some how agreed in a consensus way to vote unanimously to select Charles
McNeely; which in my opinion is a wise and good decision.
I also want to thank Rob Field for the time he spent with us and especially hiring
Darren Goodman as the city’s first African American Police Chief.
In a city that is diverse as San Bernardino it has brought us to this point where our
leadership reflects the population it serves. Now one of our challenges is to get the
staff to be more representative of the city demographics with a greater portion of
them to live in the city. The last data I viewed from Human Resources indicates
only 26% of our employees and 7% of our Sworn Police Officers are residents.
That means a large percentage of our tax dollars leave the city every payday.
In closing thank you for selecting Charles McNeely as Interim City Manager and
thanks to Genoveva for honoring my requests for the agenda and other Public
Record Requests in a timely manner.
Happy New Year, Hardy Brown 6th Ward Resident