BALTIMORE — Baltimore City Council President Nick Mosby highlights some progress for Baltimore and some areas where progress needs to be made.
“This is the first time in 125 years that the council had the ability to not only cut from the proposed budget from the administration but also redirect funding,” Mosby said.
Funding to increase financial support for those who fix our roads and pick up our trash. “You know folks that are digging ditches in the middle of the night, to folks that are our essential workers that are keeping our city literally operating on a regular basis,” Mosby said.
From Mosby’s perspective, those have been some of this year’s successes.
There were also many challenges, especially as it relates to public safety. The Brooklyn Mass Shooting left a disturbing memory not only of the incident but by the police response.
“When I look back at 2023 it’s probably my saddest moment as Council President not just with the tragedy that occurred, but the lack of response and dignity to the protecting and serving of that community from the police department,” Mosby said.
The mass shooting claimed the lives of Aaliyah Gonzalez and Kylis Fagbemi and injured 28 others, 15 of whom were minors.
“We know that all day there had been calls of fights calls of guns. For that to occur the way it occurred was difficult for us to come up with any rationale, other than just the lack of response and care because it was a poor community,” Mosby said.
His focus is also on youth violence and how the city is working on getting to the root cause of juvenile crime, “How can we get to our children before they get to the criminal justice system? What are the things that we can do and put in place to better protect them?”
For him, this starts with identifying children who are in the pipeline to be juvenile offenders, “When the red flags pop up like they’re not attending school in elementary school. Also, eradicating the dropout pipeline, we know when we talk about certain middle schools and pathways to certain neighborhood high schools there our largest places of young folks who are dropping out of school,” Mosby said.
He said they’re working with state partners to dig deep into the data that shows which students are often absent and identifying inefficiencies with the Department of Juvenile Services like the home monitoring system, a system he says has been ineffective for years. “When we know that we have young folks that are 13 or 14 years old on home monitoring they should be in school during the time in which they should be in school."
And with the city on pace to end the year with under 300 homicides for the first time in almost a decade, Council President Nick Mosby said he still does not view this as an accomplishment, but instead a reason for city leaders to work even harder to eradicate the problem.
“For us to pat ourselves on the back as if you know because we only have 200 or 290 versus 310 or 320, I think it’s the wrong approach and sends the wrong message to the 280 or 290 victims and their families,” Mosby said.
News Photo Gallery
Faces of Baltimore City's murder rate
Council President Mosby said part of the focus for his administration next year will be youth violence. They will also focus on getting to children before they reach the juvenile justice system. Lastly, the city taking back control of the Baltimore Police Department through local control is something Council President Mosby is hoping to solidify by the end of the first quarter of 2024.
Local News