welcome to the on podcast with your host lanaa Jacobson welcome back you guys to our second episode of our on podcast just in case you missed the first one on stands for office of neighborhood safety I'm your host lanaa Jacobson and I am a member of the on team we are excited to be creating this platform for departments like us and Community organizations to come on and talk about our services all of our episodes are about connecting you to Alternative public safety measures programs and your local growth and healing opportunities St Paul citizens are out here working really hard to heal rehabilitate intervene and build safer neighborhoods today we will be introducing the neighborhood safety Community Council better known as the NC I am really excited to be here with a part of my team the Hat I wear at office of neighborhood safety is the NCC manager and one of the things I am charged with is working with appointed group of amazing community members to come up with innovative ideas and programs that prevent crime I am a proud St Paul born and raised native who grew up in Frogtown but spent many weekends on the Rondo side of University Avenue eating Sunday dinners at my grandma's and my great aunt Del's house not to mention running around with my friends I have a bachelor's degree from Metro State University majoring in ethics and equal opportunities and politics and criminal justice I've spent all my career working in public safety administrative assignments and spend my off time volunteering in political Arenas that have an impact on community I'm raising a husband and two young men yes ladies and gentlemen I did say raising a husband that was not a mistake my personality is like my favorite color very pink and I love sparkly things I also love reality TV don't judge me Italian food and almost everything that includes rice with that being said and with me today I have the NC interm chair Diane levenduski who has a bachelor's and a master's in social work from the University of Wisconsin she did a year abroad in Madrid Spain and is fluent in Spanish she spent 30 years of her career as a probation officer serving under the United States District Court Minnesota Branch prior to that she was a diversion counselor for project remand here in St Paul welcome Diane hi Diane can you sum up who the newly retired Diane is in 30 seconds sure yeah I've been living in the Twin Cities since the 80s I'm from Appleton Wisconsin originally and currently a member of ARP if that gives away my age a bit um I'm married have two children the two adult children one lives in La one lives in Chicago which luckily one of my sisters lives in each of those towns also so that's a nice opportunity to see them when I travel there and I like to do a lot of physical activities I play disc golf with a group of retired women every Wednesday go to the YMCA a lot do a lot of biking and hiking and I love living in St Paul and I love living in the Hamlin Midway area great so Dian Icebreaker question when you get home after a day of volunteering and running errands when you go to the refrigerator what's the first thing you grab to drink probably a cold glass of water I have a nice little water cooling thing in my in my refrigerator so the cold water tastes super good okay out of the two and you have to pick one do you prefer quick and bake Pillsbury chocolate chip gettas that's cookies you guys in Spanish or quick bake Nestle Toll housee cookies oh I guess I would have to say Nestle's tll house okay okay and last question dat line or 2020 oh and I guess I'm not familiar with either of them that much so I guess I'll just say neither oh my [Music] goodness don't judge her ladies and gentlemen here with us we also have NC council member Coral Garner Coral is a graduate of University of Alabama Birmingham with a masters in hospital and Health Services Administration before moving to Minnesota she was a clinical administrator for Birmingham Health Care for the homeless and Alabama's Jefferson County Health in 1996 she landed in St Paul and started making a name for herself Landing positions in healthcare which includes Clinic manager project director director of adolescent health and Youth Development and director of Maternal Child and Adolescent health for large organizations such as Fairview hospital and the City of Minneapolis Health Department welcome Coral hello Coral tell us who Coral is outside of the NC well I I am retired as of 2021 so retired during the pandemic I have two adult girls who just recently bought a home in Roseville so I'm happy about that and I never learned how to to use my downtime so I'm not a gardener I do like to walk my dog so I guess that is my recreational activity but I'm a workaholic so I still have multiple part-time jobs even though I'm retired so I guess I can say I'm semi-retired you do a lot of volunteer work too and I do a lot of volunteer work yeah do you have any grandkids no we're still looking for husbands so if there are any single men out there I have two eligible daughters that's funny okay so I can't ask you that question cuz my question was going to be if you have grandkids how many days do you keep them before asking them to go home so that question won't apply to you I have a grand pup though oh you do mhm the dog that I walk every day is is actually not my dog it's my daughter my youngest daughter's dog and he is so spoil he's just like a a little human yeah so but he isn't little he's huge oh really seen her walking her dog what kind of dog is it it's an American aita oh AAS yeah and he is 127 lbs and on his hind legs he taller than he's taller than me but he think he's a baby does he like to cuddle he likes the cuddle sweet what color is he he is black and white okay so I do have an ice breaker question for you which one do you prefer a visit to the dentist or a visit to the tax Personnel a visit to the dentist amen okay next Icebreaker peach cobbler or apple pie oh peach cobbler for sure that's easy hands down okay last one NBS nightly world news with Lester Holt who is my husband's imaginary bff or wait for world news to go off and catch car at 6 o'clock actually I like car 11 yeah at 6 o'clock okay okay you don't watch Lester no I do not watch Lester he's awesome okay last but not least I have Sharice tisdel everyone Miss tisdel is a Northwestern alumni with a bachelors and health psychology she has spent the majority of her career in healthc care client service management overseeing everyone in everything that involves customer relations scheduling project management and problemsolving customer accounts she spent four years working as a community organizer for Jewish Community project managing an advocacy program for senior citizens and connecting atrisk homeowners in the community with foreclosure prevention resources and for her work with jca shes has received a Civic engagement wellstone Fellowship award welcome shares thank you Sharice tell us about yourself in 30 seconds outside of the incredible hardworking softball mom who I'm sure just wants to go home after work but instead you're sitting in a hot field ah and now we're sitting in a hot gym it's volleyball season oh okay I have a two kids a senior at Central she's a volleyball player and my son graduated in 2019 he's currently working for a construction company out in Rosemont and that is what I do outside of work okay Iber a question for you shares when you were little did you want to be Punky Brewster or her friend Sherry and for those of you who weren who were born after 1989 that was a hit television show about a rambunctious little girl and her shenanigans Punky or Sherry Punky why Punky she seemed to get in a lot of trouble and have a lot of fun okay good choice I was a funky fan too which describes you best on Saturday mornings at age 13 Sharice in your pjs watching Save By the Bell or some other fancy show on Nickelodeon cuz your parents could afford cable we probably did have cable not that we could afford but we had a cable um I was probably reading at 13 I was probably on my face in a book oh my gosh that's so cute or doing chores okay yeah I was definitely watching Save By the Bell last question tacos and margaritas or pizza and Pepsi margaritas with the tacos or with the pizza or both with margaritas and friends all right so before we get started I just want to say that I am impressed with this group of ladies that I get to work with and I just want to praise God for who you guys are and that he's allowing you guys to be a blessing in your communities um when I was putting this together the agenda together and I was looking at your resumés and stuff like that and just reminding myself of who you guys are I was just like overly impressed and I was like oh my gosh I can't believe I get to work with these people so first question tell me about your neighborhood how long have you been there let's go with Diane so I live in the Hamlin Midway neighborhood and when I moved to the Twin Cities I landed there and I've been there for 40 plus years first as a renter and then later as a homeowner and I love that it's such a mixture of people a lot of people have lived there for a long long time their parents had lived there so there's a history there but then there's a lot of newer residents like myself even though I've been there now 40 years and there's students there because there's a lot of colleges nearby so that gives a lot of young energy and coral what about you what do you love about your neighborhood because we know you live in Hamlin Midway too cuz Diane has seen you walk in your big puppy my dog yes so I've been living in a Hamlin Midway since 1999 I believe and I I really love my neighborhood I like that it's close to Hamlin University and I can get to go to vents at the college if if I want to I also like that I'm close to the Light Rail and can easily get to downtown St Paul or downtown Minneapolis I love the fact that we have a lot of coffee shops and my favorite coffee shop is Groundswell however recently I've been going to flavor a lot because it's a neat place to to meet people for like if you have a business meeting or or what have you and then I also like the fact that we have a black bookstore oh wow garet book story which is also on University and that's a it's a great place to network that's cool I guess I didn't know that wow Sharice what about you well I grew up also in Frogtown and then for like the past 13 years we've lived in Summit you neighborhood I like it it's very nice very close to Jimmy Lee Center and Central High School my daughter goes so she's able to walk or I can give her a ride which she prefers I would like to see it become more Community okay people are outside but we're not outside together okay Sharice did you since you grew up in Frogtown did you hang out at West mini were you a West mini girl yes I'm sure if you go inside and look in the archives I'm in there for t-ball oh wow and probably other sports okay cool all right so tell me about what prompt you to want to be part of NCC Coral let's start with you so it was a great opportunity to give back to my community I was looking for things to do after I retired from the City of Minneapolis and you know I worked with young people doing Youth Development and team pregnancy work for over 30 years and during that time I had the opportunity to meet people who were a part part of weed and seed I don't know if you guys remember weed and seed safety communities but that was a federal program that they had back in the day under Chief Harington and I knew some people who were involved in that and admired the work that they do so and I assumed that the uh Safety Council would be similar similar to that work and then I also had the opportunity to meet Miss Brook Blakey when she worked for Metro Transit because we done some work with Metro Transit around community engagement and safety so knowing that she was the director of the office of neighborhood safety I was excited to put in my application and was even more excited when I got to call cool thank you Diane yeah like Coral I was interested in doing something in retirement that was meaningful and I ran into director Blakey and you lanaa at the little Africa Festival One Summer nelling and I was so impressed with your energy and your new office and all your exciting plans and interests for the office and neighborhood safety I thought I would like to be a part of that and I think I have some skills that would complement work there so and Sharice what prompt you do you want to be part of the NC aside from me begging you to apply a little arm pulling well actually known director Blakey for a while she asked me to apply and that was after me talking to her endlessly about what on is what she's doing what her plan is and then wanting to be a part of that plan sounds good um so Diane and coral you've both worked in a sector dealing with youth crime prevention before how do you feel that work has inspired your thought process in the work we do here and my work wasn't specific with youth as a probation officer in federal court we had very few um youth it's usually adults that go through federal court but we did have a lot of youthful offenders and what I found in my work is that everyone has some redeeming qualities and just because people do bad things doesn't mean they're a bad person there's always something there that you can latch on to and try to develop and support and try to guide people who through no fault of their own maybe were born into circumstances that weren't ideal so they didn't have good Role Models or good supervision or they just found themselves in circumstances with people who again were bad influences and they often do things without thinking you know it takes a while for those brains to develop fully and a lot of them regret a lot of the things they do so I look at people as hopeful people can change people do change and with support I think they can choose different paths and productive paths pro-social paths and coral how do you feel that your work your previous work inspires your decision making and ideas in the NC well I spent my entire career working with families especially young families and when I worked with the city a lot of the programming that I did was focused on team pregnancy prevention and we did some work around Community violence particularly as it impacts Youth and I I see being a part of the council as kind of a continuation of that work one of the things that we learned was that the most effective way really to address either team pregnancy our youth involved crime was to provide kids with more after school quality after school programming and so any opportunity to put more resources in the community to provide after school programming or to work with folks who are interested in working with young adults around vocational training or job preparedness and giving young people who may not have an opportunity access to have a leg up in society so that they don't go down the wrong path or choose to go down the wrong path I think is important work to do and so that's why I'm committed to this work Sharice you have not worked in youth crime prevention in the past but you are indeed a mom of one young adult and a teenager in our current times how do you think this impacts your work and thought process in the NCC well as a parent my goal is to keep them both safe and that a lot of what the work is that we do is coming up with ways to keep certain sections areas the whole entire city basically safer than it once was I think that the work we do on the council we bring basically back to our own community so we know what goes on in our neighborhoods and then the things that we decide on in the council will affect the way our communities continue to thrive thank you so what do you think is the most important part about having a community council let's start with Sharice well now that the council has grown since I joined last year we have people from West St Paul right so now we're reaching broader range of the city us the community asked what can we do to make the community better and this Council gives us that chance to do that and coral what do you think is the most important part about having a community council I think what I find most exciting about being a part of the council is having the opportunity to learn from other residents throughout the city of St Paul and to hear their concerns as well as things that they share that they're doing in their their neighborhoods to actually promote safety because we learn from each other and our group is diverse and there's also young people on our group which I love the fact that we have young voices on our committee and it's exciting to hear just the diverse viewpoints from the people who sit around a table right because we're all like in different neighborhoods right so each neighborhood has its own thing right so what might be going on in Hamlin Midway is different from what's going on in Summit university area right so it's nice to get perspectives of what everybody's seeing and what everybody wants to change and like you said we have the young people so it causes us to think outside of our box things that we might be missing Diane what do you think is the most important part about having a community council well we're all in this together it takes everyone in the community to solve a lot of these issues and by having such diverse opinions and people involved in the council I think it gives us a better shot at trying to tackle some of these really difficult issues that that we're faced I think my favorite part or my the most important part I think is the community buyin so it's kind of like right along in lines with what you guys are saying it's you know you as the community you might be a neighbor or you may be a store owner or you may be a daycare provider or you may be a school teacher or you may be a retiree who's been living in your home for 40 something years but you get a chance to sit at a table and make decisions about what's going to happen in your city and I think that that's really important is bringing average people like us to the table to um help with government decisions right because another thing that the neighborhood safety Community Council is charged with is our office of neighborhood safety does receive government funds and the community council we get to decide partially where those government funds go like what programs should we put in place for our youth between ages of 12 and 24 what grassroot organizations would be good for solving this problem so those are things that we get to take part in and it's the community Buy in and I just that's my favorite part or well that's I feel like that's the most important part and then that goes into the next question what's your favorite part of what we've done so far does anybody want to start I think my favorite part of what we've done so far is probably oh maybe I shouldn't have agreed to start first um we're probably all going to say the same thing but basically our goals not guns campaign this spring that was so fun so for the audience for those of you who don't know we did launch a goals not guns Campaign which was which we chose to prompt our youth our high school schoolers to think about setting goals lifelong goals for themselves like what's next After High School is it college is it ational school is it learning a trade is it becoming a mom is it moving up in politics we wanted our high schoolers to set goals for themselves and create some sort of message to put the guns down basically um there's so much crime right now with teenagers just using guns and hurting each other and just we want our youth to Value life and to set goals for themselves and to not focus on violence and that was probably my favorite campaign we did a t-shirt contest we launched it at face Toof face Academy um they did some incredible artwork it was just really fun the mayor came out and addressed the celebration it was just awesome Coral what was your favorite part I think the my favorite activity was being able to serve on the St Paul public libraryies safety planning committee as a representative of the neighborhood Safety Council we met over a series of several months coming up with strategies on how to really improve customer service and identify resources that could be used not only to make the libraries a safe space but also to make it a welcoming and inclusive space knowing that there there are folks who use the library because that's the only public resource that they have during the day such as our homeless population and so making sure that there are social workers and other resources that are available in the library that people could access so that was a real eyeopener for me to do that and as a part of that I actually encouraged my soror to do a youth leadership program in Rondo Library this past school year so that was a great partnership that just came out of that one connection of being a part of that of their uh safety planning committee so I love it I love it Diane I was part of a event that was organized by hired which is a program that we contracted with and World youth connect so the two groups together LED an event which um was based on having a a meaningful conversation and it started with a meal which is always nice people like to eat together so everyone got some good food and then mayor Carter's dad actually presented this video that he had put together of these four men who had been incarcerated for murder all of them real different circumstances varying sentences that they've had and they spoke from their perspective about the harm that not only that they caused to the community and to the victims but to themselves and their families it was very powerful and moving and then we broke up into circles and had a conversation where everyone had to speak you could pass if you wanted but everyone had the opportunity to speak and the question was just what are we going to do about this youth violence and it was powerful Len I know you were in my group also and it was so powerful there were people that were judges youth people that had been affected directly by violence family members who were killed and just the variety of responses was just so moving so powerful and it was it was wonderful yeah that was a really great event um shout out to hired as Diane mentioned they were one of the contractees for gun violence prevention that neighborhood safety Community Council decided to fund shares what is your favorite thing that we've done so far I really did enjoy the T-shirt contest I thought that was a really good idea yeah but really getting to see like hired and World youth connect working together you don't know World youth connect they're a very powerful group because they're youth it's youth Le so I think that we're even though we gave it out to hired I think them bringing in World youth connect was probably the best idea because I'm seeing more now that young people talking to young people are really going to make the changes that we need to see exactly and so us being a support system to them funding things for them to take part in the T-shirt contest I mean I'm curious to see how many t-shirts are worn throughout this school year coming and then what new schools come on board when we do the contest again Diane what is your number one desire for improving the communities within St Paul I guess it would have to be people feeling and being safer in St Paul there's a lot of crime out there and especially the violent crime is what concerns me we had a neighbor who was walking his dog and he was robbed with a gun and he was a middle schooler it was so sad and to think that you can't walk your dog in the neighborhood without feeling safe so that's the main thing I think Coral what's your number one desire for improving the communities within St Paul My Hope Is that we can communicate more with each other and when I say that I'm thinking about our work with the neighborhood Safety Council and how we can better connect with other neighborhood associations other Civic groups or faith-based organizations or agencies within St Paul and align align the work as opposed to everyone just doing their own thing because I think everyone's concerned about safety but how can we collectively address the issues within all of the communities and be more collaborative and Sharice what is your number one desire for improving the communities within St Paul definitely safety but I would love to see the communities come back to being more Villages like we know who's on the Block you know who's around you say hi more to your neighbors I know Co kind of shut us in but it's time to open those doors again get to know people you know it's unfortunate what happened to your neighbor I mean especially as a young person it's really tough but if more people are outside seeing things talking to each other hopefully those things will come down I think for me my desire for improving the communities is I want our kids to thrive office of neighborhood safety did a pilot with World youth connect and we did like some surveying of our youth and when do they feel safe and when do they feel unsafe and one of the big things that kept coming back was they feel unsafe when riding public transportation sometimes they feel unsafe after a certain hour in the evening sometimes they stay inside on the weekends just to avoid confrontation and conflict and I want our kids to be okay kids should not have to worry about trouble they should not have to worry about feeling unsafe they should not have to worry about where their next meal is going to come from and where they're going to sleep at night these are all like things that we as adults were put here on Earth to take care of for the kids that we're bringing up right so I want our kids to be okay I think that as long as our kids are okay and they feel that they have stability and they have structure and they have safety a lot of the things that we're trying to prevent in St Paul from happening will subside so that's like my number one desire for the city of St Paul last questions what are your goals for the NC Diane let's go certainly supporting the office of neighborhood safety which is ever growing it's so exciting it keeps delving into more and more issues and they are an important program it's it's nice to have Alternatives we need them and supporting groups that will work with youth in combating violence is what I think is most important for us and for us to continue to receive input from the community about what are the real issues that people are dealing with people and businesses and agencies Coral what's your goals I hope that through the Matrix that we've developed and the data that's being collected on the current contracts that we have with the fund that we've distributed that we'll be able to really demonstrate that we're making a difference and because we're making a difference then that would allow our elected officials to think seriously about the office the neighborhood safety and how they might support that program in the Long Haul and what what's needed to support an in the Long Haul and if our role is to go down the city hall and say we think this is the right thing to do or however we can be of help to the office that's what I want to be a part of go Carl go corl I think we'll all join you down there at City Hall shares what are your goals I think we're doing really good work yeah I think that over time as we like corl said Gather other neighborhood groups get us all on a one page striving towards the same goal which is that safety safety for all of us our kids us as adults our parents you know my parents still they live in the summit U neighborhood as well you guys are parents so we want to make sure that we're all just safe and we have those thriving communities my goal is that the council helps to make that possible thank you shares so I think my goal is for us to have a strong relationship and a bigger presence in the school systems I think that we all can agree especially after the community conversations that we've done with principles and healthc care providers is that a lot of the change that we're trying to make is going to come with changing what our kids what our youth are dealing with and their perspectives of life and I think that in order to do that we have to stop ignoring that that this is an epidemic gun violence is an epidemic and we need to have education around it and schools are education we need our schools to come on board and agree hey we should have education around mental health and stability and gun violence prevention and conflict resolution so that we can build better and strong adults and I think that's where the neighborhood safety Community Council can be a strong influence um on is providing the programs that we've been looking into and talking about that's going to impact Our Youth and make them feel better and do better for themselves so that is it for episode two this podcast again is about being able to connect with you and alternative Public Safety matters programs and your local growth and healing opportunities if you'd like to learn more about Community First Public Safety please visit information. pa.gov and that's St Paul STP l.gov and for more information about the office of neighborhood safety or joining the NC you can check us out at www.spa l.gov forde departments SL neighborhood SLS safety thank you