Posted by Dale Liesch | Jul 27, 2022 | Latest, News | 0 |

Mobile Fire-Rescue Department (MFRD) personnel, such as Fire Service Driver John Trenier, are often the first officials to respond to the aftermath of an incident involving gun violence. Because of this, Trenier has seen the impact violence has on the community and he took initiative to try and end it. 

“Everybody in the department is EMT trained and 90 percent of the calls we get are medical,” Trenier said. “We are often the first on the scene and we see firsthand the effects of gun violence. I’ve seen more than I’d like to.” 

Trenier has partnered with the city’s Youth Violence Prevention Coordinator Joshua Jones to introduce a mentoring program called Brothers in Blue, which involves three public safety departments — MFRD, the Mobile Police Department and the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office. Trenier said the program consists of 31 volunteers from the three departments and has identified at-risk youth between the ages of 12 and 17 who were part of a program Jones had put together at Strickland Youth Center. 

The participants will meet with the volunteers soon at a city park and be assigned a mentor. That youth and mentor will remain in contact during the six-month pilot program. 

“The volunteers will keep in contact with the kids and check up on them,” Trenier said. “The kids will have a role model to get a hold of when they need one.” 

Jones, Trenier and the volunteers were honored for the program at the Mobile City Council meeting on Tuesday, July 26. Executive Director of Public Safety Lawrence Battiste presented the group with a proclamation calling for Youth Violence Prevention Week in the city. 

Jones said the program is part of a larger master plan to try to curb youth violence. The mentoring aspect is just part of the idea of service to the community that many in public safety share, Jones said. 

“They are committed to service,” Jones told councilors of the volunteers in place. “They are committed to giving their all to the community.” 

Council President C.J. Small thanked the volunteers for their service and told them it was being noticed. 

“Everything y’all are doing, citizens are watching,” he said. “They appreciate it and I do too.” 

Council Vice President Gina Gregory also thanked the volunteers. 

While the council honored the public safety officials before getting to the agenda, the body also approved paying for a fishing trip that allowed four officials to mentor a group of at-risk youth as well. 

Small, Battiste, District 2 Councilman William Carroll and District 1 Councilman Cory Penn all participated in the deep-sea fishing trip. Councilors voted unanimously to pay $3,140 to assist MPD with the costs for the trip through Carroll’s discretionary funds. The trip was an effort to expose the kids to something they may not have experienced before, Small said. 

“We’re trying to give them a different look,” he said. “We want to show them there’s more than just trouble out there.” 

Carroll said he wants to plan future trips as well because many of the at-risk kids in the community haven’t had exposure to activities like deep sea fishing. He even brought up partnering with Brothers in Blue in the future. 

“These kids don’t have a chance to see what they can do,” he said. 

In other business, councilors approved a $78,000 contract with Teague Construction Systems for a new roof on Fire Station No. 17. The issue was an emergency, Executive Director of Public Works Jim DeLapp told councilors during a pre-conference meeting. 

The issue was bad enough that the firefighters and personnel at the station had to be relocated and dispatched from two other stations. 

The council also approved more than $1 million for 44 police-issue Chevrolet Tahoes, eight police-package Dodge Durangos and a vacuum truck for the Public Works Department. 

The council also approved a $116,000 contract with Hagan Fencing to install a fence at the Brookley by the Bay park property. 

When asked by District 4 Councilman Ben Reynolds during the pre-conference meeting, DeLapp told councilors he could meet with them individually about what the plans are for the Civic Center redevelopment, after the body learned of an effort to rezone portions of the 22-acre property the decades-old facility sits on. 

Executive Director of Finance Bob Holt told councilors the city took in about $1 million less in June than it had budgeted, but city revenues were still ahead of projections for the year so far. As part of that, hotel and business license revenue is about a “couple of million” better than what was budgeted. 

Even after giving $30 million to the Mobile Airport Authority for the downtown airport move, Holt said the city still has a $132 million budget surplus. When the contingency funding is removed, which would pay for operations for up to two months, the city still has about $85 million in the reserved account, Holt said.

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Dale Liesch has been a reporter at Lagniappe since February 2014. He covers all aspects of the city of Mobile, including the mayor, City Council, the Mobile Housing Board of Commissioners, GulfQuest National Maritime Museum of the Gulf of Mexico and others. He studied journalism at The University of Alabama and graduated in 2007. He came to Lagniappe, after several years in the newspaper industry. He achieved the position of news editor at The Alexander City Outlook before moving to Virginia and then subsequently moving back a few years later. He has a number of Alabama and Virginia Press association awards to his name. He grew up in the wilderness of Baldwin County, among several different varieties of animals including: dogs, cats, ducks, chickens, a horse and an angry goat. He now lives in the Oakleigh neighborhood of Mobile with his wife, Hillary, and daughter, Joan. The family currently has no goats, angry or otherwise, but is ruled by the whims of two very energetic dogs.