The News-Gazette had a preview of a couple issues at tonight's Urbana City Council meeting (agenda here). From the News-Gazette this morning:
Urbana PD Analyst: Racial divide in traffic stops narrowsFull article here.
The police department’s crime analyst said there’s “a meaningful difference” in new traffic stop data that will be presented at tonight’s Urbana city council meeting.
The statistics show how often drivers of different races are stopped by police. UPD’s Melissa Haynes updates the council when new data is available.
Haynes’ latest report will show a reduction in the amount of times officers have stopped black drivers. She said the decline is “stark” and “not a typical fluctuation.”
The new data, which covers the time period of October 2017 to March 2018, shows there were 97 fewer stops of black drivers in the past six months compared to the fiveyear average...
Tonight's council agenda also includes the introduction of a new city program to assist drivers with broken car lights.
Mayor Diane Marlin said the program — called Fix-it Tickets — will provide payment vouchers to drivers stopped by the police for busted headlights, taillights or license-plate lights.
The idea for this program came out of the city's traffic stop task force, Marlin said. An initial $2,500 is being allocated for the vouchers, and Marlin said she'll determine if more should be added once she sees how the project goes.
"When people are stopped ... they'll get a warning ticket and a voucher," Marlin said. "They can use (the voucher) at a chain auto repair place in Urbana."
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