Gov. Jack Markell’s (D-Delaware) Wilmington Public Safety Strategies Commission is ready to get to work. Commission members and the groups’ meeting schedule were announced Wednesday. It's initial meeting is next Tuesday, February 10th.
Wilmington Police Chief Bobby Cummings, State Prosecutor Kathy Jennings and Markell’s Deputy Chief of Staff Drew Fennell will sit on the Commission, which will examine Wilmington public safety strategies in an effort to address violent crime there. Fennell also serves on Delaware Public Media’s board.
Wilmington residents and members of the city’s police and business communities are also on the 9 member panel that will be led by the state’s Safety and Homeland Security Secretary Lew Schiliro and New Castle County Director of Public Safety Joseph Bryant.
The state has also hired the Police Foundation of Washington D.C. and Vigilant Resources International to serve as consultants to the Commission. Schiliro says their expertise will help the Commission develop its recommendations.
"If you look at their backgrounds these are probably some of the finest policing groups in the country, and what we’re going to hope to do is work with the City of Wilmington and the Wilmington Police Department and allow them, if there are better ways to develop law enforcement responses, to do that," said Schiliro.
The Commission, which Markell asked for in his State of the State address last month, will meet five times before its March 31 deadline to present its recommendations to the General Assembly.
Schiliro adds he believes the group, with the help of the consultants groups, can meet that strict timetable.
"We ought to be able to bring a fair amount of resources to bear in working with Wilmington and working with us to develop the right profile and I believe to develop what will be very, very good and well thought out recommendations," said Schiliro.
The panel's first meeting next Tuesday will be at the Walnut Street YMCA.
Other meetings are slated for February 17, March 10, March 17, March 31. All will be at 5:30pm with locations to be determined. Public comment will taken at each meeting on the subjects discussed at that session.