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COMMUNITY
palm street perspective
Proactive steps to incidents By SLO Mayor, Jan Marx
Dear Friends and Neighbors, Two months after the infamous St. Fratty’s Day unruly “party” made headlines around the world, you may well be tired of hearing about 3,000 students first conspiring to get intoxicated at 4:00 A.M. on a Saturday morning and invade a residential neighborhood, then loading so many students onto a roof that it collapsed under their weight. If yes, please bear with me, because how our community deals with the aftermath is crucial to its future. It is important to the City, Cal Poly, and the students themselves, that this incident not be relegated to “old news.” The University, City administration and police are conducting follow-up investigations and taking proactive steps regarding this kind of incident. We cannot merely shrug our shoulders, saying “Oh well, it’s a college town and every few years big crowds of drunken students ‘party’ in the neighborhoods.” Those responsible must be held accountable. The culture must be turned around. These mob invasions are not parties. They are assaults upon City residents and the quality of life in the neighborhoods. They tarnish the reputation of the University. They make Cal Poly students, especially members of fraternities and sororities, look boorish and irresponsible. It is chilling that, in the days leading up to March 7, students participated in a well-orchestrated pact of silence. Detailed instructions— about what to wear, what to drink, when to wake up, where and when to go—were widely disseminated via social media. It is revealing that not one of those 3,000 participants, or others who knew about the event, alerted the city authorities about the time and scale of the event ahead of time. This left the police and firefighters understaffed to deal with the early morning mob scene. Had the crowd not been shocked by the roof collapse, the “party” could have easily turned into another drunken riot like those in years past. When only a few officers are
M A Y
2015
Journal PLUS
tasked with trying to control a large, drunken crowd in a residential neighborhood, there is great risk that people could get hurt. It was only by sheer luck in this case that no one was seriously injured. This is the third such massive, alcohol fueled neighborhood invasion in recent history. The Poly Royal “party” on Hathway Street—complete with neighborhood property damage, fire setting, attacks upon police and fire fighters and liquor store looting—resulted in President Warren Baker’s cancellation of Poly Royal. The Mardi Gras riot at Foothill and California resulted in extensive property damage in the neighborhood and cost the City about half a million dollars. As a result, Mayor Dave Romero cancelled the event, announcing “Mardi Gras is over.” Now, it’s time for St. Fratty’s Day to become a thing of the past. This raises the question, who has the ability and responsibility to cancel St. Fratty’s Day and any other such destructive, irresponsible “parties” in residential neighborhoods? The University? The City? Since Cal Poly students organized this event, it seems to me that it is their turn. They must rise to the occasion and take action to change the local culture that promotes this kind of conduct. The fact that they were capable of organizing the St Fratty’s day incident proves that they are capable of organizing to eliminate it. The good news is that two Greek groups, the Cal Poly Interfraternity Council and the Cal Poly Panhellenic Council, have apologized to the City and the Cal Poly community on behalf of the student body. It is significant that Cal Poly President Jeffery Armstrong also apologized to City residents at a City Council meeting and at a Chamber of Commerce meeting. Furthermore, the Neighborhood Civility Working Group—comprised of student leaders from Cal Poly and Cuesta College, as well as administrators and police from both institutions, residents and City staff— has been doing research and working together for nearly two years to propose a coordinated strategy to deal with these town gown issues. This proposal will be unveiled at the May 19th City Council meeting. I hope readers of this column will attend and contribute their ideas. Ours is not the only college town struggling with these issues, but we are one of the very few taking a strategic, proactive approach. In fact, the Neighborhood Civility Working Group has been selected to present a workshop on their strategy at the International Town-Gown Conference in Washington DC in early June. If there is any community that can creatively and collaboratively address these difficult issues, it is San Luis Obispo! All the Best, Mayor Jan Marx