GILBERT, AZ — The Gilbert Town Council is moving forward after they heard recommendations from their Teen Violence subcommittee Tuesday.
The recommendation came after months of meetings and hearing ideas from community members. Some from the East Valley stepped up to address the council before the recommendations were discussed and called for quick action.
"I felt that there were some actions or directions that could be given from the council today, so we could move some of these items forward quickly," said council member Kathy Tilque.
The most immediate items included expanding liaison responsibilities with school districts, budgeting to add a police officer for community youth engagement, and looking at ordinance changes. The ordinances the council highlighted include potentially banning brass knuckles for juveniles and also addressing parenting responsibility.
A brass knuckle ban would come after a bill banning brass knuckles statewide failed earlier this year.
The council also wanted to pass some of their recommendations on to a community engagement taskforce.
"With an initial meeting in June 2024, after the application process has been concluded," described Council member Tilque.
The council wants the task force to include eleven members and no less than four Gilbert high school teens.
But some people that walked out of the meeting Tuesday said there are kids still in the community that are scared and called the discussion disappointing. A few community members told ABC15 they wanted more immediate action.
"I think time will tell," said council member Chuck Bongiovanni. "I have full confidence in the task force to move forward with this; and we're still doing a lot of things also, relationship to schools and those kinds of things. So, you know, we'll have to just see what happens as we move forward. But I feel very confident with the speed we're going to take.
The council only provided direction Tuesday, but Council member Bongiovanni is hopeful they can take action on some of the options they discussed as soon as next month.
