Last week in his State of the City address, Mayor Jonathan McCollar never mentioned Statesboro’s pending legalization of liquor stores, but the concluding minutes of his remarks echoed his recent debate with some City Council members over what to do with the expected increase in tax revenue.

He gave the speech the evening of Feb. 22 from the stage of the Statesboro High School auditorium. The focus on challenges facing Statesboro’s children and youth, including the lure of gangs, and on what McCollar sees as a need to dedicate private and public resources, including city revenue, to address those challenges, reached a crescendo in the final 10 minutes of a more than half-hour speech.

“In this very school that we are in and many other schools across our community, we have young people that have chosen to get involved with gangs such as the Bloods and Gangster Disciples,” he said. “It is via these affiliations that we are seeing the disturbing of the educational environment as well as our community.”

When gang incidents happen, “fingers are unfairly pointed at the schools, their teachers and their administrators,” he said.  “Fingers are unfairly pointed at local law enforcement and even the young people themselves. Statesboro, the fate of our young people is not solely a Board of Education responsibility.  It is not solely our law enforcement’s responsibility.”

Saying it is “an all-of-us responsibility,” he called for “our churches, our governing bodies, nonprofit organizations, institutions of higher education, civic organizations and citizens” to “stand in the gap to fight to save our young people.”

‘Mayor loves’ SPD

McCollar also proclaimed his love and support for the Statesboro Police Department. Again, although he didn’t mention the liquor store debate, this follow’s the mayor’s publicly disagreeing, on more than one previous occasion, with District 4 Councilman John Riggs over Riggs’ desire to dedicate a portion of the excise tax proceeds from liquor stores to police funding.

Whether there will be further discussion of the use of the funding remained to be seen, but the proposed Package Stores Ordinance appeared on the agenda for the regular 9 a.m. Statesboro City Council meeting this Tuesday, March 1.

In the form tentatively approved by council members on a 3-2 vote at the last meeting, the ordinance still contains the subsection setting forth a “stated policy goal” that at least 50% of the excise tax proceeds collected from package shops “be allocated to social services contracts with qualified 501c3 nonprofit organizations to provide beneficial youth and other social services” in Statesboro.

The ordinance does not earmark any of the revenue to police or public safety.  But during council meetings, McCollar has noted that the city already spends millions of dollars on its police and fire departments. Based on an admittedly speculative estimate that the addition of liquor stores will create about $300,000 in excise revenue, he touts the “policy goal” as a commitment of perhaps $150,000 a year, from a new source, to new spending on youth programs and social services.

“Let it be understood in this space, your mayor loves and adores the Statesboro Police Department,” he said onstage last week at Statesboro High. “There is no resource, beyond reason, that we are not going to work to make sure they have. We’ve improved their healthcare, we’ve raised their pay scale, and we’ve improved the equipment and training that they have.

“But this is what I want the entire city to understand abundantly about your mayor,” McCollar continued.  “I love our Police Department, but I hate the failed policies of these rhetoric-filled, solution-less politicians that have created the environment that our men and women in blue go into every day. They find it much easier to spend millions on armored vests, armored vehicles and the sort instead of addressing the real issues that’s caused the conditions in which the people are living.”

He went on to say that Statesboro’s people must dedicate themselves “to moving our city forward in its entirety” and “cannot continue to lean on those policies that have normalized the school-to-prison pipeline.”

Riggs’ advocacy

McCollar did not mention any particular politicians or local individuals, and none of the council members have proposed spending the money on armored vehicles. What Riggs has proposed, consistent with his advocacy over several years, is using some of the money to hire more officers or improve salaries.

“If we’re going to put 50 percent towards youth programs, I suggest we put the other 50 percent towards police,” Riggs said during the Feb. 1 council meeting. “We need more police officers.”

Another council member, District 1’s Phil Boyum, argued against including any spending goal in the ordinance, saying these decisions should be made annually at budget time. But Boyum made and voted for the motion that moved the ordinance forward, with other changes, at the Feb. 15 second reading.

On the subject of youth services, the mayor in last week’s speech called for the creation of “Children Zones” to provide support services in neighborhoods with the highest number of at-risk children and of community learning centers where children and their parents, who may have dropped out of school, can learn together. He said the time has come “to develop a comprehensive youth mentorship initiative” that provides guidance and exposes middle and high school students to career possibilities.

During recent meetings of the mayor and council, both the city’s own Statesboro Youth Commission and the Boys & Girls Club of Bulloch County have made a pitch for potential funding for contracted youth services.