Mayor_Pete

Also a big thank-you to Jake who proposed that I do this and has helped get us up and running today!

OK but an open-face is not actually a sandwich. It's sandwich-related but it's not a sandwich.

1. Literally whatever is in the refrigerator or pantry. Also we have these peanut-butter-filled pretzel bites in the office that are amazing.
2. No.
3. "Stephen's Last Night in Town." I don't pretend to fully understand the plot of the lyrics, but I enjoyed playing it when they came through town in 2015.

Thanks for "tuning in" and for the kind words about our City's growth. Let me take each in turn:

• The core of our violence reduction strategy is the Group Violence Intervention, which brings together law enforcement and the social sector to focus on those most likely to be involved in violent crime. We have supplemented this strategy with street outreach workers and a Strategic Focus unit in SBPD. Gun violence has fallen sharply this summer, but we had a tough start to the year and it is far too soon to celebrate. Be sure to use our Police Transparency Portal to get a good sense of the good, the bad, and the ugly of crime stats; one thing I have noticed is that while bad incidents command headlines and attention, virtually no one is aware of the dramatic reduction in gun violence that has happened here in the last few months. http://police-southbend.opendata.arcgis.com
• Not sure I agree with the premise of the question here--some people favor a downtown station and some don't. My sense overall is that most South Bend residents who follow this closely are excited for downtown. I think that the economic case is extremely powerful--but we also have unanswered questions on the engineering side and will have to make sure it is as doable as we think. Look for more in the next few months.
• Interesting idea, I've never thought about this but will now!
• My church is fantastic, and they have been nothing but supportive. It means a lot to me that we were able to have our marriage in the church.

I think we can communicate across identity lines by focusing on how the decisions of politicians affect all of us in our daily lives. This doesn't mean avoiding divisive issues--sometimes it can clarify those issues. For example, I think that the moral weight of family separation becomes clearest when we try to picture what happens in the everyday life of a child fleeing violence if she is taken from her parents for reasons she cannot understand. I'm not calling for us to ignore the different identities we all carry--but I do believe that if we allow ourselves to be defined by them, it becomes harder to relate to others.