Just two days after the shooting death of a Bloomfield man on Mission Street, 4th Ward Councilor Renee Baskerville said that Thursday night's community meeting must be about so much more than community policing. She said it must and will be about a community "dedicating itself to making the renewal of the area its priority."

Rather than just reacting to a tragic event, Baskerville said emphatically that the township manager, police chief, and community leaders must allow planners, engineers, and public safety experts come to the table to create a plan that will make the 4th ward "the least likely area for folks to feel that it's okay for them to commit a crime in."

On Tuesday night, a 29-year-old man identified as Ibn Futrell was shot and killed just after 9 p.m. Police are still investigating and, so far, no arrests have been made. A community meeting has been scheduled at 8 p.m. Thursday night at the Fire Headquarters on Pine Street.

Baskerville said rampant crime in the area has been going on for decades.

"We want any township dollars that may appear to be available to be reserved in part not only for community policing, cameras, etc. ... but for whatever it takes for folks to end the violence in this same neighborhood for decades," she said. "This meeting is about the will of the community to make this its priority.

"We have dollars going to South Park Street [redevelopment] because this is a priority and the will of the [township] council was to do so," she added. "I want the same commitment and will of this body to put dollars toward the Mission Street/New Street areas so that the violence ends now."

Baskerville noted that many brilliant developers, engineers, and planners live and work in Montclair.

"I want them to work together to come up with a design and plan and I want the township to support the dollars to create a renewed Mission Street area so that it's a bright and safe area," she said. "I want it to be a place where for the next many decades folks from all over will say 'not on Mission Street ... we will never be able to commit a crime or an act of violence or a sale of illegal substances on Mission Street and get away'."

Baskerville said there shouldn't be any neighborhood in Montclair in which people feel they can commit a crime and get away with it.

"For some reason when you tell folks a crime was on Mission Street, they say 'oh' with that look of 'oh that's why'," she said. "We must work together until folks in town including all of our neighbors are shocked when we say something negative happened on Mission Street."