Veishea task force named to find cause of violence

Leaders at Iowa State University and the city of Ames have selected the members to serve on a task force to examine the violence at last month’s Veishea celebration. I-S-U spokesman John McCarroll says the task force has this charge. He says they’ll try to look into the issues that might have contributed or caused the disturbances on April 18th and try to come up with recommendations to keep such disturbances from happening again. McCarroll says the committee will look at the overall scope of the problem.He says it’s not a legal group that’ll be trying to file charges or prosecuting those who damaged property. He says they want to try to find what contributed to the incident and how to avoid it in the future. McCarroll says it’s important to have the university, city and students on the task force.He says the disturbances happened in the Campustown area that includes university students and the city, and so they’re highly connected. He says he expects to see a high level of cooperation to solve the problem. Ames Mayor Ted Tedesco agrees with McCarroll about the goals of the committee. He says they look at the underlying issues and what might’ve triggered the disturbances and whether they can restructure a celebration for the future of the community. Tedesco says they’ll look at what other university communities have done.He says they have the report from Ohio State University, which had celebrations that got out of control after football games, as well as studies from other communities. The task force will meet through the summer and early fall and is expected to provide its report by November 30th. Tedesco says a separate commission will be appointed in the coming weeks to look specifically at the relationships between the city and the university to determine if there are any changes needed.