[0:01] Paul Renke: well welcome to the Oakdale City Hall and police facility this complex was the original complex built back well over 30 years ago what you're about to find is as we walk through the police department is uh really the consequence of growth what started out as being a very good facility now has gotten too small so the consequence of the city's growth has caused severe shortages of space as we've brought on officers both men and women what used to be a male dominated field now is very well populated with female officers however our facility doesn't provide for that so you also see that the places where [0:48] Paul Renke: storage for our police officer cars both the squads and their personal vehicles all are very very in short supply so thank you everybody for coming my name is Paul renke I'm the mayor of Oakdale and uh have served in this role for six years and then 12 uh 12 years before that was as a consular so again thank you for coming it's Saturday morning nine o'clock beautiful out but you're going to have a chance to walk through City Hall which is where the police department offices and facilities are the purpose of this is to give information about the local area sales tax which the council has received permission from or authority from the legislature to ask the voters to um uh [1:37] Paul Renke: increase the sales taxes to pay for these facilities there's two facilities that we're talking about one is the Public Works building this is the police facility expansion renovation it's a half cent sales tax so what that means is really uh 50 cents on a hundred dollars a hundred dollars that's the beauty of what we're talking about here is that what you're going to see is first off the not um optional you know that there's needs here so the the ability to use this local area sales tax to pay for the construction costs is um it's really a good thing to do um and uh roughly half the people in in the area are non-residents so 50 of both [2:24] Paul Renke: projects uh can be paid for by this local area sales tax which is half the people that are non-residents enough me talking uh Chief Newton our police chief um I think you're gonna take it from here got it [2:36] Nick Newton: good morning good morning thank you well thank you guys for uh for coming in on the Saturday morning uh we'll do is just give you a little tour of the police department we'll we'll stop in a few spots and try to explain some of the the challenges that that we have in this facility and you know just to start when this was built in 91 92 there was 19 police officers that worked here in about 25 staff total that worked out of this this building currently we have 35 licensed staff with a total of 43 employees so [3:09] Nick Newton: with that said there's some some challenges for us with with the growth and you know oakdale's also a change in the sense of um you know we are back a lot of our parking lot goes into the park and we had far less Vehicles back in 91 92 than we do now so you know I think we have about eight parking spots set for the police department then the rest of the parking is in the public parking space which most often like today it's fine but we have softball tournaments and a lot of activities going on in the park it can be can be challenging for uh for parking our squad cars too so uh with that said we'll just start our way through the main level then we'll work our way upstairs and then we'll come out upstairs [3:56] Nick Newton: um in fact on the stair stand if you have questions uh feel free to ask them please so um this is our lobby and before we even get in this the small area uh just say this is where the public come it's it's uh open eight to four Thirty and one of the the biggest challenges we have for us with this little Lobby here is you know people there's a lot of people that will come in to the police department rather than call 9-1-1 and when folks show up to make a police report uh this Lobby here there's not much space for for privacy you know some people come in to report some things that are really sensitive uh you know they're sharing maybe their their date [4:42] Nick Newton: of birth their address and maybe sharing sensitive information that they don't want other people to to hear about so it makes it really challenging when you're in here and you have two or three people waiting here to get reports or talk to an officer then meanwhile someone wants to report a domestic assault or someone wants to report some kind of child abuse or sexual abuse makes it very very challenging for officers I mean there's been times for example where there's people in here and you you hear about what the report is and you have to take them outside to find somewhere that you have a little bit of privacy to get information and of course during the the times that's not open to the public we have a it's all key card access controlled for blocking so I'll unlock this and now you [5:29] Nick Newton: can all come in and follow me so this is our uh public Lobby a lot of folks will come in to get reports and other things at the front window here sometimes people call for an officer an officer will come out here to meet the public like I was saying before this is the the only interview room that we have for our Patrol staff so if someone does come in and they need to get a recorded interview from them they'll they'll go in here and again with this door even shut and there's people out here and there's noise there's traffic it makes it very distracting so one of the things that we'd really like to add for our staff is the ability to have a three or four interview rooms off the lobby with a little bit more sound barrier sound proof for privacy as well and make it nice for our our public that come in [6:16] Nick Newton: that they can have that confidence that their personal information isn't you know going to be heard in your shot of other people then I'll bring you guys through to the uh the entrance here to the police department yes yep eight to four Thirty and um longer yes yes so um or no they'll still be the same times um but what we we hope to do is uh you know one of the things we talked about during the the planning phase was creating a situation where there's there's like a vestibule because currently when people come after hours and you know we don't have staff sitting here all day just waiting for people to [7:03] Nick Newton: come in so if it's after 4 30 p.m and we have no staff here in the buildings close people either need to call 9-1-1 on their cell phone or there's a box out there in that box when you press it that goes to Stillwater to Washington County Communication Center who will then dispatch an officer to come come back here and speak so in the meantime if you don't have a vehicle if it's inclement weather it's cold you're standing outside waiting so one things we talked about would be have the ability to have a vestibule where someone can come in stay warm make make that that that contact with the with our dispatch to have an officer come back and then when the officer comes they can obviously come through and get them to an interview room and somewhere where they can talk so what I'll do from here is just to talk about our Records Office kind of [7:49] Nick Newton: bring you through the administrative side investigation side and back out to this hallway but um from here this is where our Records Office works out of so we have uh four staff that work out of this area and you know they do a lot of things behind the scenes that are very crucial to operating a police department they do uh all our records management they process gun permits they do data release reports of folks that come in that want police reports so they do a lot of things be behind the scenes and um you know one of the you can see one of the challenges is we're still in the process of transitioning from from paper up until 2018 we were doing everything paper records and that 2018 years when [8:35] Nick Newton: we tried to make that transition so a record staff are still operating off paper files for for some things and other things are still operating off the the computers sold for this this uh one of the challenges too is if you look at the workspaces um there's this has been remodeled in the sense of trying to create a situation where the staff can see people that come up to the public and you can see like some of them are kind of stuck back in the corner and uh trying to to see if public are coming in so um just one of the challenges that they face and then um I won't even bring you guys uh all the way down here just because it's just three offices so uh Captain [9:21] Nick Newton: Goodwin and myself our offices are right down this hallway um so I'll bring you guys here and just kind of walk through this this our investigators area this is where our investigators work out of so we have six staff that work out of here um you know when I first started here there was three staff that kind of worked out of this area and uh it grew to six and we make it work but one of one of the challenges is for investigators is you know they deal with very serious crimes very sensitive information and they kind of all just share share this common space here so you may have someone on a phone call that's very serious that they need to record that may deal with some kind of [10:07] Nick Newton: sexual abuse or a very sensitive case and then you have two detectives over here not knowing if this person's on a phone call and they start talking about their fishing trip last last week and start laughing and you know it's it's a challenge for that investigator because sometimes they have to stop the phone call or put it on on mute and tell them hey you guys be quiet I'm on a phone call or else they'll they'll leave so that's a that's one of the bigger challenges for investigators back here and of course space um with the Advent technology it's become an expectation of the courts that you have [10:52] Nick Newton: digital evidence that you have warrants of people's mobile devices cell phones video surveillance and of course when this department was built it wasn't set up set up for for that in mind you know it's a lot of departments that have been established for a while have that same challenge so uh like a uh it's kind of hard for you all to get back here but you can see like our our server where we keep our our data storage is just shove back in this in this closet back here and uh you can come back here and swing by and take a look as you go so we we um use Metro inet it's a kind of a Consortium with uh it's based on City of Roseville so the number of cities in the East Metro use use any questions about uh this area [11:39] Unidentified Participant: so many people are normally working in this area during the show [11:43] Nick Newton: so for our detectives we have total of six working out of this area um and there are hours to typically are our daytime but of course depending on the needs the community sometimes um they have some people work in the evening hours too one two three four yes we get one two three four in office five and that little spot back there would be the sixth spot can you hear me way down there yes yeah a little cramped and of course we would love the opportunity to have actual offices or people when they're working can actually shut the door and have privacy for some of the things they're doing and as you guys pass through here this is a [12:26] Nick Newton: where are detectives we'll interview this is our only interview we have for detectives um and this this little space here and um one of one of the challenge the challenges with this is you know this this is not secure none of this so there's no even lock on this door so if if there are interviewing a suspect or something you always have to have a person here monitoring um just to make sure that person doesn't leave um but also I mean one of the more important things is like when you have a serious crime and you know like it's a child sexual abuse case um you you want to have a room that's very soft and welcoming and conducive and this room is a challenge on that because one of the size and um you know [13:13] Nick Newton: it's pretty cold cold room when you're having those real difficult conversations um so this room does have the ability though to to record all the interviews there's a switch for them to turn on that can be recorded so uh in here this is the the main our main operations out of here uh we have 27 people that work essentially out of this area this room the report writing room the Sergeant's office and this kind of is a multi-purpose room this is where they do roll call briefing and amp Patrol meetings this is also where they will eat their lunch um this is where you know the the uh anyone that's on break we'll be here and then um [13:59] Nick Newton: for here this is a this is a for all the officers and our csos this they have four four computers among 23 of them so 23 of them share these these four computers which uh obviously like a day like today we don't have a lot of Staff working so it works but you know typically for our Patrol schedule we have between two and ten people working at one time so if we have eight people working only half of them will have access to computers and while they they have the ability to do some of their reports in their car if it's more of a exhaustive report they have to type something that's going to go to an attorney for review they're going to be doing that in here so there's this times where officers will not get those reports done just because there's there's no space for it so one of the things we look for [14:46] Nick Newton: in the uh in a new facility would to have more more workspaces so we don't run into those those problems and also having a a spot where officers have the ability to make phone calls without uh Interruption like I said if people are out here having break and there's someone on an important phone call you know it would provide an opportunity for them to have some privacy then um back in in this location this is this is where our four Patrol sergeants work out of um which in the this is at this is fairly adequate space it's a little a little cramped but um at some point if we want to add add staff which right now we only [15:32] Nick Newton: have four Patrol sergeants and we we don't have 24-hour supervisor coverage at some point in the future perhaps in the next next 10 years we would want to add more supervisors more staff and we couldn't make that work out of this this size office anyone have any questions for uh kind of where our Patrol operations work out of [15:53] Unidentified Participant: you really don't have any board space to look around in very writable surfaces got paper stuck to it for something [16:03] Nick Newton: yeah we actually took down a lot because yeah just you know just for for data privacy stuff you know we have so this is where we have like our Board of pictures of uh folks that we're looking [16:19] Nick Newton: for that maybe wanted have warrants and that's this all goes up on these boards so um of course we do any kind of public tour we have to take those those things down [16:30] Unidentified Participant: yeah well that it seems like your destinations are very ergonomical just because they all share them and you might have a tall person short person you know someone might be a left mouse or versus a right monster and you can't do all those big reports in your car because you're gonna cramp shoulders neck whatever it's not very healthy for them [16:51] Nick Newton: yeah for you know for the very simple calls uh where they just gotta document what they did patrol car works fine but anything beyond that where they have to sit down and they have to type because you you're literally like trying to do this in your car so this is where [17:04] Nick Newton: where they'd go to type but yeah we uh you're right there is but we do have one standing desk uh which is we modified but you're welcome to come back here and take a look if you like [17:31] Unidentified Participant: to be all tall people because normally your keyboard is your elbow is supposed to be right angle [17:37] Nick Newton: yeah yes yes and it's you know we could so funny true story when I when I got promoted sergeant in uh 2006 I was told hey don't get too comfortable because we're getting all new desks and we're gonna do it and so here we are it's still all the same Locker space if you will oh it's a mailbox where where people put uh you know where we get internal memos and things like that all right I'll have you guys walk down this way here [18:33] Nick Newton: yeah so this area is a little little disjointed here so many uh many years ago when this building was built uh we had a holding cell so this area now that's now storage is a holding cell and of course the uh the bathroom for them which you could tell it's it's all nailed down like uh into the floor there's nothing that can be taken off it's it's kind of the uh the standard with when you go into a facility where people are held and um so and then in this room this is where uh they used to process like uh impaired drivers um DWIs things like that they would bring them back here it'd be a testing station and this person would go in the holding cell and then someone would call [19:19] Nick Newton: someone come pick them up a lot of Department correction changes and code make it so we can't do that anymore and we don't have the resources to have this staffed and mandal time since you have to have at least two people here and there are times we only have two people working so it just wasn't feasible for us to to do that so we do all of our our rests and processing of impaired drivers that's all done at Washington County Sheriff's office they have the Staffing the amenities and everything that that we would need for that um so when that changed we uh we made this into overflow storage we made this into a kitchen so there's a there's a microwave a fridge stove in [20:05] Nick Newton: there and um so that there's no dedicated break room and all all 40 um three of our employees work you know use this space for their their where they store their lunches where they Heat their food so they have one microwave which is challenging sometimes when there's you know 12 15 people working and they're sharing one microwave but uh we make it we make it work any questions for this the space it's roughly about 15 minutes [20:48] Unidentified Participant: so in the old days you used to bring drunks in here and everything else so you got them over to Washington is that correct [20:54] Nick Newton: yeah so I I um I've been here 20 it's about 22 years and when I when I started here this was not used for processing a pair of drivers however we did use this for holding juveniles say we'd have someone that curfew violations things like that we would sometimes bring kids back here and uh hold them here we'd have a chair here we call the parents to come get them and then um think about I don't know 2007 2008 we stopped doing that because that was another the state said yeah you guys you can't do that so now if we need to hold the juvenile for extended period [21:35] Nick Newton: of time they go to Washington County Sheriff's office they have a juvenile detention center or are we just sit in the lobby with with juveniles until the parents come this is one of our garage Bays we we use this for for storage kind of the cabinets behind you is where the officers keep their their fire firearms then the Garage Bay here this is uh we kind of just use for storing our for example this is our camera system our mobile camera system sometimes we'll have our Speed trailer here and just kind of use this as overflow storage but back in this room here this is our this is our evidence room so when officers collect evidence [22:22] Nick Newton: they bring it they bring it back in here and then there's lockers back in here and we can kind of funnel in here and I can explain this to you so our one of the the biggest challenges for our evidence technician is uh when property comes in officers will put it in these lockers and sometimes there's bigger items which we don't have an area to to store that so it just kind of gets stored here and labeled and then it needs to get moved so the challenge for our evidence Tech is if you look there's a step there so she has a car to property she can't you know we she we tried using a ramp sometimes it's too heavy to get it up so she's got to leave a card out there and she has to take all the evidence put it on a cart [23:09] Nick Newton: yeah so this uh this garage Bay here again we use it for a number of different things primarily storage as you can see with the adding staff over time and all the equipment they have to carry uh there's not enough room upstairs and lockers to store this stuff so we had to create these Lockers in the garage here for them to be able to to store items and also you know when we we tell a vehicle say a vehicle is involved in serious crime and we need to have our detectives do a warrant on it this is our only location that we have to do that so when that thing comes in here and they get a process and they have fingerprint powder or anything else that's that's going all over their stuff here because that stuff [23:55] Nick Newton: of course it doesn't just stay set it kind of goes up into the air creates a mess and also the challenges that's that's in our custody and we need to have that secure even from from officers so that door needs to be locked and if your stuff's in here and there's a car in here that's being processed you know that makes a challenge because you get to find out who hey I need someone to come here so I can go get my stuff so it just makes it a challenge and then of course with the uh the outdoor parking we have our outdoor parking out here and um one of the things we like to do with the new facility is have uh one more more efficiency for for gear storage have it in a garage and also have a separate area for [24:40] Nick Newton: when we you know we're having a garage and there's a car that comes in that would have to be processed it'd have the ability to take a take a i offense and secure that around that car and have a spot dedicated in the garage where that stuff could be could be processed and done without interfering with all everyone else's pieces of work that they're doing any questions for in here no so this is uh this is just the Overflow of you know they have winter jackets spring jackets Duty Bags [25:29] Unidentified Participant: heater works get us up for Animals there or is that just what's that [25:35] Nick Newton: um yeah so we have a candle in here so the times that we uh we do recover a dog uh you know if they're trying to figure out who the owner is that dog needs temporarily on that kennel so we can try to figure out uh who owns the dog and they come to the police department pick it up and if not after a very temporary time they they end up getting transported to a shelter but yes we have two dogs then uh it's a challenge but we just bring them directly to the animal shelter so just a couple of things to point out point out here you guys can come in here too if you need more space [26:15] Nick Newton: as when you guys came this way down the hallway you see there's a monitor there um that kind of shows what's out in the parking lot um one of the interesting things that have has happened over the last several years is a you know there's a there's a mental health crisis in our communities and we had a lot of folks that would just show up at the back of the police department gonna be standing outside this door we had an incident not too long ago where there's a guy standing between our squad cars with a big stick like he had a gun and he was trying to engage one of our officers walking out the back door try to get him to confront with his firearm so we say after having several incidents like like that happen right outside our [27:01] Nick Newton: back door here we decided to put this monitor up so when staff were walking down the hallway before they exit outside they can take a look and see if there's anybody standing out there that's going to confront them so again having that parking garage would would eliminate that where they could park inside and they could just get in their cars and go out versus uh coming out here and then just we've had several run-ins that are just something that we didn't counter in the past but it's just it's kind of been happening over the last last few years under the stairs here this is our medical storage Supply that um we didn't have really any other space to do it so this is built this is where the officer's medical supplies the medical bags they carry in their squat cars because they have aeds this can't just [27:47] Nick Newton: sit outside in the cold so they have to bring that in and then store it here during of course the hot time and the cold times of the year so the the upstairs the police department here if you go straight through where you guys will exit after the after the walk through here that goes back into the City Hall so up here what we have is on this side we have the the men's and women's locker room we have a couple storage areas for overflow storage and then our our evidence and property technician has her office in the area where we keep our primary evidence things of of value and things that we want regulated the best we can our store upstairs here and uh also this is where officers keep [28:34] Nick Newton: some of their Technologies such as their radios tasers and other equipment they carry and also back here is our only um it's our only meeting space we have in the police department so it's a it's kind of a mess back here but uh be careful not to trip we'll kind of uh walk through here [29:20] Nick Newton: so anytime we have a a meeting or we have other departments in for for for meetings this is our only space that we have um which you know it can work but if obviously if you have more get more than 10 people for a meeting it's it's congested and uh don't have enough space and um this is also where we have new higher interviews we'll use this room to to interview we'll also sometimes use the city hall side if there's a open space and offices back there but then behind here this is where we keep sensitive cases so this is just a [30:05] Nick Newton: closet you're welcome to look in there just I wouldn't walk through there's kind of a be challenging to get through there but um that's where we keep like cold cases this is a very key some of the the homicide cases that we've had over the years they're all stored inside this closet here yeah there's two doors there you can take a take a peek oh [30:50] Unidentified Participant: it's like some protected from water damage yeah anyone you want [30:57] Nick Newton: I I just did that about three months ago it's really good right now I did those plastic bins to to keep the the most important ones from water keep them dry keep them dry at least yeah you got to do something yeah you got a chance yeah yeah [31:39] Nick Newton: so of course with the locker room it's a it's challenging we had 28 Lockers in here we were able to add two more at the end but still still not enough there's a couple of us that uh just change out an office um just there's not not enough Locker space and um make it work but uh you know of course if we're gonna grow this department as well we need more space um but uh you know some of the things that uh that make it challenging is these these they're the original lockers um he can't really fit more than uh than your UNIF uniform shirts the ones like this and uh maybe a pair of boots and so it's it's a challenge [32:26] Nick Newton: so of course in the uh in the new facility you'd be looking for uh for some more Locker space um also room for expansion should be able to add some more staff over the years and also a little bit more conducive such as having like a bench for them when they're tying their boots and things like that so they cannot do those things and also having a more more bathrooms more toilets so you know right now there's just that that one toilet in there and uh one shower so things we look we look forward to to have our staff to have that ability boat drivers dryers power strip that's plugged into one Outlet everything right [33:13] Unidentified Participant: so how big is this Building compared to what you want to ideally build [33:19] Nick Newton: so I think the uh again it's just there's nothing that's it's solid on that plan but um it's roughly 55 000 square feet for the new building that includes the garage and this one's I think rough roughly 16. [33:35] Nick Newton: so we'd be expanding quite quite a bit I think the garage Chief was 20 22 000 rings of Bell right now just the garage yes office yeah not the offices yeah so just the comparison is administrative space okay wow yeah very much needed yeah so we have a total of four licensed and a total of eight eight females that work out of the police department at one at what points we had 11 and then um for you know that's one of the challenges in law enforcement is the recruiting is is difficult and the last process we only had one female applicant [34:10] Unidentified Participant: so is there any openings now [34:14] Nick Newton: uh no no openings right now we have a community service officer position that's open so of course we do have enough Locker space even though it's small currently but uh you know for future growth and you know we hope to to hire more have the opportunity to hire more females and um it's uh we need more Locker space yeah this is a really huge more storage in this room here is this where um I don't even have a key to but this is where like our Firearms armor this is a basically a closet that was retrofitted for them to uh they got to work on firearms and this space was uh was made into our gun cleaning um converted from uh this used to be [35:08] Nick Newton: kind of an evidence technician room and now we just converted this into a Firearms cleaning room um of course with lead and such that it come off Firearms we have the Hazardous Waste bins that need to you know anytime guns are cleaned you need to get those bins cleared out but uh not a lot of space in this room it's uh cramped you really can't have more than one person in there at a time cleaning a gun last room down here was a retrofitted into a storage area for our SWAT SWAT members and um you know so years years ago [35:53] Nick Newton: we didn't uh we weren't a member of the SWAT team or some other County teams and so now that we are of course they have a lot of a a lot of gear so we tried to make this uh open space here uh the best use for storage so this is where they keep a lot of their important equipment in in gear that they would need for for spot if you got grab stuff you gotta move out down that way down the stairs before you can get outside then you start after that yeah yeah no it's it's it's challenged but there's just really no no other place in our department to put the stuff [36:40] Unidentified Participant: and this was used to have a Community Affairs office this used to be the Community Affairs office there's always so the bottom line really is the building is being used for stuff it really wasn't designed for yes yeah so we got a combination of the way I've seen two or three with this whole tour is there's a lot of regulations that have changed requiring different things you'll expect more moderate approaches to cases and issues and this facility doesn't have that I have that in my office that I work I've worked downtown the building was built you know 20 years ago just even bringing in some basic like Communications everybody uses laptops now that's created a huge challenge just trying to make that work sure yeah and that's really simple [37:25] Nick Newton: compared to what I'm seeing here you know and then you also have needs of the community is changing and it's growing yeah and so obviously uh several you know and if you look around there's this room is in there but there's a lot of panels with leaks and stuff the evidence is there for me and I'm not even yeah if you were to talk to our staff that worked the street they'd probably say their biggest complaint is uh is the parking outside um one for for their personal cars you said I worked here almost 22 years in this parking lot I had my car keyed I've had my gas tank siphoned my personal car I get that happens everywhere in our community but uh you know and you drive by it 12 or 1 in the morning the only four [38:13] Paul Renke: cars that are in that lot work for the police department so that's challenging the two when it's uh inclement weather I mean I know our our residents deal with it too but uh it's a challenge when you when you come into work and you get a hot call and you got to go out there and try to scrape your window quick just to make a little little window so you can start driving um that's another challenge so thank you for uh taking time to walk through this facility with us I think you've seen that the space constraints that the equity elements of our private facilities for officers is in severe shortage and that our ability for officers to do their job effectively efficiently and with our caring attitude towards our public is very very [39:00] Paul Renke: difficult in this facility so this local area sales tax which is one half percent of the sales tax is going to really raise only 50 cents on every hundred dollars of a purchase and 50 percent of it is planned to be paid for by non-residents so 50 percent of the funds used to pay for these facilities will be paid for by people outside of the city limits these two facilities uh the the Public Works building and also this Police Department the needs for growth and expansion are not wants they are needs the option of being able to pay for it through the local area sales tax local option sales tax is a just a wonderful [39:46] Paul Renke: way of taking care of business should it not be approved by the residents and by the voters then city council will have to figure out how to take care of the costs or how to pay for the costs in a different manner I'm optimistic that it will pass thank you for your support [40:17] [Music]