This transcript features the White Bear Lake City Council meeting from April 2024. Key speakers include Mayor Dan Lewis, City Manager Lindy Crawford, and various department heads. [0:28] e [0:58] e [1:28] e [1:58] e [2:28] e [2:40] **Mayor Dan Lewis:** ...to celebrate towns and cities committed to Growing their Urban canopy and has helped more than 3600 communities across the country build out their Urban forests whereas the city recognizes Arbor Day as an annual occasion during which the community pauses to recognize the importance of trees and their impact on our environment and daily lives and encourages public awareness of urban forestry issues whereas trees in our city increase property values enhance the economic Vitality of the business area and beautify our community and park system whereas trees are a source of joy and spiritual renewal whereas the mayor and city council desire to extend their support for and recognition of the importance of trees within our city now [3:27] **Mayor Dan Lewis:** therefore I Dan Lewis mayor of the city of White Bear Lake do hereby Proclaim May 16 2024 as Arbor Day in White Bear Lake and with fellow members of the city council the park board and City staff do hereby call upon All White Bear Lake residents to participate in the annual Arbor Day observance you're here all right and with that I believe Mr. Kauppi has a few words to share on the matter [3:56] **Mr. Kauppi:** um just a couple of words to share with Council and the uh public um so typically as part of the uh Parks Commission uh May meeting we uh do some tree planting and that will be again this year um we're uh doing our Proclamation here in in April but uh May is more conducive to [4:14] **Mr. Kauppi:** planting in our area um as you know we um recently received a um shade tree Grant from the Minnesota Department of natural resources that was recently approved um uh that will help with uh reforesting uh some of the emerald ash bore areas that we um are devastating some of our Boulevard and park trees as well as homeowner trees uh the grant only allows public planting so um this grant allow or is going to both remove those dead and dying trees uh but also reforest what we're taking out um as part of that uh program we will also encourage and develop programs to help uh with resident with some of their [5:01] **Mr. Kauppi:** issues as well um so as we move forward we'll be bringing some different ordinance changes a an emerald ashor management plan as well as other programs or potential programs to council for consideration in uh upcoming meeting staff's currently working on some of those uh documents as we um move forward here through the spring and uh we'll be bringing them back to council here shortly [5:23] **Mayor Dan Lewis:** very good thank you Mr. Kauppi all right let's jump into item 5B Manitou Days presentation and resolution granting support Miss Crawford [5:31] **Lindy Crawford:** thank you mayor members of the council tonight we have representatives from Manitou Days here um to give their annual presentation to the city council um and then we will be asking the city council to adopt a resolution um authorizing public resources um to support the the 2024 Community event so with that I will kick it over to Manitou Days Mr. Carlson [6:10] **Paul Carlson:** It's hard to keep a plumber organized. hi I'm Paul Carlson 6127 West Bald Eagle Boulevard 55110 I love our ZIP code it's nice one to have isn't it mayor Dan city manager Lindy Crawford and the rest of the guests it's an honor and privilege to come before you tonight to ask for continued support blessing and guidance for the 2024 Manitou Days summer celebration I'm looking forward to this this year I've been part of it now for 27 years mostly helping with the parade and [6:58] **Paul Carlson:** enjoying many of the other events I even came to it as a kid with my family and friends I like to say I made some really good memories watching all this stuff that was in white be at the time and now I get to help put it on um I'd like to acknowledge someone that's been around here longer than I have though before I get started um without her the parade wouldn't be as organized and well planned as it is and I'd like to acknowledge Bianca Seski thank you [7:44] **Paul Carlson:** Bianca couldn't do it without you um the 2024 Manitou Days uh events uh will run for three weeks and um it's coming along nicely and it's lining right up if anyone listening would like to host an event um go to manitoudays.com and register by this Friday April 12th and you'll be listed in in all of our literature you can still sign up after Friday but you'll just get less exposure this year's theme is all bears unite in honor of our schools reconnecting the 40th anniversary of the basketball state championship [8:30] **Paul Carlson:** that was a cool year to be part of you remember that um the hockey going the hockey uh we had the hockey uh boys hockey going to State this year and so many other things to celebrate all you have to do though is call yourself a bear and you're welcome to be part of it all it's really that simple you're bear I say White Bear Lake has everything most communities strive to get it has good schools a downtown many parks and trails lots of water close to the city but yet even Closer To Nature we even got good government which is a good thing to now's days world I just want to [9:16] **Paul Carlson:** say thank you again for helping to be such a great example to the world of what a community can be we have it all here remember we get to help folks make lifelong memories while being here in the White Bear Lake area that isn't that is an honor and a privilege to have that to have these memories that these little kids that are going to be watching the parade and going to Market Fest and when they get to be my age hopefully they can be standing here doing the same thing so with that I just want to say thanks again is there any questions or comments [10:02] **Mayor Dan Lewis:** uh before we throw to that I just want to say thank you for all that you do I agree with pretty much everything you said particularly the part about good government very well said we do uh but in all seriousness these Community sorry there's some feedback in the mic here these uh Community projects and events that we have that are put on by volunteers really does bring out the very best that White Bear does have to offer I I brag to other cities that we've got just really really good volunteerism in our city and it's because of you and so many others that that make these great events possible and I'm sure Manitou Days will once again be wonderful so I'll be participating in many of those things along with my kids and the rest of my family so good thank you for everything that you do and with that council do we have any questions for Mr. Carlson [10:47] **Mayor Dan Lewis:** well very good thank you again I'm getting all right council with that we do have a resolution before us uh approving or authorizing public resources to support the 2024 community events i' entertain a motion to approve that resolution [11:03] **Councilmember:** second [11:04] **Mayor Dan Lewis:** I have a motion a second any further discussion on that seeing none all those in favor say I (I) any oppos motion carries that resolution is approved okay item 5C Marketfest presentation and resolution granting support Miss Brodt if you'd like to give us an update that'd be terrific thank you [11:23] **Lisa Brodt:** I'm not really sure what's going on with the microphone so I'll Stand Back stay back um the former teacher in me likes to give a PowerPoint presentation that's more for me than for you to keep me on task so I'll go through some of this I know with all of you you've seen some of this before so bear with me as I take you through um all right so Marketfest is queued up to run this year June 13th through July 25th another 7 week year um we run from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. as we joke rain or shine last year there were two rains so we really don't need any more of those this year um I didn't say it but my name for the record is Lisa Brodt I live at 4986 Campbell Avenue in White Bear Lake and um yes former bear go Bears Steve and I went to school [12:20] **Lisa Brodt:** together but uh Marketfest if you go to the next slide it has a mission of being a family oriented Festival um we have anywhere from 3 to 5,000 people that stop down the Thursday nights of Market Fest um and it's there's something for everybody we have so many fun events going on that there's a classic car show there's live music on two stages we have kids activity Zone we have 200 or more vendors now we have grown over the last couple of years and if you have been downtown you can feel um even Fourth Street is pretty activated now we have some great themes prepared for this year so go ahead to the next one so we could not do a big event like Market Fest for 7 weeks in a row without the support of the city of White Bear and so many others so the Public Works Police [13:05] **Lisa Brodt:** Department fire department are so instrumental in everything we do with Marketfest we also have Triad and VIPS volunteers on site we have the Boy Scouts and a few other volunteers that pop up and help us to get through U managing all the people Main Street the downtown White Bear Lake uh Association is more and more involved all the time and we have probably 40 to 50 downtown businesses that come out on the sidewalks and participate as a part of the festival which is good that's the mission of Marketfest to promote our downtown um businesses and organizations um and then of course we have The Marketfest Advisory Board and um the event staff who step up and and help us out uh Frank Watson and Dale ganush are legends in this community they will be with us one more year I was very thankful to to get that go to the [13:53] **Lisa Brodt:** next one so here are some of our board members in fact Dan Perry a little Shout out to our board chair is in the audience um and Dale ganush Bill fard a lot of probably recognizable names that you see on this list we are always looking for other downtown businesses to jump on board so if you know of anybody um we're always looking for new voices so go ahead to the next slide this is Marketfest 35th year numbers get a little wonky because the 2020 season was for some reason a little bit disrupted we did have live music two nights but you know so whether we count that or not is always questionable um this is a main street event so it's a part of the downtown Business Association activ activities throughout the year if you go to downtown Whitebear Lake uh.com you will see our I think 10 [14:40] **Lisa Brodt:** events that we have listed for the whole year mentioned already some of the fun activities and I we just feel so fortunate that so many businesses and so many vendors help come out onto the streets and really make it a vibrant uh Festival so we have really worked on developing theme weeks each week um and this is what happens on Fourth Street we get 20 30 special vendors that are around a certain topic or we have different activities that are uh put out uh by each of these different groups we have a new lineup a little bit different this year so AV on the Arts will be Lakeshore players returning again as kicking off that first week they're also bringing the Whitebear Center for the Arts and uh the children's Performing Arts along to so lots of art related activities the second week is history [15:26] **Lisa Brodt:** night again this year and then the third week um as part of the Manitou Days celebration we have White Bear Lake um schools night so I've been working with Marissa Vetti to plan some different Touch of vehicle activities as well as some booths for the district and uh different organizations within the school district community at group and such so still planning all what that will be but it's going to be a fun time to shout out uh Whitebear Lake schools there will likely be you're hearing it here first an orange out that night so keep that in mind as you're planning your wardrobe for the summer uh we have Independence Day falling on July 4th people always wonder July 4th nobody is going to be at Market Fest no that is our busiest night and we have it fall on the 4th of July everyone will come downtown and they will eat dinner before they head over to the fireworks around [16:12] **Lisa Brodt:** 8:00 or 9:00 p.m. or you know somewhere in that vicinity so it is a great night to come out a lot of people will dress up in red white and blue and of course we have great bands that night as well don't have any program on Fourth Street yet but I um I'm in the early stages of trying to reach out to the American Legion and and see if if there's not something we can do Public Safety night one of our favorite nights of all we have uh our police and fire departments out and they do the jaws of life car extrication and and other activities so always a popular uh event AFSA is returning again this year with their science and agriculture night and this is really a fun Hands-On activities-based um demonstration from the AFSA AFSA schools and then finally uh the city of Whitebear Lake hosts the [16:57] **Lisa Brodt:** environmental resource another popular event that's been going on since I think the mid 2000s so always really grateful to have them back each year and working with Connie all right so like I said we have over 200 vendors we are actually at 130 right now and it's April so we will fill up we will probably have to turn some away as it gets closer to June uh main categories of about 25% of our vendors are food vendors um another 25% Arts we really don't turn any Artisans away because it's a great element to have at Market Fest another 25% are merchants and services and then the F final 25% are nonprofits and um more Community organizations and then on top of that we have the downtown businesses that step out we do offer special rates [17:43] **Lisa Brodt:** as a a part of the incentive if you are a city of Whitee Lake taxpayer you are offered a 25% discount on your vendor rate um Special Service District are any of these downtown businesses that pay into that uh special assessment if they're within the footprint they're free of charge if they are outside of the footprint then they get a 50% discount and that makes a big difference for a 7we festival of course you can't really see the map from here but there are 200 little squares or more on there and sometimes I make more if we need to but uh you can see that the traffic low um we we have a lot of people to move in and out in the course of the night thankful to the police department where we've been working with adjusting the times for vendors so that if we close the streets at 3:30 then we [18:30] **Lisa Brodt:** start allowing vendors in at 3:45 now and then 4:30 4:45 to make sure that we are able to get the streets emptied before we have the vendors start setting up and unfortunately we do have to tow cars throughout the season occasionally don't like to have to do that but again we're trying to move a lot of people in and then at the end a lot of people out so go ahead I did put in both the uh p&l as well as our balance sheet because Kevin has asked me every year for the balance sheet so you will get that in just a second but um really I mean we have been the last few years a very profitable event and I want to mention coming back from the pandemic I mean we we dropped down quite a bit because we operationally planned the event two times and then ended up having to cancel it so um I'm so glad it in the few years [19:18] **Lisa Brodt:** that we have really come back and become a really strong event again but um all of our finances were lighted out I think in your board packets as well so if you have questions about that just uh let me know and then the next slide there it is there's our p&l we are a healthy organization I do want to point out when I mentioned we fell downwards a little bit our um our total assets dropped to about 30,000 during the pandemic so that shows you what one year off can do to us operationally there are expenses that we had incurred that we weren't able to recover so hopefully we won't have any unusual years like that nothing like Street Renovations or anything like that could throw us off next year or anything so okay sounds good we'll be good no and you know the board and I we've talked about as our as our base has grown and we always want to [20:04] **Lisa Brodt:** be able to operationally cover a year should something cancel as we start to have so much resources on hand we would like to reinvest it into the downtown area especially with the renovation project going on and Lindy knows that my pet project would be to get a digital billboard on 61 but you know that's me a digital billboard on 61 maybe that's just me though um because I'm fighting over the reader board with the businesses all the time so anyhow um that's our balance statement as of right now and we're in great shape go ahead so our request tonight it would be the funding for $77,000 which we have asked for um each year that helps us cover the expenses of the um the police of police hired police staff that we have on site the electrician which runs about a th a night um and then you know other [20:50] **Lisa Brodt:** services like that plus it allows us to continue to offer that 25% discount for the white bear taxpayers um all these things again bring together this opportunity to make a safe and fun event that we have at Marketfest we also like to ask for uh the use of the streets we shut down many streets during Market Fest and we appreciate the inconvenience we likely cause during that time so um we couldn't do it without that uh infrastructure in place we'd love to continue working with Public Works they let us use their truck to haul equipment and shares around and they lend us the blowers at the end of the night so that we can clean up the streets and they again assist with barricades and stuff to keep us a nice safe event and then finally Marketfest participation having the fire trucks and emergency vehicles on site is wonderful [21:37] **Lisa Brodt:** the paid staff the CERT booths which is our first aid um we're going to add a second one again this year we met earlier this year to talk about you know what did we like what what could we improve on and having two CERT booths rather than one just feels like a good idea uh if there's a medical emergency if there's a lost child then people have two green booths that they can go to and and get support um we want to continue doing Public Safety week and the environmental Expo and we're appreciative of the time that is donated to make those two events happen and in exchange we hold seven Marketfest nights on Thursdays we'll provide quality activities and uh safe environment um and to go along with that we are actually working on an emergency crisis plan just so if we have a weather event or other situations uh we want to be [22:22] **Lisa Brodt:** able to be prepared for them and I know that that uh crisis plan can be used for other large events in town too then and finally we want to promote White Bear Lake as a destination city you probably hear Bill fard saying that in the background right now but uh we really love White Bear Lake and we want people to come visit us so I think that's all I have for you if you have any questions for me [22:42] **Mayor Dan Lewis:** thank you Miss Brodt everything I said about Mr. Carlson and Manitou Days applies equally to you and everyone that makes Marketfest possible so thank you I know it's a labor of love and a lot of hard work so thank you to everyone who [23:01] **Lisa Brodt:** yeah and I've only been with Marketfest off and on for 18 years so I am not anywhere close to [23:05] **Mayor Dan Lewis:** so you're still new all right sure try and put in A Better Effort next year if you could um uh council do we have any questions for Miss Brodt great thank you very much thank you so with that Council we have a resolution before us authorizing financial support and other public resources for Marketfest 2024 I would entertain a motion to approve that resolution [23:28] **Councilmember:** second [23:29] **Mayor Dan Lewis:** have a motion a second any further discussion seeing none all those in favor say I (I) any opposed motion carries that resolution is passed all right item 5D Fire Department biannual report Chief whenever you're ready [23:49] **Chief Peterson:** all right thank you mayor I'll go ahead and Advance the the slides so thanks for having me back again we appreciate everybody's support as we continue to our journey through this um year-to-year service that we provide the uh the service area this is the council members all are aware of this but just for the audience and anybody might be watching so the fire department covers the city of White Bear Lake White Bear Township Delwood Birchwood and Gem Lake so we we cover a very large area it's about 35 square miles and it's just over 40,000 people so it's a a lot to do um a lot of challenges with it but it's it's something we enjoy doing and have been for many many years I always like to talk about our call volume on this in particular early in the spring so we can kind of look back and see what happened in the year before so we had as you can see with the red line there we had pretty much steadily been going up for quite a while well last year we saw a little bit of a drop in call volume was [24:41] **Chief Peterson:** about around 300 calls is um and the reason for that are three main things we had two frequent users of the system that are uh passed away and so they they contributed a lot to the call volume and then also we chose last to stop sending out our last ambulance on Mutual Aid calls outside of the city so that we reserved one for calls within our response area so that was something we did in good conscience and believe it was the the right thing to do but it did affect our our call volume by doing that with that change if you will with less medical calls that were going on it shifted a little bit so this this stat used to be pretty much consistently about 80% or maybe slightly higher for [25:27] **Chief Peterson:** medical calls and then it shifted a little bit so that now we're doing a little bit more fire calls in relation to those medical calls so this is kind of the National Standard um in terms of if you're providing medical service like we do Advanced life support medical service um and you also do firefighting the typical split is about 80 20 so we're still in that range as far as Mutual Aid calls go that was a last year um it was about 520 calls so we again we that change has made a pretty significant difference so we're about a 5:1 ratio before and now we're about a 3:1 ratio uh roughly and and so it's getting a little bit better [26:13] **Chief Peterson:** we still provided more help to other agencies than we received but um the B it's getting more balanced so it's it's progress as far as F fire Mutual Aid calls for us receiving this assistance from other fire departments and US providing assistance to other fire departments it's almost always disbalance so is very very neck and neck there so there's 41 so that attributes to structure fires or commercial fires or larger fires not every fire call that goes out and so we had 41 of those uh last year so was it was a good year for everybody involved I throw this in here CU people sometimes ask us this if uh like when is your business busiest times [26:58] **Chief Peterson:** of the week so I don't know why Tuesdays Thursdays and Saturdays are the busiest but they are um maybe the fire gods want to give us a day off I don't know in between but um so it is pretty consistent that it's Tuesdays and Thursdays um and I've been doing this for a long time Thursdays historically for decades is always one of the busiest days I haven't figured that one out yet still but but it is so it's it's kind of interesting to see um in terms of when we're busier calls by the time of the day um so we're we're fairly busy It Go ramps up pretty quick in the morning we get a little bit of a Hiatus um late in the morning so around 3:00ish in the morning until about 5: it slows down and then it [27:44] **Chief Peterson:** starts uh climbing up pretty quickly after that so um same with the fires that take place it follows a very similar pattern to this and it has to do with people who are home and they're active and and they're doing things so um is pretty consistent this is also consistent um this is our top five medical calls for last year um same categories as the year before the uh percentages of them change a little bit there's a little more sick persons that this is just a generic title that we get dispatched to um than the than the years past but nonetheless this is is pretty much it and a lot of the breathing problem calls um that's a pretty broad category it could be a cardiac arrest it could be a lot of things but it starts off as I noticed that they not breathing [28:31] **Chief Peterson:** right and so that's how that call comes in so there's a lot of De degree of severity within that category itself last year we received this award from the Minnesota emsrb a certificate of clinical Excellence this is not something that all of the services the ambulance services in the state of Minnesota receive so we're pretty proud of this U this is because of the criteria that they chose to to evaluate and then we met a certain threshold and then we're given this and recognized for it so um we have historically provided really good care and we continue to do so um in our current state this is one of the items that of of living example of that so this [29:17] **Chief Peterson:** gentleman's name is Mark Harmness um and he the crew to the right of him um is Captain Matt stalling, Josh Surmac and Mitch Brown who are both all three of them are firefighter paramedics but Matt is the captain on that crew um they the three of them and some of the other staff that couldn't make it to this evening all found him in a cardiac arrest uh at his house and got there quickly were able to resuscitate him had to shock him multiple times he had multiple surgeries in the hospital they had shock him more times and eventually he survived that and was able to meet with them um and have dinner with them um and so that was a really neat uh event and it's really fulfilling when you get to meet people that you helped out cuz often [30:04] **Chief Peterson:** times that that doesn't happen or you never get to see them again it's just another patient that you de with so it was a pretty neat deal to for them to be able to do that part of that was a new piece of equipment or a new version of the piece of equipment that we purchased last year thanks to the mayor and the members of council and the city for supporting that um because these devices are expensive U but it's called the Lucas device and it provides mechanical CPR Which is far superior than what human beings are capable of doing um and so it does it in a a very scientific way and it makes a big difference in terms of patient outcome so we're thankful for that this year we're going to incorporate ultrasounds so many people have heard about ultrasounds for pregnancy and other things in the [30:49] **Chief Peterson:** hospital um these are handheld devices that we can use we have iPads that we do our charting on and so we were able to link this device to our iPad and actually look at the heart and see how the heart is is working so how it's profusing um and we haven't received the training for that yet um but that is something that we are looking forward to continuing to uh invest in our patient care and providing a very high level of care so this is something that regions EMS who provides our medical direction is doing with other services and they're very excited about the results that they're seeing with this um and so we just decided that we should also incorporate that into our our our abilities as far as Staffing goes for [31:35] **Chief Peterson:** last year so unfortunately um we we lost our assistant chief Fire Marshal Kurt Fon uh he was here with us for about 5 years he he did a great job he had been doing Fire Marshal type duties for about a decade um and he kind of decided he had um enough of that and wanted to broaden his career and so he decided to leave us to go to city of Brooklyn Park to be the operations Chief out there so it was a totally different role um and that was unfortunate uh for us and we were able to you know since his departure we hired a a a company called inspectron to do inspections for us and now we just added a new fire marshal Josh Waylander who we're hoping he can make it here tonight uh to be sworn in [32:21] **Chief Peterson:** but his wife's out of town we wanted to make sure we respected that so when he said so we're excited to have Josh he has a a tons of experience we're lucky to have two really good people in a row um to be able to in that role it's a very unusual uh position you have to have a certain desire and skill set to want to do that type of work uh and they're both very good at it so we're looking forward to that and with that we also decided to have more people trained as inspectors so now we have a broader Cadre of people that can do inspections so we have the TR the captains I think they're testing tonight or tomorrow night I'm remember the exact date but um both the C all three of the captains and then assistant Chief Schmidt will also be certified as an inspector so we'll have more people that are able to do that [33:07] **Chief Peterson:** role uh and it'll take a little of the pressure off the Fire Marshal directly because the workload there is pretty significant um and so we wanted to make sure that we kind of beefed up our bench strength if you will when we were doing that um full-time Staffing we're able to um thanks again to all of you uh get our full-time firefighter paramedic Staffing up to 18 uh which is great uh it adds a lot of uh relief to the crews when our crews are smaller was very difficult for people to get time off U because if somebody was sick or somebody had a baby and they're out for a while or somebody was deployed on Military we didn't have a whole lot of people to choose from to be able to to switch um in order to have a good coverage still so with that [33:52] **Chief Peterson:** additional Staffing that has made a pretty big difference for us and so we very much appreciate that our part-time Staffing we're currently have 14 firefighters EMTs um we have hired all of our paramedics that we could uh out of our part-time staff into our full-time staff so they're all firefighter paramedic right now so we have 14 firefighter EMTs that's lower than what it was the last time I with everybody but as soon as we finish the process we're in now we'll we'll hire more firefighter EMTs Andor paramedics if they're if they're interested so um we're looking forward to that that'll that'll help things a bit too just wanted to share a few calls that I haven't demonstrated to all of you before just to talk about them very [34:37] **Chief Peterson:** briefly so this one took place not too long this is back in um like late October no early Nov I don't remember the exact date um and the reason I I show kind of the two pictures here so this is the crew on the outside and doesn't look like there's really a whole lot going on at this scene but this the picture on the right is the basement of the house that was on fire um and despite all of that damage and they did a great job stopping this fire uh and it was very close to the station was just a few houses North on Whitebear Lake um just just north of County Road E so this was not a long distance that they traveled but the fires now currently burn hotter and faster than ever before and so the timeliness of our ability to get there to make a [35:23] **Chief Peterson:** difference is a big deal and this was the basement where the fire started um upstairs throughout the house is a lot of black soot on everything but the we saved the structure the lady that owns this home um just paid for it at the finished paying it off at the beginning of last year um and so this is pretty pretty D devastating to her so that we're able to save the home and and they're still working on remodeling it uh but you know one of the things she the the homeowner tried to go in and get her cats and when she did that she opened up both the front door and the back door and and so that created an air flow path through it and then the fire took off very very quickly so um luckily we're were able to to take that take care of that um in an efficient manner [36:08] **Chief Peterson:** and I put this one back in there I've showed this one last fall but this is significant in that was just on the news last night and this morning um about the the semi-truck that went into the White Bear dentist uh shop and we were there um on Monday night to or last night to visit with them um and it's you know all been remodeled and so on now so it looks very nice but this is a a pretty unusual call and this is not something that it came in as a a vehicle accident and luckily I read the notes and went well it's more than just a vehicle accident but that's all the calls come in um and so our crews did a great job we had multiple patients that were injured the truck driver the cab of the truck if you're like where's the cab of the truck it's inside the building for anybody that hasn't seen this picture before um [36:55] **Chief Peterson:** and so he was trapped inside the cab of the truck and then two other dentists that were standing near where the truck entered were thrown across the room and injured and then they were in the Great Clips um next door when we were there so this is looking in through the wall so the crews had to breach the wall um because it had all collapsed around the cab of the truck and so they had breach had to breach through the wall to get to the cab of the truck to then extricate him out of the cab of the truck um and so it you know was a thousand things went well that day so that no nobody was hurt more significantly or there wasn't more damage to the building it was really incredible and being there last night and talking to them again in person um is really uh a nice moment to be able to [37:41] **Chief Peterson:** see and talk with each other on not under these conditions so um it was worth sharing again as far as training goes we do a lot of training so last year we did 2234 hours of In-House training we also did command training officer training inspector training fire apparatus training vehicle operations training the list goes on and on and on and then of course our Region's EMS medical Direction where we're constantly trying to refine our skills and for those of you that have ever taken CPR I can tell you they keep changing their mind as to what the best thing to do is so we had training again this morning and they're like you know before they're like do it this way and they said no do it that way and so as a science evolves as they figure things out we get all the latest um medical technology and advice [38:27] **Chief Peterson:** from our doctors who then guide us and we we do it differently then um we also are part of the North Suburban HazMat team which is comprised of most of the fire departments on the um outside of St Paul on the North Metro Area um we all work together we've called them out more than any other Ramsey County department has because we have a lot of strange things that happen uh whether it be Mercury spills or chlorine leaks like it is in that picture um they just random stuff that happens um and then rescue swimmer program which is ongoing uh they just did training a couple weekends ago again in the pool so that their skills are fresh and we're looking forward to getting into our new boat uh and then out on the lake and do more of that and then working with search and rescue with [39:13] **Chief Peterson:** with search and um organizing everybody together we also this year went through our ISO so ISO is Insurance Service office and this affects the rates of mainly businesses but they're starting to use it more and more for homeowners um so whatever your ISO rating is that affects what what they charge your insurance rates at um and so we're having that review done uh we met with the the agent March had gathered a lot of data uh for him prior to his arrival we're currently classified as a three uh and then an X so some of our area is non-hydrant and so Birchwood um Delwood those areas Gem Lake they don't have hydrants or very few hydrants and so that is why the X is [39:59] **Chief Peterson:** there the it's on a 1 to 10 scale and so a three is very good um it's a a good rating and we continue to push that level of a three up and up all the time based on what we're doing now so it's a good thing some stuff we're going to do more of we do a little bit now we're do more of yet this year uh is automated external defibrillator training uh for the rest of the city staff also with first aid and CPR and some emergency management that was alluded to already so those are all things that we do a little bit of now we're going to do even more as we go through this year some other things that I haven't mentioned previously during in my presentations is that we we uh maintain and keep track of all of the AEDs throughout the city there's a lot of them we have 27 units [40:44] **Chief Peterson:** um we check them we make sure there's maintenance they're scattered throughout the different buildings throughout the city and the police squads in our vehicles they're kind of everywhere same with the fire extinguishers um and those are in all the city Vehicles public works all the different branches of the city and then medical supplies we help to get oxygen disposables our can that Police use a lot of um all the time community outreach we we do a ton of it here's just a list I'm not going to read them all to everybody um but it's a lot uh that we do and we enjoy it um we're we we kind of have a little bit of a slower season in the winter time but starting now it it starts to go very very quickly um and it it's a lot of fun we have our [41:30] **Chief Peterson:** own um night out this last year we had a side-by-side trailer so the fire you see there the unit on the left if you will behind the little boy in the yellow shirt that is a sprinkler controlled fire same fire setup same fire load so on the left you can see the end result on the right you can see the end result so it's a very uh very dramatic uh demonstration of the differences between having Sprinklers and not having Sprinklers and then and uh yeah so there's more of it including the the Minnesota Fallen Firefighter Memorial is something we participate in every year so that is all I have [42:12] **Mayor Dan Lewis:** thank you Chief a lot going on um I've got a couple questions for you so has there been any negative push back with our mutual Aid kind of being throttled back I mean we're by definition not giving as much Mutual Aid so has that affected some of our neighbors [42:25] **Chief Peterson:** oh it's affected our neighbors I I spoke with a uh another Chief in the area that provides EMS Maplewood um and prior to us making that adjustment he said to me um well you we're kind of insulated from that we don't do a whole lot of that and then we made that change and he's no longer insulated from that so now they are having to go on more calls in other areas [42:47] **Mayor Dan Lewis:** and just to remind everyone make sure I have it straight we did that we made that change because there were times where where both of our crews were outside of the city therefore leaving our taxpaying residents vulnerable and now we've we've alleviated that we always have a unit that's available in the city most of the time [43:08] **Chief Peterson:** yeah there are times we run out of units um but most of the time we do very good [43:11] **Mayor Dan Lewis:** the ultrasound machines I've never even heard of that is that relatively new to to the emergency services world [43:17] **Chief Peterson:** yes it's been used in the hospital quite a bit uh they have people that specialize in the ultrasounds cardiac ultrasounds specifically within the hospital but it is new to get to the streets if you will part of it is the Technology's changed so much you saw how small that device is us you know the machines used to be bigger than this computer and you know with a large probe and a cord and that isn't very practical for us so with the advancements technology now it's Bluetooth it just goes from the device to the iPad and but it it is new and like I said the doctors are pretty excited about what what they can see [43:53] **Mayor Dan Lewis:** very good but lastly what's the update on the boat do we have an for when the boat's going to be done [43:59] **Chief Peterson:** you know they told me it was going to be done last May and then they said Thanksgiving and then they said Christmas and then I talked to them twice this year and they said it's about a month out each month separately and I still don't know so we're we're we want to get it um we it's almost done cuz I've seen pictures of it but I don't know I don't know what the hold up is [44:21] **Mayor Dan Lewis:** so are we reasonably optimistic that it's going to be in the water for this upcoming season [44:26] **Chief Peterson:** yes okay yeah very good I'll be very upset if if they can't get it to us soon [44:31] **Mayor Dan Lewis:** so thank you for that report Council any questions for Chief Peterson council member Edberg [44:38] **Councilmember Edberg:** thank you mayor Chief um so over the last couple of years we've had an ongoing conversation about um the stress on our on our staff both from um having as many um uh calls outside of our community um we've seen uh we've added a couple of Staff we've had a a slight reduction in the number is that issue now check it's done is it [45:04] **Chief Peterson:** no there's still more work to be done but it's better than it was [45:07] **Councilmember Edberg:** how do you characterize the uh the well-being of our staff and and their uh abilities to handle the workload that we have which is I suspect more than is optimal but [45:21] **Chief Peterson:** yeah yeah it's it's better than what it was it helps to retain people because they don't feel stressed all the time you know they they they it's less of a desire to go somewhere else um if if they feel as though um it's at a more of a balance I wouldn't say that it's done um because we have people as I mentioned before somebody's out because you know they're having a baby or or they're deployed or they're sick or whatever it is and and and so we're kind of still at that you know that cusp where it isn't quite there but it's better so it's helping [46:05] **Councilmember Edberg:** so last question that I had can you speak to um um the ongoing issue of retention and how we're doing there was a period of time not too long ago where it seemed like it was a little higher than we would prefer where are we at [46:21] **Chief Peterson:** so it's it's still an issue um one of the the parts with retention it's multiple factors one um is just the the the workload that that's part of it another of his facilities we're clearly making huge strides on that so we're we're much better there um because and and the reason I'm saying these things is because it's it's relative to the work environment and it's competitive now and there are more there are more departments Suburban departments that are um sorry I'm going to hit that now there are more departments now that in the suburbs that are going from a a part-time to a combination model to a full-time model that they're adding people all the time so that it's no longer a market where you know you're lucky if to have a job now it's like you know I think I'd kind of like to go there instead and so that um is is problematic for us um because it's what do they want and so you know we're doing the things we can to try and to Shore that up I don't know and I know this to be true with other departments we're always going to have some people that are going to want to go somewhere else for for whatever reason uh but it it U all of those things that I mentioned are helping with that situation [47:39] **Councilmember Walsh:** thank you council member Walsh uh thank you Mr. Mayor just on the mutual Aid issue again remind me there's no there's no accounting done on that fiscally it's just sort of of you help us we help you we don't charge back or anything right [48:00] **Chief Peterson:** okay so then but but if we if we arrive on a scene and and end up the ambulance takes somebody to the hospital that's our that's our ride then and we would get if there is a fee collected from an insurance company or hopefully correct uh we would get that Revenue so that's that's the only accounting that's done there that's that's the only accounting um and a lot of times and we do the same thing um where if it's a like a more non-critical call they'll defer to their more critical calls and then send less critical calls to Mutual a we do the same thing you know if we have a cardiac arrest going on at the same time with the broken toe we're going to say you know what even if the broken toe call came out first we're going to say you know what have somebody else go to the broken toe and we're going to go to the cardiac arrest so we charge for the transport um and we may or may not get reimbursed as you mentioned y [48:42] **Councilmember Walsh:** thank you [48:43] **Mayor Dan Lewis:** any other questions Chief thank you very much for the detailed report appreciate it all right item 5E Police Department biannual report Chief Hager whenever you're ready [48:54] **Chief Hager:** Mr. Mayor members of the council thank you for having us here my apologies for well the audience will be able to tell the difference between Chief Peterson and myself in our presentation skills and our organization but here we go uh thank you for having us back again um the last time we did a biannual was on October 10th so I really um just attempted to highlight the changes in our department um the obvious changes that we can all see as we drive up to the department and then some of the changes that um are going on internally with Staffing and um just some of the the new programs and policies and U procedures that we've kind of taken up this last six months um again this is our department uh we usually take our department photo every summer so this is actually last Summer's we'll get a new one here uh probably in this room again um in another couple months uh we have the same um leadership team that we had six months ago uh we have yet to fill my old position of administrative Captain uh we have we should have a chief of police and two captains uh four sergeants um and then uh overall Staffing uh we have 16 uh Patrol officers uh we lost one U since October 10th of last year Connor Dylan he moved on to um to Washington County Sheriff's Office and he did so um because of the opportunities and bigger departments just have more opportunities for for an officer who was very aggressive like he was and he wanted to um just do many things in his career and this department maybe wasn't the right fit for him uh we [50:48] **Chief Hager:** have Three Investigators and um two school resource officers five community service officers um as we hired one yesterday yesterday to make it 5 um we have four administrative staff we currently have 27 sworn uh police officers we're authorized for 31 uh again our Patrol teams um stay Stayed pretty constant we've made just a minor change with some start times and some quit times but we have officers that we have four shifts um we call them light side and dark side um Light Side um works Sunday Monday Tuesdays and dark side Works uh Wednesday Thursday Friday and then they switch every other Saturday um they work 11 and 1/2 or 12 hour shifts um depending on your rank and um we usually have a we usually have a minimum of four officers on at a time on occasion during our um very um not our peak hours of activity usually in the middle of the night sometimes we have to go down to three investigator staff we have again we have three adult um criminal investigators they generally work uh we to Bankers hours we have two juvenile SROs or juvenile investigators no offense to any Bankers that are in the room um they generally work school hours um we have one VCET or violent crime enforcement uh team member that that position is unfilled as of now we have that officer we pulled um the officer back to help fill uh Patrol shifts for now our intent is to continue [52:20] **Chief Hager:** with uh partnering with um the Ramsey County uh departments that um do VAP uh the story of our year is construction as um as you all know these are some photos I can't even State current they're moving so fast we're we're just we're just so appreciative of what's happening over there our side of the building really just kind of um it just was gutted you know in two different sections as you know and it sounds like maybe um in the near future uh the council is going to get a tour over there you can see you can see that our garage um there in the middle that's going to be our pride and joy we're very excited that we get to have a garage and um we have a lot of plans for that and then some of the pictures are on the outside there are just different rooms and bathrooms and stuff that have been [53:08] **Chief Hager:** gutted you see the one picture on the top left that's the Vault uh we always called it the Vault we never really understood why it was called The Vault and we've heard a lot of stories um about um that original intent and the original purpose of that room back when that area was the city hall but that's gone now too uh part of um what happened um over the winter here is we really bolstered our gym downstairs that both fire and police share um a couple of uh Chief Peterson's um employees and a couple of mine um really did a good job organizing that um that process uh we I think we really have a really quality U uh set of equipment down there a bunch of um weights new weights and um treadmills and stairmasters and and all kinds of stuff I think they did a really good job with that I think that it goes a long way um for retention um and recruitment when um outside folks or even our own people see a gym like this I know that uh at least two of our officers quit their gym memberships because now they have a real quality state-of-the-art gym in our basement so that was really um really nice to hear uh our drone program so is kind of maybe first opportunity to talk about a drone program our officers you can see them on the top we have five drone pilots and um they have been quite busy they probably have a drone deployment uh once a week um in the wild if you will [54:40] **Chief Hager:** on a calls um they do constantly do training uh you can see that the the two drones are called Bear 1 and Bear 2 um but um they uh they take it out quite often to train with it um they just had a call on Sunday uh we were assisting another agency um a vehicle um went off the road and crashed and uh several people fled from it and and uh we deployed our drones and uh we took everybody into custody and uh and one of the persons was arrested for DWI so it's a very successful program we're really really quite grateful to the city and uh city council for making this happen last year um I hope to continue to um train drone pilots it's quite an [55:28] **Chief Hager:** endeavor to train a drone pilot there's a lot of lot of red tape and paperwork and training to get somebody to be able to put a an aircraft if you will up into the sky and um so those five have have really worked hard to um to obtain their licensure and things like that we are in the middle of or just at the beginning of updating Squad graphics and um you'll hear a little bit more about um this uh later on this evening um but uh one of the one of the things we believe is important for um retention um and recruiting is to maybe just update our look just a little bit and uh we think that um we kind of thought that the the white doors on our on our squads maybe had a little bit of a outdated look and so we just wanted to give that give that a a refresh so U that's one of the things that'll be changing soon we we just recently got six new cars um because we didn't get cars in 22 or 23 so we got six new cars this year and um and those will be the first ones that will um put these new graphics on we have a recruit recruitment team that uh goes out to the colleges and um uh we haven't got to the high schools yet but we have plans for that um our four officers up there volunteered for this position and uh as you can see in the last six months they've travel around the state a little bit to try to um just kind of um I don't know garner some support for Whitee Lake Police um officer Sheik there on the far upper [57:01] **Chief Hager:** left he's the one that really kind of spearheaded this and uh he really puts together a kind of a nice show for colleges and and future police officers uh we have a lot of good partnerships um as always our Northeast Youth and Family Services uh we have an advocate program as well as we have a diversion program with uh with them we use Tubman too with our legal services for citizens and and victims uh you can see Jonathan Bunt he's been with us now for um a better part of almost two years maybe and um he does our officer wellness and mental health he's our consultant um that works for the city and um actually we're just kind of ready to start to kick off uh a lot of what he does with all of our officers and our [57:47] **Chief Hager:** kind of mandated check-ins with the fire department and the police department both we of course U partner with VCET as I said earlier we have two members of SWAT soon to be three members of SWAT uh we have a couple members on the Mobile Field Force with the no excuse me with Ramsey County as well um we partner with the BCA often they they manage a lot of our um complex crime scenes and and um maybe sometimes some complex investigations and we haven't had them help on one of those for a while but they're always there as a resource for us as well Minnesota Chiefs and Police Association uh we're going to take a group of our leaders up to their conference here in another week or so um they're a very valuable resource for uh leadership training and then Ramsey County Chiefs and Police Association is [58:32] **Chief Hager:** um a group of us Chiefs in the um in the urban area excuse me the um suburb area of Ramsey County Minnesota Post Board again uh they were they played a role in our life um especially as the council knows um this fall and this winter with the SRO Bill and kind of the chaos that that bill kind of you're all very well aware of that what's happened since then as you may or may not know is um they passed a new bill kind of taking away that language that they created um that that gave that made special rules for our SROs school resource officers and um and they kind of went back to uh traditional use of [59:18] **Chief Hager:** force rules for them um and then they just added that they had to have some special training SRO and then they have to have a we have to have a new policy mandated Post-mandated policy regarding SROs and of course they handle our um our licensing as well and we're we're just just about due to license seven new or seven officers who are are up for renewal our police volunteers uh just like actually has been said earlier today CERT and Triad and our Reserves they're integral for um what we do um we have a Citizens Police Academy usually every year now we it's been put on hold the last two years now because of our our construction um you can see in the upper right hand corner there that's our CERT team they went out and did a training um out in Lakewood Hills Park [1:00:04] **Chief Hager:** last month um very successful they they put victims out there create a scenario and real life bodies they have to go out and and deal with and triage and um oftentimes we work with the fire department on that to kind of make it as realistic as we possibly can but they do a fantastic job for us whether it's trainings like this or or things that Triad does for us normally in the summer or of course it's Marketfest and of course uh mine looks much more chaotic than uh than you're used to but we do a lot of community engagement we actually created a community engagement team um last fall that whose sole purpose is uh there's about seven people on that team um the sole purpose of uh their team is to um find opportunities for us to reach out [1:00:50] **Chief Hager:** to communities and I've added a little caveat onto their mission that I want them to reach out to communities that don't normally have great interaction with police and so we've done that I think we've done a really good job with it um we put a link on our website um and Facebook where people can request um having a special visit from us or have an event and they want us to be there um and that's worked out very well and many people have taken advantage of that we've done several events over the winter usually winter as Chief Peterson said it's kind of our slow time we really kind of tried to ramp it up this winter to to um try to stay ahead of it um and get involved more with community events so that's it for me any questions [1:01:36] **Mayor Dan Lewis:** thank you Chief appreciate that I have a couple of them regarding the SROs so my question is one has the new law the update to the use of force policy and law as it pertains to SROs has that alleviated the concerns for you but probably more importantly for the rank and file are actually doing the job that are subject to it [1:01:58] **Chief Hager:** Mr. Mayor yeah it it actually it took away like it just it just wiped the slate clean from what they did last year and um which was great and um you know certainly heard a lot of discussion I would listen to all those hearings when they would talk about SRO laws and after a couple hours of them debating it somebody finally would stand up and say what what problem are we trying to fix here and nobody could really answer the problem that that existed prior to them fixing it and so they just kind of eventually wiped it out and again with the caveat that um okay but we have to have a policy especially for you and we have to have specially training for SRO which is totally appropriate and and and most Chiefs that I've ever have talked here on the state are welcoming of that [1:02:40] **Mayor Dan Lewis:** good good and with SROs how do we reallocate them during the summer months when school's not in session [1:02:47] **Chief Hager:** we uh we use them as investigators primarily um summer months as I'm sure you know are times that people end up taking their family vacations and whatnot so we use SRO kind of we we kind of give them their choice of duties over the summer it's kind of the perk of being an SRO it's not a really sought-after position um and so one of their perks is that they get to choose their duty over the summer now most of them choose investigations I try to get them um more involved with kind of com some complex investigations that aren't really convenient for our our three uh adult investigators to do as they're usually busy with the day-to-day charging and the day-to-day um kind of cases that spring up overnight that they have to deal with um but yeah they stay pretty busy [1:03:41] **Mayor Dan Lewis:** very good thank you and thank you for the report Council questions for chief all right very good thank you again all right item 8A issuance of General obligation Improvement Bond for the 2024 pavement Rehabilitation project Miss Kinsworthy I assume you're taking this [1:04:02] **Ms. Kinsworthy:** I am good evening Mr. Mayor members of the council um on the consent agenda you awarded the contract for the pavement management project so now we're going to talk about how we're going to fund that um our budget includes issuance of General obligation Improvement bonds to finance the city's portion of the 2024 pavement management process um based on the actual bids estimates that came in last week when they opened the bids and the bids that you approved the bonds will have a par amount of 2,555,000 and there's a 15-year term [1:04:39] **Ms. Kinsworthy:** the good news is that when they opened the bid awards last week the bids were lower than what we had um been using for our planning purposes so Ehlers was able to rerun a bond issue um so that we could see the reports on what these numbers would be on a lower amount so it's very exciting um Ehlers is the city's Municipal advisers they prepared the preliminary Debt Service schedules and they used an estimated true interest cost of 3.489% so this estimated um market interest rate for bank qualified bonds for issuers with a double A plus rating that's the rating the city has and then to that estimated market interest rate they added half a percent to account for any changes that might happen from the day that they re ran the report last week to when the final bonds when we sell them in May um on May 14th so the true interest rate is the actual interest cost of borrowing the funds taking into account the coupon rates and the underwriter discount or premiums so as mentioned in my memo the estimated true interest cost that is being used on that Debt Service run that is part of your packet is in a consistent level with the rates that the city has received when issuing bonds since the pandemic and [1:06:11] **Ms. Kinsworthy:** then it's also so when we issued before the pandemic we were close in rate then when the pandemic hit and we issued bonds we had lower rates that kind of adjusted with the market we're kind of fluctuating back up so there's consistent um this interest rate as I mentioned we are using 3.49% um when we issued our Capital Improvement plan bonds to fund the public safety facility um renovation and expansion we received 3.72% and 3.75% as those interest rates so this is just under the interest rates that we got in those last two issues the estimated annual debt service payment on these bonds ranges between 212,000 and 237,000 for the 15 year life of the bond so funding for that to pay that debt service will be a combination of tax levy and special assessments that will be collected from the benefiting property owners in the project area so when we look at the annual tax levy it'll range between 175,000 and 181,000 um so with that staff recommends the city council adopt the attached resolution with the following items authorizing Ehlers to assist in the 2024A general obligation Improvement Bond sale and allow Ehlers to work with the city staff to participate in preparation of the official statement for that bond issue establish May 14th 2024 as a meeting for considering the bond sale proposal and then setting May 14th 2024 as the date that we will award the bond sale issue so at this time I can take any questions that you have regarding that we also have Dan Entner from Ehlers with us at the meeting tonight to answer any questions that you may have [1:08:18] **Mayor Dan Lewis:** thank you Miss Kinsworthy Council any questions for Miss Kinsworthy seeing none uh we have a resolution before us uh approving the issuance of General obligation Improvement bonds for the 2024 payment Rehabilitation project I entertain a motion to approve that resolution [1:08:34] **Councilmember:** so moved [1:08:35] **Councilmember:** second [1:08:37] **Mayor Dan Lewis:** motion to Second uh any further discussion on this seeing none all those in favor say I (I) any oppos motion carries and that resolution is passed thank you Miss Kinsworthy item 8B police Union memorandums of understanding for Recruitment and Retention incentives Mr. Juba are you taking this [1:09:07] **Rick Juba:** I am thank you Mr. Mayor good evening council members uh tonight we have uh two memorandums of understanding or MOUs as we refer to them uh one for the police patrol Union and one for the sergeant Union uh both of them establishing hiring and recruitment incentives for police officers so the city received about $1.1 million in state uh LGA state public safety LGA and uh Recruitment and Retention for police and fire departments is an allowable use for those funds uh staff in the unions have met uh to discuss parameters and form these MOUs uh and they include uh the parameters of those include a $3,000 hiring incentive for a new police officer a $6,000 hiring incentive for a police officer with two or more years of experience and then those would both be paid half at the end of field training and half at the uh end of a successful probation period which is typically a year uh for a police officer and then it also would establish a $6,000 referral incentive for current officers or sergeants who successfully [1:10:02] **Rick Juba:** recruit an officer to the White Bear Lake Police Department so anyone receiving an incentive so a new employee or existing employee would have to stay employed with the city for two years or pay that back and then it would expire at the end of 2024 or when the allocated funds are exhausted and uh at the next item of business We'll be asking you to allocate $36,000 to uh to these incentives so uh in today's world of uh of policing and hiring these incentives are not uncommon uh there are currently 193 police officer employment postings in the state of Minnesota and your memo says 175 that was written less than a week ago so it fluctuates quickly and usually fluctuates uh upwards city [1:10:48] **Rick Juba:** has not had a full contingent of police officers uh since mid 2022 so when Chief Hager referred to we have 27 of those those 31 sworn positions and that has varied throughout that time period but it's it hasn't been 31 uh in nearly two years so offering these incentives is not expected to fully cure this this problem or solve the issue but it certainly helps the city stay competitive uh during these times as many other agencies do offer them uh including uh some of our neighbors and this does align with our short-term goal in the uh in the Strategic plan to fill the police roster by the end of 2024 so uh with that staff recommends approval of the attached resolution which will authorize the mayor and city manager to execute both MOUs [1:11:35] **Mayor Dan Lewis:** Mr Juba um couple quick points on this so first I fully support this resolution I recognize that we're in crazy hiring times where every municipality is dealing with just a lack of candidates a lack of people people that are going into law enforcement so as a as a short-term temporary measure and the fact that we have we'll call it found money for lack of better term from the state in this particular cycle I do support this resolution I do support this as a short-term measure I absolutely hate this on a fundamental level I think it it goes against what what in my mind should be a job that you go to as a calling and the goal of of being with the city that you want to work for and want to stay with for a long period of time I think this is a slippery slope that over time leads to officers just chasing the next uh cash grab the next incentive and I know that that's not all officers it might not even be a majority of officers it might be a very very small minority of officers but when we're at such a shortage it just further adds to this chaos and I I I largely support this resolution because I want to be respectful to our current officers and if it is a tool that helps us staff up and get quality police officers here which will ultimately help them do their job so that they're not over to action and spread thin um I'm all for it as a [1:13:05] **Mayor Dan Lewis:** short-term measure nobody's got a crystal ball nobody can can decipher and decide when uh we're going to hopefully right the ship and come to some point of equilibrium with people going to law enforcement and meeting the demand for law enforcement officers I hope it's sooner rather than later we could be dealing with a a 10 year problem on our hands so from my standpoint this resolution today I want to help the department provide the relief I support that we're going to take it one year at a time if this continues to come this is a two-year two-year resolution two-year plan as long as the the funds are available um but I want to send that message to the Chief and and everybody one year um we're going to take this one step at a time and I think we had a good work session on this and I I don't think I'm in in those feelings it's sort of this this icky game we're going to we're going to participate in um and we I think I think we ultimately have to do that because our competitors are doing that other cities are doing that and I want us to be competitive um so again I support this resolution I hope this is helps alleviate it and that we get to uh greener pastures sooner rather than later um but hopefully this in the short-term provides a little little relief with that Council any thoughts on this council member Walsh [1:14:31] **Councilmember Walsh:** well thank you Mr. Mayor I have a lot less heartburn than you do I think it's a a good tool and I I I'm surprised uh you're back so soon with an agreement that's great work uh I thought this was going to take longer and I'm happy you got the two-year clawback in there I mean that was something the council kind of expressed as a as a desire so obviously you're able to get a good deal I think so let's go hire some police officers [1:15:01] **Mayor Dan Lewis:** thank you Councilmember Walsh anyone else all right we've got a resolution before I said entertain a motion to approve the police Union memorandums understanding and recruitment retention incentives [1:15:13] **Councilmember:** so moved [1:15:14] **Councilmember:** second [1:15:15] **Mayor Dan Lewis:** have a motion a second any further discussion on this seeing none all those in favor say I (I) any opposed motion carries the resolution is passed item 8C Public Safety local government Aid allocation uh Chief Hager are you taking this very good [1:15:32] **Chief Hager:** thank you Mr. Mayor members of the council um as um assistant city manager Juba just alluded to uh regarding the LGA money from last year uh Council knows that um much of that money was allocated about uh $948,000 was allocated between uh the needs of fire department and police department last year we received that money in December and um and started down the path of um obtaining many of those uh services and and equipment um that that you guys approved um that left just over $148,000 um to be reallocated um city manager Crawford and I uh worked through an analysis of uh potential uses of this LGA money and uh we came up with a list of um items that we were hoping to uh get in the police department um I could go through each one one of these items I know you have a list of them um but I'll just go through each one um just so you kind of know where where we're thinking most of them had to do with retention being honest there are a couple like the ones Mr. Juba just outlined um that has to do with both retention and uh recruiting the first one on the list is our squad radar units generally speaking we um budget for one radar unit per year and we have 13 squad cars which should tell you that our oldest one is over a decade old um they're just [1:16:56] **Chief Hager:** outdated we're hoping to get a a jump on that and and buy four squad um radar units at a time with this money to just get us a little ahead of the game um and not have such old radar units uh the second U item is evidence room renovation we have a as I'm sure you're uh you're aware the basement isn't getting renovated over there we have quite an outdated system of evidence uh storage um in our basement and what we're hoping to do is um upgrade that a little bit with some new lockers and shelving and and storage uh other storage systems down there and we've identified that as a as a need uh another need for um retention um is a [1:17:42] **Chief Hager:** new field training software um just a little backstory uh when people are FTO or field training officers um they take on our new recruit they drive around with them for roughly a month at a time each one and there's usually four phases so four officers will be FTO typically uh for a new recruit um much of the time we've learned um much of the time of that new officer's shift is spent watching their FTO do paperwork about how they're doing an FTO and uh that's not useful that's not it's not the best way to train a new officer they should be out on the street handling calls making traffic stops getting involved with the public and kind of learning how to deal with being a police officer we believe that this new training software [1:18:27] **Chief Hager:** and associated a couple iPads that we can take out on the on the road with us uh will help our officers do that our training officers do that which will then give our new officers a little bit more time on the street I I showed you a picture of our Squad Graphics uh that is another um item that we we're hoping to get and and we'll and we'll replace the or we'll we'll fix the new graphics on the first six squads that we bought this year first and then we'll um slowly start replacing the other ones um the new graphics are actually going to be cheaper than the current Graphics that we put on so over time we'll save money on that but um uh yeah so we we'll we'll start that starting here within a month we'll have our first squad out with graphics and and ready to go uh the [1:19:13] **Chief Hager:** recruiting and retention incentives that Mr. Juba just outlined is another item the one after that um is uh badges um as the council I suspect is aware uh the Minnesota state flag changed and the seal changed for the state flag and there is a statute um that exists that was created dealing with the state seal and it's statute uh number 1.35 uh subdivision 6 states that we have to replace all old seals by January 1st of 25 um we kind of tasked a couple of our our creative officers to come up with a really um interesting uh badge and I think we've done a good job with that and [1:20:00] **Chief Hager:** we'll um we'll kind of work through getting those but um that line is to deal with those the payment for those badges we added some money uh to our training unit and our uniform uh unit or excuse me budget because um training is one of those things that officers want to do a lot of and we think that the more that our officers can do the types of training that they want the more engaged they'll be in their in their job and um so we just wanted to bolster that budget just a little bit more um and our uniform uh budget is the same we went um I went slightly over last year in both of those categories um because uh we hired more people than we um thought we were going to hire that year so wanted [1:20:45] **Chief Hager:** to add a little bit money to that last few items portable radios as the council may remember uh you allocated um $125,000 out of the last bit of LGA money to go towards portable encrypted radios um our bid or our bid was just a little bit short of what the invoice was so that $6,000 will make up the difference and pay for those radios and then squad car equipment um we had to allocate some of this money to help uh upfit some of our six squads that um are just hitting the street or going to hit the street we need some of that money to pay for some of the equipment the lights and the and the the bars and the push bumpers and that kind of stuff on these new squads and and I thought we could take some of that money to do that and the last item is um a grant that hasn't been brought before you yet but it will be soon um dealing with I think I alluded to it in a work session maybe last time about how we're trying to play a long game with getting some new non-traditional officer candidates in the door and help pay for for some of their schooling and uh we applied for a grant and and we received it um some of that money um that last line that $12,000 would be kind of upfront money that we would need to help pay for that schooling knowing that we are going to get a portion of that back um but we just needed money in the budget to be able to pay for that so we're not just creating it out of thin air so uh so uh our staff is uh recommending the city council adopt the attached uh resolution allocating the remaining Public Safety local government aid funds to the police department as presented and authorizing the funds to be expended [1:22:18] **Mayor Dan Lewis:** thank you Chief I only have one comment on this so first off I support the resolution I support all the things we're spending money on there's one thing that that jumps out at me that I think is glaring to everybody badges due to changes in the state seal $7,000 I get it there's a state law says we have to do that our hands are tied but I do at least want to draw attention to the fact that the state makes it decision to change the state flag change the state seal and us as a municipality which are scratching to to make every dime stretch so the police and fire have the best equipment possible uh the best vehicles things that help them do their job provide their service and keep them safe and the community safe $7,000 is a lot of money and that can go a long way to a whole lot better things than just updating our badges I'm probably preaching to the choir and I just want to get that on the public record because there's nothing we can do about it but whether it's money that trickle down from the state or it's coming from our coffers it's somebody's tax dollars whether it's at the state or local level and it's $7,000 for badges that don't Advance Public Safety in any way shape or form it's frustrating uh I'm disappointed that we are put in this situation we just got to suck it up and take our medicine so we'll approve this resolution but we'll add that to the top of the list of just ridiculous things that municipalities have to pay for because of Stupid Decisions by the state government and on that Council is there any questions for the chief badges we don't need no stinking badges you were thinking council member Edberg [1:24:14] **Councilmember Edberg:** thank you Mr. Mayor so I don't have a question for the chief so I just want and I'm not really trying to pick at your issue either but I would note that these dollars are are new appropriation it didn't come out of existing uh base budgets it came from the state we prioritize it in the way that we have so it's not it's not an unfunded mandate which we typically it's not unfunded we're choosing to make resources to honor mandates but that the resources were provided by the state so it's slightly more nuanced I think than what was described would it be my highest priority is it [1:24:59] **Mayor Dan Lewis:** it is an unfunded mandate in so far as we have to do it because state law says we have to and we're to use State resources that were provided to us on top of our normal LGA allocations to do it and I think as I've made clear regardless of whose taxpayers dollars it's coming from it's still taxpayer dollars and it sticks in my craw because $7,000 is a lot of money buy a lot of bulletproof vests and I'm happy to have a debate offline [1:25:21] **Councilmember Edberg:** but I take your point I don't need to have a debate uh I'm saying there's nuance so I'll just end by saying $7,000 is a lot of money for Badges and if if anybody doesn't understand that then I guess they have more money than I do [1:25:39] **Councilmember Walsh:** council member Walsh thank you Mr. Mayor Chief you mentioned uh our FTOs are spend the training officers are spending a lot of time doing paperwork so kind of in that same realm of unfunded mandates that just piques my interest for our legislative agenda this is something I think you guys should constantly be on the lookout for if you don't think the paperwork is necessary for safety for recordkeeping it's onerous and not useful uh you know recommend that for the legislative agenda we could we could we could maybe it is maybe it's all necessary important for training and safety and down the road but it kind of piqued my interest that if if if we're wasting time doing paperwork I assume it's the state that's telling us to do the paperwork maybe the Post Board or something so um that's an idea may I just put in your in your in your head [1:26:24] **Chief Hager:** I guess I'll just um make a comment that uh the documentation of uh one of new officers in training is really valuable um if if there are some efficiencies and the know officer we definitely want it we we have to keep track of those to kind of deal with any we want to use that officer for in the future um this new software is designed specifically for our problem that we just there's a lot of we're going all the time we don't have time to sit in front of a computer proper computer in office space and do this they have a lot of shortcuts on in this software to be able to get to our objective without kind of a lot of words and a lot of time so I get your point um I don't know that there's a deficiency in um in the system if you will our officers attend our FTO officers attend really valuable training how to be better FTO officers and I think the software will just help them do that [1:27:10] **Councilmember Walsh:** sounds good thank you [1:27:12] **Mayor Dan Lewis:** any other questions comments if not we have a resolution before us allocating Public Safety local government aid funds to the Whitee Lake Police Department I'd entertain a motion to approve that resolution [1:27:24] **Councilmember:** so moved [1:27:25] **Councilmember:** second [1:27:26] **Mayor Dan Lewis:** any further discussion on this seeing none all those in favor say I (I) any opposed motion carries the resolution is passed item 9 discussion uh nothing scheduled item 10 Communications from the city manager Miss Crawford whenever you're ready [1:27:41] **Lindy Crawford:** yes um as Chief Peterson said we attended um a ribbon cutting yesterday or grand reopening for um White Bear Dental so it was very nice and and they had a lot of nice things to say about our First Responders and and how the police and fire departments acted um on that day so I just want to acknowledge police fire for um for that day it was a very I know it was a very very busy day busy like 3 or 4 hours of window um for sure for fire and likely for police to that day and so um also today the Community Development um director and um our housing and economic development coordinator and I attended the Four Deuces grand opening ribbon cutting um which is uh used to be Big Wood Brewery so um that is now a transition to be different um establishment so I think they're having a grand opening this weekend if anybody wants to stop by and I think I have a couple more [1:28:44] **Lindy Crawford:** so um coming up though Tuesday April 23rd um is a ribbon cutting for Young's Korean barbecue um highly recommend um I think probably 90% of our staff has been to Young's um several times so um highly recommend going there and checking out but the ribbon cutting um is coming up and as you know they are our tenants so please uh join us uh for that ribbon cutting on April 23rd at 3:30 and then just a couple of save the dates um related to Public Works um our spring cleanup is May 4th um from 7:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. proof of City residency is required for that and then we are having our first annual Public Works open house um on May 22nd from 5: to 7:00 p.m. we'll we'll kind of build up to it but I wanted to just announce that for the first time so um we've never had an open house in our our quote new building our 13-year-old new building um for public works so it'll be nice to have the community in there and and staff is really excited to to um uh kind of educate the public on what Public Works um does for for everybody so and then lastly our Facebook pages are are very updated I guess I'm saying this to the community um for any future events please check out uh the city page or the Police Department's page or the fire department's page so um Facebook pages so that I think is all that I have for right now unless anyone has questions for me [1:30:02] **Mayor Dan Lewis:** thank you m Crawford all right with that I would entertain a motion to adjourn [1:30:07] **Councilmember:** so moved [1:30:08] **Councilmember:** second [1:30:09] **Mayor Dan Lewis:** all those in favor say I (I) we adjourned and sign [Music] [1:30:39] what