council member thorson here councilmember peterson councilmember wong here council member cole here mayor furlong here quorum is present this time motion to adopt the agenda so moved your hunter moved by councilman peterson second second by council member juan any discussion if not all those in favor signify by saying aye aye i oppose the agenda's adopted we have a uh packed agenda tonight so i want to keep things moving at a at a kind of a quick pace uh if we could uh we had three pretty good uh size topics tonight so we're gonna move the police to the first part so you guys will present first and i'll turn over to inner manager frandl he is entering until the contract is approved thank you mayor uh so tonight we'll be going over with sergeant bedwitch here to show us about the riot response experience and safety needs in north st paul and and the possibility of joining the fence consortium so i'll turn it over to you welcome chief thank you thank you mr mayor council uh if you guys haven't met this is sergeant ben badowicz and he's prepared for a long time actually we started talking about this almost a year ago so happy to uh have been here and and talk to you all on his experiences and defense consortium as well good to see everybody great welcome hello everyone um i'm sergeant ben badowicz i get hired with north st paul if you're unfamiliar um last year uh in may of uh 2022 2021 i'm sorry um so the idea for this is to go through and give you my experiences prior to north st paul's uh police officer with the city of minneapolis um how do you go from the next one real quick there we go you go too buddy just dabbing there you go um i've been a police officer since 2012 i worked for a small town uh benson minnesota for almost a year and a half then i came back to the cities with minneapolis and then uh at my current assignment with north st paul um i've been a sergeant now with the department since uh january of this year um the big thing is is that we're seeing an increase in you know demonstrations protests and and riots um if you look here um the big one is the george floyd rights in minneapolis and the brooklyn center a washington county protest in reference to the charging decision of brooklyn center officer kim kim potter and then the mape would protest of last year around this time and subsequently that could almost almost came to north st paul uh this is my quick experiences while with minneapolis i worked as a mounted patrol officer so i got to ride horses part time i was present for the jamar clark occupation protest that basically occupied the fourth precinct for 20 days um i was there for the george floyd riots um the big thing that the chief and i want to go to you go to you folks with is we we want you to understand what the role of police officers what you understand of the role police officers are yeah we get the 911 response and uh doing traffic enforcement and so forth but what do we really do is is what we want you guys to be involved with so you understand our decision making processes why we're asking for certain funds why we're asking to go to do certain trainings and why are we are gonna ask or bring up the topic of the fence consortium eventually here tonight and why why we need why we believe we need to do that we encourage you all of you folks i know that uh council member peterson and council member uh thorson they've already accepted ride-alongs once again um as a police department we encourage you there's an open invitation anytime any of you folks want to do a ride-along you're more than welcome to come come right along either day or night shift even if it's for a couple hours just to experience what it what it is like in riding around in a patrol car um we also want you to participate too in in trainings um you know uh at the range how we qualify our use of force trainings um how do we handcuff people um how we take people to the ground and this different level of circumstances of why we make those decisions we also want you to understand the what exactly our department our department policies and procedures are and it gets kind of convoluted there's a lot of language in there just like city ordinances and i'm sure you folks are aware but we have policies and procedures and the more that you're familiar with that the more you can understand the decision process that each officer needs to make on a day on a daily and nightly basis critical incidences critical instances we define as anything major i mean an officer-involved shooting a homicide that takes place a vehicle accident um where there's fatalities or even a vehicle pursuit where somebody um unfortunately has a fatality in or somebody who dies in in custody due to a drug drug overdose um there's a whole list of things and understanding what what actually happens in those is i don't think a lot of people are familiar familiar with they're very similar to a criminal investigation that's when we have the bca come out people are unfamiliar with what the bca actually does and then it can also be a criminal trial civil lawsuits the state and some agencies are also and federal and state agencies are starting to push more of a review towards police departments and cities when there is a critical incident thus the post board post board before prior to a couple years ago they didn't they basically just maintained officers licenses now they're more in depth of doing actual investigations in officers when officers have any type of misconduct these investigations can take long periods of time they're not overnight you can't have answers in a week sometimes they take up to over a year maybe a couple years depending on the situation we come in with the federal investigations too the fbi state of minnesota human rights department of justice ramsey county attorney's office the bca and other different lawsuits understanding riots and civil unrest we we obviously get that people need to express their first amendment right which they obviously need to do and they should do however there's a certain point where sometimes these demonstrations do turn into a riot and they do turn into a civil unrest we want you to understand the different tactics and different responsibilities and different techniques that police departments use to counter a protest and riots you know that's the tear gas pepper spray um blast balls the less lethal rounds the bean bag or 40 millimeter rounds mobile field forces which are the guys that are in the whole suits that you know the big bulky suits cart team which is a chemical response team which also is a swat team they're the ones who actually launched tear gas and launch blast balls and so forth what strike teams do strike teams are small individual groups of officers that are mobile and can respond to an area where they need too quickly um what are we going to do for 911 response if we have you know 20 officers here at the police department who's going to be taking normal 9-1-1 calls for domestics or noise complaints or something like that the helicopters involving the national guard do we know the process of if this were to happen in our north st paul do we know the process of how to get the national guard to respond we can see that there was a big miscommunication between the governor's office and the city of minneapolis mayor's office about the national guard they didn't know exactly what to do in that that hindered national guard response the use of drones developing a plan for looting plans for property destruction you know like we said we understand people's first amendment rights and we want to allow people to do that these are safeguards for us and tactics to use when those when we get the groups that show up and start causing destructive behaviors like i said i was part of the floyd riots there was a very miscommunication between the city city manager or city the mayor's office the council members um and even just a patrol officer to a sergeant you know the chief we didn't know where the chief was the mayor and governor weren't on the same page there was really no leadership there was a lack of communication there was no command structure basically what it came down to is is that each precinct inspector was told you do what you can to save your own precinct we have too many other things to worry about you guys are on your own as as your own as your own precinct uh the big one was this there's nobody to respond to 901 calls at all in the city of minneapolis when when the florida florida riots were occurring um citizens were literally told get together with your neighbor and defend your own neighborhood there was no one to stop crime and the big thing too was is that officers were not properly equipped we were given the bare minimum which was a gas mask a ride helmet and a baton and we were told to go out there and stop a riot but we were having fireworks bottles um feces urine pepper spray um boulders everything thrown at us and officers were getting injured by by the minute because we weren't properly equipped there was also no prior training um within the plea in in the police department we went through when i was there we went through one class and that was at the when you went through the police academy at the beginning of your when you got hired and so i went almost eight years without any type of of riot patrol or riot training things to express expect during riots obviously massive property damage looting fire and arson injuries to officers and civilians media and depending on how the situation is political figures may come to town tactics used by rioters lasers makeshift barriers gas masks cans of soup frozen water bottles um these the majority of these riots when they when they actually get involved and get going is you they actually have their own structure when it comes when it is when the riots taking place they have lawyers who are volunteers to walk around make sure that officers are you know not violating anybody's anybody any of the riders uh civil rights they have medics which are usually trained people that can deal with injuries they also have leaders that that communicate for groups which which way to go and when the third precinct fell they that was not many people know this but that was planned initially they the rioters the the groups that were involved in in doing that they created a disturbance downtown a riot downtown with a smaller group of people which focused all of the resources from the third precinct and then once all those resources were downtown is when they attacked the third precinct and that's one of the main reasons why the third precinct fell you're gonna have signs umbrellas firearms fireworks here's a couple pictures i took online and then also a couple that uh that i actually took myself are you saying that they actually bring in medics their own medics to yes help them okay yes you can see at the top right of the screen the people in the green hats those are identified as lawyers they're past part of the national lawyers guild on the top left corner it's a group known as antifa how they have makeshift shields they also have different uh they also have gas masks themselves too and and goggles um the big thing down here at the at the big picture this was taken in maploid during the september 10th um protest or demonstration outside of maple wood city hall you can see the gentleman with a in the black and he i believe he's got army fatigues on he's carrying a long long assault rifle those are things that you are we're going to exp we are expecting to see um media there's controversial um and it's and it's hard and it's a it's a very gray area when it comes to media what do we define as media do we define wcco as a media organization and then a person who's basically just filming on facebook live because they have a youtube channel are they considered media those are issues that that we need to understand and work through prior prior to an incident occurring in north st paul so that when in the incident our effort incident occurs in our saint paul we are immediately able to handle it and identify it another big one is memorials um you can see the the bottom right corner is the 38th in chicago the george floyd george floyd square the the center at the top that's in brooklyn center um and then the bottom left one is uh is devin this was a gentleman who was murdered in maplewood just off of mcknight and larpenter right by the old golf course his memorial was very large as well it wasn't as big as the other two pictures but it is still large and you have a lot of family and friends that congregate around these memorials and unfortunately a lot of the memorials through some of these incidents does bring crime and mapewood police were dealing with crime 901 calls constantly while this memorial was erected so the the point is is we need to understand we should of what type of response are we going to have to allow somebody to have a memorial on a sidewalk how long can they allow it to be there if they can even allow it to be there another big one is a protection of police officers homes this is kim potter's home i believe that she lived in the city of crystal i know off the top my head there's at least at least six police officers that work through other agencies that live in the city of north st paul if one of those officers are involved in some type of critical incident what type of things are we going to do as a city to help defend that officers homes uh the big thing too is communication um and i know that this has already been a work in pro um progress uh we are already i can't remember the the website or the the system that we use to alert uh citizens of any type of disturbances or or emergency at large civic plus um but you know the big thing is communicating with the city and county attorneys communicating with the ramsey county sheriff's department national guard state patrol media public relations those types of things the other the other thing though too is that some of this stuff doesn't necessarily apply just to rioting and looting what msf one of the companies here like burwal roofing there's a large fire and it's creating a lot of toxic toxic gas in the area what exactly are our city are we going to do how are we going to let the citizens know how we're going to let visitors know how are we going to coordinate with other departments that are responding to this or even an active shooter if the unthinkable happens within the city of north st paul how are we a lot of these things that i'm talking about can also be applied to different two different uh disasters either man-made or natural um things to consider like i said is understanding please understand and get to know what crowd control devices are some of them look bad some of them aren't you know some of them look scary but understand that there is a policy and procedure for each one of those um what are what's the policy on how are we going to release body worn and dash cameras if there's an incident nor saint paul another big issue that happened in minneapolis was munitions and overtime basically for two weeks straight i had to work 12 to 15 hours every single day during during the floyd riots that's a lot of money that the city has to has to pay out but also munitions as far as uh what we have what the sheriff's department has and getting those work um having those conversations prior to anything happening to figure out if we had to reimburse the sheriff's department or if the sheriff's department or doesn't charge us the other big thing too is is that a conversation needs to be have needs to be had as at what point do we go from a demonstration to a protest to a civil disturbance versus a riot you know what's the threshold because that can be construed and i mean some cities have a very low threshold of as soon as laws are being broken we act or in minneapolis's case you just let people do whatever they want to do and look what eventually happened excuse me um keep enough our officers safe um equipment flex gloves less lethal weapons protective suits keep our city employees and buildings safe the fence consortium which we'll get to here in a little bit and also even harding the structure of city hall as far as ballistic windows during the floyd protest and even the brooklyn center protest there are a lot of police departments and a lot of city halls that receive damage from just agitators brooklyn park their their city hall or their police department was actually shot at during during those rides that were happening in their in the neighboring city a lot of these things though too can also be related to everyday use like ballistic helmets that stuff can be used to for active shooters um and it can also help officers if a natural disaster comes through town and there's a bunch of downed wires and down trees officers can wear those helmets just as firefighters would wear their helmets when they're dealing when they're responding to emergencies as well a quick uh on that last slide there so the ask tonight i mean that's recommendations for the budget we're going to be working on these items for the budget is that correct chief and then tonight we're asking for the uh for the fence for the fence consortium in the regular meeting so the stuff that you're asking for here tonight or the recommendation and needs are going to be a separate meeting for for the budget yeah tonight it's just defense consortium i just want to make sure the council is aware that i see the recommendations and needs so we'll have another meeting tonight's just the defense yeah thank you defense consortium which we're all here about um there was a gentleman um for one of the west metro agencies or cities um the public works manager he decided to get together and say if we got a group of cities together and signed a joint powers agreement um to purchase a a fence an anti-scaling fence it would reduce some the amount of costs that each city would have to take a burden on that's how the fence consortium started word spread people um city different departments majority of them police departments even joined in on the conversation and and the startup of the group um basically what defense consortium does is that they they're they're going to purchase a anti-scale fence what the anti-scale fence is is that it's a specially designed fence where people cannot climb it and it is it's very hard to push over and break down that fence through the design that that that it's created with um so it consists of the seven county-wide metro area um it's the idea is to protect city infrastructure the other big one is a big de-escalation of tensions between law enforcement and protesters during the brooklyn center riots the first um first two nights they just had the one fence up and once though once that fence was possibly going to be broken down is when the officers had to act with the with uh les lethal and tear gas and so forth is because the agitators were trying to breach the fence they got wise and they set up a secondary fence once that secondary offense was brought in and there was a major buffer between law enforcement and the protesters and rioters there was a huge de-escalation and the use of tear gas and less lethal munitions basically drop to zero this allows a barrier between law enforcement and people exercising their first amendment right this defense consortium is a work in progress they are attempting to get funding from the state legislation in the next next couple years the consortium has established a board which is made up of an emergency management personnel a city manager and a few other uh and one at least one police chief and then a few other department heads with that uh occur in a city um the consortium will um purchase purchase defense and it will be held at a area within the within the metro um it is uh and then um and public works employees from different cities who are part of the of the consortium will train roughly two or three times a year as far as how to take or put the fence up and how to take it down um we're presenting this too because the joint powers agreement needs to be signed off on as well as as funding for it right now the the fence consortium is requesting one public works employee this employee doesn't necessarily it's just if an incident occurs say and a neighboring jurisdiction up in wiper lake that the fence needs to be erect erected then a north saint paul public's work employee will have to go to a meeting location that's been determined and then assist other other public works employees from all these other different agencies and cities to build this fence go ahead that sounds good but what if something just happens all of a sudden and you have to wait for this fence or is there some something in the works on that so what um if when an incident happens in the city um the police chief or city manager or mayor will make a request to the fence consortium board the fence conservative board will look at the circumstances of it and will either approve or not not approve of allowing this fence to be erected and be deployed most likely there's limited situations where i can say that they would say no i mean a fence isn't going to be going up every week um it's going to be for only major incidences um was there any other part to that question you know if something would pop up i know we had a little lead time that maple wood thing and we had enough time to get it you know fortified around here i i just you know the timing i you know how that all works but i can add to that so that's that's kind of the biggest positive of this joining this fence consortium is the time so if we were to outright say we need a fence that's going to take multiple days for us to vet vendors and deal with costs and shipping and getting the fence not to mention we would have no way of putting it together without any formal training or a team to actually do that so the goal of this group is you call you ask for the fence you get the fence within three hours it comes with the team to put the fence together so that's that's one of the biggest wins in joining this it's like a fence insurance policy and it shows up within three hours so time is is definitely a part of this so these these numbers to join the fence construct consortium as the as an initial or initial or initial um city um right now the rate is approximately um five thousand one hundred and sixty dollars that's for that's for the full year the below number the eighty six thousand this is the number directly from the brooklyn center um city manager that's what brooklyn center spent on the first three months of their fencing to protect their police department basically by the time that a full year went down the last month's rental was 6 000. so when you go through an outside agency uh a different group outside of this fence consortium you have to not only do you have to pay this 86 000 but you also had to pay the transportation fee he had to and then they the companies also um charge a a hazard pay too as well because of the circumstances in which it is so this 80 like i said this 86 000 was for the was for the first three months and then eventually um their last month of rental um the longer that you proceed to rent the lower the cost goes um this is i'm just uh going over this is the this is kind of the brooklyn center numbers um the big thing too is is that that if you call a company out the company has to respond they have to come out they have to measure they have to load their supplies they have to get their workers in then they come in and deploy deploy their their fence which could take a couple days to actually do and set up and for brooklyn center their their measurements didn't actually cover around the full police department it just basically covered like half of half of it around where the main group of uh demonstrations were occurring in front of the um in front of their police department um cities who have already joined the consortium here as of august 18th these are all cities that have signed the joint powers agreement you can see maplewood oakdale wiper lake the airport which is also i think is is one of the bigger departments because they have so many restrictions as far as being a a federal also being a federal agency stillwater there's the majority of cities are being present or councils are being presented the same presentation across the thing across across their across the metro area the more cities that actually sign up the lower the cost so if you get 100 cities that are all on board the cost will actually be decreased for that that year relief that yearly fee this is what uh we this is the drawing and measurements that we presented uh as you can see this is city hall um the yellow is where the fence would actually be um would would be deployed to uh to protect to protect the city so not only do we not i put this in here is because the fence consortium already has that if the joint powers agreement is signed and the city decides to move forward with this is it that's all we need to do we no way nobody else needs to come out and do any type of measurements we don't need to get bids they already have it and all it does is it takes a phone call to the fence consortium board to say hey we need the fence and the fence concerning board to say all right we're on the way that that that's the that's this uh the strong point there in real quick question questions uh perfect timing perfect time uh if uh again i think under circumstances now moving forward we've learned a lot of things from the george floyd and you know all the riots are going on what would happen if we were if it happens again and it's city-wide metro-wide all these cities are asking for that fencing do we have the amount of available fencing for all these cities to handle it or is this just a incident that might be your city alone something's going on i'm just looking at worst case and then you know do you want to so they're going to get enough fencing for the two largest departments that are in this fencing consortium so if it is a handful of departments then you know based on who's in there so if st paul's in there or any larger scale agency they would have enough square footage of fencing purchased to be available for a handful of smaller agencies they wouldn't have enough fencing to have a fence around every single city hall that's in the group no but they would have a lot so so our example would be if something happened like similar to what happened last summer uh pretty specific to maplewood uh north st paul kind of our area yep we would probably have enough fencing as long as minneapolis and st paul are not under lockdown at the same time correct yeah there would be if it was just i mean with the cities that are in there right now if it was just one or two agencies or city halls that needed it there would absolutely be enough yeah and just just the biggest a couple larger items on there just if we were to outright purchase the fencing alone for our square footage it was 444 thousand dollars uh i just wanted to point that out so quite a cost savings if we go with the consortium insurance plan versus el ray purchasing it any other questions i'm sure people have questions uh council member one yeah sure thank you for your presentation and bringing this forth um i do have several questions um as for the larger pd's does that include anyone that's in the consortium and if it were to be called say multiple incidents as critical incidences in a certain area so you have five communities who need fencing does it go to the largest two or they're able to dispatch all or all of the equipment that is available or is it just the two pd please so so that's where it comes to the decision of the board right so this fencing consortium board if any chief of whatever agencies ask for it they call and say hey we need a fence that's where the board does have some say they're the ultimate determining factor on who who gets the fence and whether or not uh there's enough for all five but they get to make the final decision and it's i see it as a good thing so there's not you know any any cities saying we have some minor incident hey we want to fence for that so that they're not getting a fence just at every opportunity that you know so there is some vetting i wouldn't see any seat that's on this list calling and asking for a fence for a reason that they don't feel is a need for it but yet the ultimate decision makers are the the consortium board members so if more get in then there's more fencing available if more needed then they would be able to fill that need okay thank you yeah um i guess like my concern there is like in the agreement itself it doesn't really it specifies like the consortium is not guaranteeing a fast response or anything like that so that's where i kind of i'm wondering what what they can deliver on and what they can guarantee for our participation there's there's there's multiple there's going to be multiple factors and when you when the phone call is made to the fence consortium board they're going to do a threat analysis of who's calling and why are they calling who needs it the most if you know if there's an incident at maplewood and somebody from minnetonka calls and says well we got a 20-person protest but maplewood has 150 you know that they're going to take that into consideration as far as the the deployment of the fence since that it is being put up by public works employees it's only going to be done in a completely safe manner and in a safe time so it's not going to be done at 1am when they're which is right usually in the previous or in the history of of riots have shown us when it's really the hot time and the big time it's going to be usually done at 5 6 7 a.m when nobody's out on the street and it's when it is the complete safest time for those public employees to but to build the fence i think that that's where you're getting uh they can't say that it's going to be a fast time um let me double check the the language but my understanding of when i was reading it that the consortium themselves would not be you know liable to to not responding in a specific amount of time say they were delayed for an extended amount of time and we needed the fence faster that they would not be there's nothing that you know to hold them accountable for that yeah they might just with the intangibles that that could be why they didn't spell out i just know and in all the conversations and ben joining this uh consortium work group for uh six months ago about i mean their biggest thing was timing it was you know if they didn't put an exact timing i get it in there but they're they're uh they were strong on you know it's going to be defense in a matter of hours instead of a matter of days so either way we're definitely ahead going with this group versus just freelancing on our own if we need a fence then i mean there's there's absolutely a guarantee it's going to be multiple days before we can make that a reality for us if we're not in the group and then the agreement also discussed some of the deployment team what does that look like and then my understanding in the language too that that we are responsible for covering the cost of training any overtime is that on top of the 5 000 annual membership um and is that accounted for in both budgets both public works and and pd so for the training side that that's where uh our our public works team gets uh gets involved and that would be i think it's two to three times a year that they would have uh required to train i've spoke with ron and randy quite a bit on this item and i think their plan was to have two designated employees for the fencing consortium build build out team so cost wise it's you know two to three eight hour days for two people um not a not a major budget impact and i would i would imagine it's gonna be at a regular working day so instead of coming to work here they're they're going to work at uh whatever the site is that they're planning on on training at so i don't think there's a major budget impact no and for on the pd side uh no training on on the fencing consortium i mean our biggest training is just mobile field force preparations because our our role would be security and providing if it's here then we're going to be calling ramsey county mo field force and swat team and everybody's going to be on deck already working to actively ensure the safety of our community and our building until we can get this fence built up so that's where overtime is going to be increasing significantly if we need it just based on our job thank you um and then and so in your presentation you had discussed kind of different levels of consideration for you know when you would you know implement a certain tactic or a response can you explain a little bit about how that would look in north saint paul you would be though yeah no it uh it looks a lot better when there's a fence in between us and uh anybody that's trying to do damage to our building that's for sure if there's a safety layer of offense separating anybody that's trying to throw rocks or soup cans at any of our officers offense stops a lot of that so we are in a much better place as far as not having to use less lethal tactics when there's a divider because it really separates just that face to face you don't you don't get people walking up to our officers or other agencies officers that are here helping us out when you have a fence creating that safety layer in between so yeah protecting life and protecting property that's when our less lethal devices are going to be deployed and if if there's a fence in between us then the likelihood of having to resort to less lethal tactics goes down significantly just because they they can't you know you can't have that uh you don't create that situation where we're in that need to use it based on the the safety of buildings or people if you if you go back to the brooklyn center riots um at their police department like i like i touched on before is the first couple nights they just had that one singular fence and it was not a sturdy structure it is five people could push it over it wasn't an anti-scaling nope it was just literally it all it was was a concrete barrier with a chain-link fence that's bolted in and that stuff is you get five six people you can push push it over or climb it this anti-skill fence you know and some of the pictures that i that i showed i can go back to them if you if you'd like to see but it's all just imagine like the the cable barriers on the highway or on the freeways that you see when a car hits it it bends but it doesn't break and that's what this fence is designed to do is that it's designed to to bend and the main point that i want to express though is is that they had that one single fence and then they were using all these different tactics of tear gas and different crowd control measures and they were getting complaints from all the neighbors and everything like that about the tear gas and them having trying to have a nice spring or fall with their windows open and they couldn't because of the tear gas but once they installed that secondary fence and offered an even bigger buffer there was ultimately no crowd control devices actually used they the police department was able to step back and stay back away from the protests for the protesters and and agitators so that there that those people could express their first amendment rights in in a safe manner and they didn't have to worry about the um any type of crowd control measures being used and also for those agitators that it was impossible for them to actually reach reach officers or hurt them with any type of objects and soup cans and rocks and and their own pepper spray and frozen water bottles thank you yeah and and and to be clear i'm not trying to say like um a critical incident is and when you're getting things thrown at you is not warranted for offense what i'm trying to understand is what is the process in which you know we which um and de-escalation tactics are used beforehand as a preventative measure and that's where i'm trying to understand whether it is an investment that you know is worthwhile i appreciate that a couple quick other questions councilman of thorson just my concerns this is kind of something i've been touched on it seems like this may be more effective if there's some massive event here and it's prolonged and that you know the concerns about preventing damage to city hall if there's just this spontaneous riot there's nothing we're going to be able to prevent that and then focusing on this and i'm looking at this map it's like well great we have city hall protected but what about the rest of the city what what are these businesses you know right across the street or right next door i think you know it's just that i think the resources could be used better within the police department than committing to something like this where i i mean i it could it could obviously be effective if we know like there's some planned protest or you know some plan controversial group that's coming into town um but it you know and then the public works involvement too on this i i'm concerned about um you know you talked about these private contractors that charged hazard pay i mean obviously they're going into an area where it's going to be dangerous and you know police are trained to deal with these things i don't know public works are necessarily trained to or want to deal with that sort of thing and then you know being a part of this consortium if we're constantly having to send resources to other cities then that's taking away from you know their job here not that we're not willing to help and participate i mean the cost of 55 grand a year doesn't seem like it's much especially if more cities get involved i understand the desire to to want to try to rethink what you know over the last two years of this stuff that's happened but you know north st paul's 135 years we're celebrating that anniversary and i don't know to my knowledge we've never had a riot or any major civil unrest that's not to say it would never happen and that's not to say we shouldn't plan for that but again i just you know i i wish we had more time to to to kind of think this over and and look at stuff because what i'm thinking is i'm sure these groups got together and said look you know especially what happened in brooklyn park in minneapolis you know is there a better way to prevent things like this and i'm just you know i'm not law enforcement but you know establishing a perimeter couldn't couldn't protecting city hall if that was a goal you know maybe blocking off margaret street and 7th street downtown kind of you know we block off during the car show with barricades and stuff and it prevents the flow of traffic you know that's one you know thing just other ideas other i'd like to hear other ideas about kind of riot controller you know sorts of things like that rather than you know we we've had this here tonight we've we had your presentation now it's going to be on the agenda to get approved i think maybe it might make sense to table that and maybe think about this a little more or get some more information but i can i'm i'm happy to answer any anything else you might be wondering so as far as just a couple to respond to a couple of things that you said so if you uh have if we don't have the fence then we have to have people so as far as resources all of the resources are going to be surrounding the building we have 19 officers we're not able to surround the building and keep the building safe much less respond to emergency calls if we need to keep our buildings safe so if there's and as far as just our blocking traffic plan uh for car shows or parades you know that's that's one or two officers in a setting that is a non-violent setting with happy people and not protesters or angry folks that are unhappy about whatever issue and they will blow by two officers on a street trying to block it in a matter of seconds and and walk through it so putting the fence there allows us to have resources so we can respond to other calls and if if we don't have the fence it's us asking for the help of ramsey county mobile field force ramsey county swat team maplewood every surrounding agency and all of their officers eventually they're going to say uh okay it's been two days i've given you this many officers for two days here's a bill for all of their uh time and by the way i need my officers back so there's no guarantee if we get if if we don't have a fence then we're going to need people in order to keep our building not from being damaged and and just to quell any any thoughts on you know we're we're not just gonna if we have a uh complaint on a traffic stop we're not calling to get the fence uh requested it is going to be there is a major critical incident um there is a large share of uh social media activity and intelligence that says north st paul city hall is going to be a target and then likely a crowd growing in numbers already outside before we pull the trigger and ask for the fence so it's not just going to be something that we're asking you know every other week it's going to be hopefully never that we're asking for it but in case that we need it it is our way of saying we don't have to dedicate or ask other agencies to dedicate resources to us in the form of people and that you know again i'm not i'm not trying to get into a debate with you on trying to justify i get the need for what you're asking for i'm just trying to look at you know how effective this this would be i mean we're showing city hall i mean are there other areas within our city that would be worth protecting and defending if there was civil unrest i mean i you talked about the coordination of some of these rioters and and the damage that they look to do i would think you know our water supply water towers pump houses our electrical grid and things like that we need merit protection i mean is that are these the map you're showing is around city hall i mean there's public works i mean if there's a specific business that's targeted can this fencing be deployed at those areas or is it just it it can't it is just for uh government or state facilities so any any government or state agency that's in it can only ask to protect those buildings but when we have the fence so history has shown i mean the minneapolis precinct burned down uh all the targets are the actual police departments or the city halls that they're in it hasn't been um you know joe's uh hat shop and and they have seen damage private businesses have absolutely seen damage but the main target is the police departments or the city halls so if we can protect that with the fence then that allows us to create the strike teams which uh sergeant batowitz talked about in his presentation that then is able to better protect the other smaller private businesses or schools or whatever or water supply or or other targets in the city that are still they're absolutely a target but if we can control safety measures at our city hall which has typically been the primary target then we have more resources to ensure the safety elsewhere yeah uh to me it sounds like you know uh fifty one hundred dollars is a insurance policy to me it sounds like a cheap insurance policy to have my only concern is the uh uh our our staff here you know we're a small city we don't have a lot of resources for the possibly in a on a mega scale of having our employees leave here what happens if they don't leave and they have uh they don't help out at the uh setting up at the fence or do we get fined or do what what happens nothing at all um so that's in the agreement it's still up to ron and public works to make the determination on whether or not we want to go or we can go to help if ron says public works is strapped for people and and the two that are in the fence build-out team happen to be out of town we're not sending anybody and it's still up to any any agency that's involved in the mutual aid pact to deploy the resources or not so we still have the ultimate say on yes we can help you or no we can't and to me this seems like a soft way to to do things uh if we had to do like councilmember thorson said had to do more than just city hall i think there's a bigger event that's happening within our communities than just you know a riot out out in front to me this is kind of a soft thing if we were to have a specific something happening in front of our city hall if something major is going to happen with minneapolis-st paul i don't think we're going to be seeing this fence at all if it's going to come out to all the all the suburban cities yeah it would have to be bottom line is you can't protect anything around us no and i i would i mean this would be a north st paul born incident where i'm calling to ask for this fence it wouldn't be a reactionary something happens in another city unless it is like every every city hall and police department is targets now but it would it would very likely be a north st paul born incident that inspires our request for defense if we hopefully never need it i hate to ask but if we could stop debate now on this and then if you could stay maybe for the regular meeting i know ben has to go but if you're able to stay and if we have some more questions to kind of follow up with the regular council meeting yeah is there any uh is there any more questions in the immediate or i don't think so oh okay okay we'll we'll take it on at the regular meeting okay sounds good thank you ben chief folks appreciate it thank you all uh why don't we go ahead uh city manager if we could get the uh i kind of want to get to the bar sidewalk encroachment ordinance i think we'll skip the downtown furniture guidelines for right now but the sidewalk encroachment ordinance if we get that real quick and i hate to put you on the back burner dr waldron but i want to get this going here brandie welcome hi good evening everybody [Music] let's see here a brief presentation for you okay i get it about 15 minutes i can make it quick i promise perfect okay and your packet is a draft ordinance for a new sidewalk encroachment permit and process it's called chapter 94 within um sorry section 9422 within chapter 94 streets and sidewalks under the title nine general regulations so the purpose of this is to create a permanent mechanism and regulations for the use of the public sidewalk um the right of way for private uses private uses so this would be primarily for sidewalk cafes and possibly sidewalk sales and the like of note it's my understanding that outdoor seating was allowed during covet as a temporary measure to keep businesses afloat so the businesses in or st paul have voiced their desire to continue that outdoor seating offering outdoor seating to customers so that is part of the reason why we're here tonight for this um so within the draft ordinance there is a permit application the permit could be granted annually there will be a fee and a site plan requirement the review period would be 30 days and the city manager or designee would be the authorized individual to issue those permits and the city manager or that designee retains the right to limit the total number of permits issued per year the applicant if denied has the option to appeal to city council so general requirements within this uh ordinance if you wanted to have a sidewalk permit you'd have to submit a site plan you have to demonstrate that you can maintain a 54 inch clear zone for pedestrians you cannot block fire exits or lanes and you must adhere to ada requirements a sidewalk sale another thing that you could use for this permit you would adhere to the same general requirements so related to sidewalk cafe specifically you have to show on your site plan where you're planning to put street furnishings they can be located either adjacent to the curb or up next to the building but they must maintain the 54 inch pedestrian right of way and they must also consider existing infrastructure so no no alcohol would be allowed without a separate alcohol license um so that is covered in a different chapter of the ordinance um furnishings cannot be fixed to the ground and they must be made of a design quality that is sturdy and weather resistant the owner shall keep the area clean tables must be stacked at the end of the day if adjacent to the traffic lane then a planter or railing would be required this is one of the agenda items that you had on there lisa ritchie has prepared these furniture guidelines and presented them to planning commission and they have um acted as a as a commission to set forth this as a policy or recommend this as a policy to city council that any outdoor furnishings be durable commercial grade weather resistant and they can be of wrought iron cast iron aluminum or lumber grade hdpe so other other requirements of the ordinance uh liability insurance would be required in an amount that we have yet to determine the permit can be revoked if they fail to adhere to the requirements of the ordinance and there is an appeal process in which they can um appeal to the city council within 45 days 45 days of a denial or revocation so here's an example of what not to do so here is a sidewalk cafe and people are trying to walk and there's too much stuff in the right of way that is all any questions regarding the draft ordinance was this taken from another city at all or i was instructed to take a look at stillwater and white bear lake and neither of those communities have sidewalk cafe ordinances on the books right now it's something that they're looking into so if memory serves i believe i took a lot of this from the city of saint paul and maybe minneapolis i did look at other communities throughout the country but those seemed to be the most relevant given our climate here um and they're similar similarly situated questions for councilmember thorson so he said there's other cities like stillwater and white bear that don't have this but they have outdoor seating per plate is that what their outdoor seating that they would have would be on private property so this is specifically dealing with the right-of-way okay and how is this any different than what we've already approved previously that that's the private property so that was related to fences specifically so if you bar owner wanted to have on your land outdoor seating then at that point before we amended the ordinance it said you had to have a six foot tall fence and so we made a little bit more flexible so that you had to have some kind of separation but it didn't have to be offense specifically so that was completely related to private land this is public realm okay would this apply to say a snowman statue yes that came up as well so we did add some language um uh soren's attorney's office helped with that to ensure that if there was a uh maybe you i can answer this a little bit better so the snowy statue is something that some commercial entities might want to put in the prayer in the public realm and sell them at some point maybe you can explain this but it's more of a sculpture and it serves as artistic and also as a way to uh promote the business so almost like their own advertisement in a way it'll be a little placard or whatever okay so yep the ordinance has been drafted to include statutes stash statues as being one of those items that you can have in the right-of-way for this permit last question um thank you um and you had mentioned that the um seating will be stacked at the end of the day and stored would it be stored inside or out or just in its places uh that you know all of these provisions are up for debate but as it's written now it's basically you'd have to stack it and leave it out you could leave it outside as long as it's neat and tidy at the end of the day thank you councilmember cole uh to build on that question winter time to leave it stacked outside neat and tidy well summer i don't know that we make a that's a good comment and if it's something that we should consider adjusting um that's i'm only thinking of snow removal for winter times that was yeah yeah i don't think we have that language that's set stored there over the winter that that pose a problem uh i did have a couple questions i know this isn't something we're voting on tonight i don't believe there's anything to bring forward i am interested in the opinion of the car show the opinion of police chief and the opinion of legal i've heard that two of the three that i just referenced were somewhat opposed to doing this but i never was told why so i was just curious um leah is it coke from your office has actually been working hand in hand with me on putting this together so it's as far as them having opposition to this i'm not entirely sure if if i do what it is it heard when you when we originally started this conversation um i believe that sauron was opposed to it but didn't know i didn't know why um so probably related to uh alcohol on the outside but do you want to address that sidewalks aren't made to balance beer and yeah there were comments made snarky comments which is fine but i just needed i was looking for a little bit more of the um yeah regarding the police chief we did send him a draft of this i believe it was a week or two ago um so i'll double check and see if he has any comments on it and then just the car the car show i mean i know they've been opposed to some things um this worked for the last two years well two years ago um so i was just curious if if we sought their opinion this is new new to me um is there an organization specifically i'm not sure who the car show is yeah okay i'll check with and i'm going to city manager on that and then questions around open container um there is not a friday night that's gone by that i haven't walked downtown after nine o'clock that i haven't seen an establishment with an open container issue so i know that that there are some who police it very well and there's some that aren't um so are we looking at or have we thought about amending the language to it has to be the alcohol in this designated space has to be delivered by a server so that takes the opposition it takes the opportunity for someone to walk out the door and turn the corner uh i don't think that this particular ordinance is the place for that if the if that is an issue and it's not in existence in your liquor licensing ordinance that would be the place to address that i assume it's i'm assuming it's in our liquor license issues but they have to redesignate the area in which all can be served in correct there's going to be the how many inches 54 inches 56 inches 54. designated sidewalk space is that deemed the properties is that city space where they can have an open container anything related to alcohol would be addressed through the amended alcohol license that any establishment would have to have if they want to serve alcohol so if through this permitting process you have the right to use the sidewalk you don't have the right to use the sidewalk and serve alcohol that's that would be above and beyond just so you'd have to have two separate permitting processes but we can check and i can work with the attorney's office to see um what needs to be amended if anything to request a lot of what just a lot of what-ifs that that i had around so if i could just make sure that i understand what you're saying so alcohol service outside must be provided by server i just need area i need help around the language of can i walk out of a bar cross my 56 inches and go into the designated space and and the city is responsible for the sidewalks and i recognize that under the insurance piece they the city has to be listed in there to take care of some of that but you know i i guess i'm concerned with with the liquor licensing aspect of it and how it relates to to this little bit more research will have to go into that but i will be working with um you break you bring up some good good questions regarding the alcohol service so i will check with the attorney's office and see what they think about i forget what chapter of the ordinance it's in uh regarding the licensure and then also see if the police chief has any specific thoughts on how to how to manage that too that's it for me thank you my only concern is how many people are allowed to be into that desert designated area that would be developing face time yeah that would be evaluated at the time of sight plants and biddle um that's a good point that we can include some language about capacity and how it relates to square footage or seating so good comments and i'm sorry and brady the other conversation that we had was basically somebody was going to take a look at the footprint of space in front of each of the businesses subtract out the 50 whatever inches it was and then that would that would let us know how much space was available i think it really depends on every business that wants to come forward because your sidewalk is so variable because there's some that's going to have a lot of space and there's some that may not have any correct that's so have we done that so that no we have not okay um i mean it's possible that we could put in there an exception if the sidewalk is so narrow maybe you could reduce the width to i think 48 inches is the minimum required um we went with 4 54 so that we weren't doing just the bare minimum to make sure that there's adequate space for all users at the sidewalk but we can certainly look at exceptions cool thank you does that comply to ada then yeah because this is a workshop i do have a bar owner here kelly i don't know if you want to just quick i got a few minutes here if you wanted quick respond to maybe some of this and you know to me part of this should be some input from the bars too you know what what worked for you during the pandemic you know what network you know what we're trying to accomplish here is something that is probably different than what the pandemic was uh because we're going to try to limit the amount of people that are in a certain area maybe just give your quick input yeah well i appreciate that it's coming to a workshop so that we can talk about it and see what can work so during the pandemic obviously it was that way because that was the only way we were going to literally survive is by having some sort of outdoor seating and i think everybody kind of scrambled on our end to figure out what would work plastic chairs tables that you could find because everybody was doing it across the state so we were in a struggle of i just need stuff so then after having that it was like this is a great thing our customers love sitting outside it's gorgeous outside like today is a beautiful day they love sitting outside and enjoying the beauty of our city while they have a cocktail and just sit and relax and enjoy so we're trying to figure out the best way to accommodate what our customers are looking for yet be obviously within guidelines for the city so i mean some of the things make sense obviously you have to have a walkway or right away control over it i think we all try to do a really good job about policing ourselves of alcohol and not leaving the premises and especially i mean we have left one door out the front so i mean every place is a little different and how they're set up but i think if everybody had just a nice little patio it's just more inviting as you kind of just drive through the city and that's i think one of the big things is what we were looking at it's because this had come up even before colbit um of doing something like this and then colvin actually made it have to happen so that we could keep businesses going so i think now that we had it it was like yay this is working this is great how do we keep it now um so yeah okay so we'll yep so that helps so a lot of questions were asked tonight and i think brandy's going to go back and try to tweak it and come up with an ordinance that makes sense not only for the city but for you guys too so yeah that makes sense yeah i mean and we love to have your input you know once you know we're at the end of summer now so i mean i feel like i gotta ramp up for next year maybe i can buy furniture on sale i don't know but i do you know you did see the furniture part end of it yes i think that kind of makes sense yes i mean even up to you as long it's under this parameter of yeah and i know we've kind of modeled what we like after what the legion has their patio furniture is nice it's seems to have stood up to the test of our weather which is a big factor here right so and i think stacking it during the winter is not going to happen i i mean we have some on room on the side of our building that we couldn't do that but i think i would rather it just be gone right right one less thing i have to worry about right well thank you yeah thank you thanks any other questions you guys do a phenomenal job you're from policing the alcohol outside you've got the signs are posted inside right at the door you can't miss that sign walking out um so you you guys have taken the leadership role in in making sure that this works okay um i would just be curious to know now if you take the tape measure out and figure out what 54 inches what's that look like for you guys out in front um well i'll have to do a little figuring out so we have those three boxes out in front of our building so i would have to and i hear one of the boxes is coming out yeah what's going on i did hear that oh okay that's good news yes good news so i would have to figure out how that spacing would does look give does it give you adequate space does it it would definitely give us some i mean for us we're looking at like four tables um one i have to be able to manage it um which is a huge thing for us i want to be able to make sure we have adequate coverage for it so but i think there would be enough for at least three thank you yeah thanks you guys okay uh any other questions for brandy not dr craig waldron no he got 15 minutes or a few minutes passed good evening it was a it was a packed full night tonight so yes yes a lot of good stuff happening very sorry uh honorable mayor members of the council good evening uh i'm here to talk about the next step as it relates to the community center you had the report from me spelling out a number of issues and also talking about what my suggestion is in terms of the uh next move over here i have my really high tech chart where i was thinking through uh some of this kind of like the typical academic i see something and i've got to write on it so but it kind of points out to where we are now we first had to deal with the short-term issues which was essentially to stop the bleeding so uh we're on top of that now the the roof is going to get fixed the heating component is going to be addressed and we extended the lease with the volleyball group for the next uh six months or so and then as we move into the longer term you had my suggestion in the report and it's essentially based on three things what your previous consul vote was to keep the facility than the meeting that i got to have with you where you basically just talked about your longer term vision with me and then our community forum in which the public members that came gave us their input as it relates to the facility which was also essentially to keep it and maintain it as a a positive community component so thank you 3m i'm sorry thank you 3m oh yes that's right i know i wouldn't know what i had to do without this stuff so uh so then the i think it was the option d that i had in there is what i'm suggesting is to um to keep it and move forward with the repairs now there's a number of steps that go along with that and the first one and that's what would be before you tonight is to ask the walled group and this is the the engineering group that you've used in the past i know ron's worked with them a lot to develop a proposal for us in terms of the management and the next step to you know talk to us how they would do the bidding to come forward and in terms of how they're going to put the estimates together and so forth some of the the overall costs so that's the next step approving bringing them in to present a management proposal to you and we would meet with them first and work through some of that and then bring that back for your approval and then if everything went ideally what we would what we would do is of course we take a look at the estimates are we comfortable with that and if we are we go forward with the the bids so it's all systems go we're getting the bids in to get it done and hopefully they do come in in a level that we like we're comfortable with it we can finance it and and we uh we we move forward but there's another critical piece here that i'm suggesting that i think i've heard all of you talk about off and on and it essentially came up in the forum and that is if we're moving forward aggressively with that rehab that we put together a really important committee that's comprised of some of you some of the community members the volleyball folks and so forth and really figure out what that future use is going to be how do we how do we want to use that who's going to manage it so once people see that we're serious and things are moving forward that that we put together that critical community group to essentially develop a use plan and i think at that point that's almost as important as the actual physical improvements that that are going on so the last piece however is that as we talk about this uh uh i i don't want every anybody to think that we're locked in there's about three fail-safe uh periods here where we can essentially stop the show the first one is if the world comes back we don't even like the proposal that they're talking about you know they're talking about you know an exorbitant cost or something like that or we're just not comfortable with it that's it we we don't move forward that proposal we look at other options second fail safe so let's say we do work with wald they come back they bring us back all these estimates and we look at it and between dan and brian and myself that we're just not comfortable with it you know we cannot make this work this these estimates are much higher than we anticipated and therefore we essentially put a stop to it and look at those other options that i had listed in there and then the third fail safe is that if the bids come in too high and at that point we're not comfortable with it we simply shut it down or re-bid or look at other options or go back to some of those other options of you know basically tearing it down and maybe re keeping the site and redeveloping it and so forth so that's what i'm suggesting in terms of a way forward but also i hope you feel comfortable that we do have some fail-safe options here if we are not feeling comfortable about this we can put a stop to it and and look at some of our other options so what's before you tonight would be the recommendation that we could uh move forward and bring back a proposal from wald to council thank you for your hard work on that uh any questions for craig councilmember thorson when you were i mean during your research and and everything this idea to to resurrect it or to fight to you know spend whatever it's going to be i mean obviously it's going to move forward but we'll find more refined details but we have early estimates around 2 million dollars has there been discussion with finance and how we're going to finance this some preliminary discussions i've talked to dan about it and uh if it were in the range of uh 2 million between some of the existing funds that you've had put aside and and other funding arrangements within the city budget uh 2 million looks like it could be handled pretty well if we start getting way beyond that i think that's where we really have to have some of those critical conversations and then and so just so i'm clear your recommendation as we move forward with finding out what that is and and then later on we're going to decide what the future this facility is going to be what the public use is going to be yeah i think you know and this even goes back to the time when when i was here we'd you'd try to talk to people and try to get something worked out and they'd kind of like well craig why don't you guys get your act together and show us what you're going to do there and you know kind of let us see the whites of your eyes that you are indeed going to improve this and make it a viable facility so um you know and i think that's a reasonable question but that's why i say that that peace becomes so critical to have that community committee put forward if we are doing that major improvement that we really work hard and aggressively to come up with that future use plan i would just make one more suggestion that on your fail safe you had item d okay and that would be the elections that are coming up in november and the potential to have three new members on this body that may see you know a different viewpoint or whatever and they're going to have ultimate say over yeah you know the financing as well in the long term so and with those fail safes i think you you hit it right on the head because they'll be sitting there and they'll be voting on that stuff so um yeah that'll be a critical part of how we go forward or if we move forward anybody else got to be kidding me we got five minutes left hey there we go all right good luck furniture yeah you want to look at furniture uh thank you yes thank you okay very good uh everything else uh interim city manager randall that is it okay at this time motion to adjourn i'm over your honor by council member peterson second second by council member juan any discussion if not all of us in favor signify by saying aye aye aye opposed we are adjourned for about five minutes you