This transcript appears to be from the **February 18, 2020**, Cannon Falls City Council meeting. **Note on Context:** There is a slight discrepancy between your provided list and the transcript. In February 2020, **John Altaf** was the Mayor (the transcript explicitly addresses him as such), and **Dave Murphy** was serving as the Interim City Administrator (the transcript refers to him as "Dave" throughout the contract negotiations for the new administrator, Neil Jensen). I have used the names and roles as identified within the dialogue of the meeting. *** [6:55] **Mayor John Altaf:** Good evening everyone. I’d like to call the City Council meeting for the city of Cannon Falls for February 18th to order. Could we have roll call please? [6:55] **City Clerk (Sara Peer):** Ringgold? Here. Duncan? Here. Guess? Here. Mundel? Matson? Here. Montgomery? Here. Altaf? Here. [6:55] **Mayor John Altaf:** Would you stand for the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible... Okay, you've had time to review the agenda. I have a motion to approve the agenda? [7:41] **Council Member Bill:** So moved. [7:41] **Council Member Mary Jill:** Second. [7:41] **Mayor John Altaf:** Okay, motion by Bill and second with Mary Jill to approve the agenda. Any discussion? All in favor? Opposed? Carried. Okay, presentation. Your presentation tonight, Toward Zero Death presentation by... [8:14] **Jessica Sayed:** Good evening Mayor Altaf and members of the City Council. My name is Jessica Sayed and I am the Goodhue County Toward Zero Death (TZD) Safe Roads Grant Coordinator. And with me tonight... [8:14] **Scott McKay:** I’m the smart side, I’m the experience. My name is Scott McKay. I am the Law Enforcement Liaison for Southern Minnesota. I work for the Office of Traffic Safety. Formerly I grew up in Willmar, I worked for the Kandiyohi County Sheriff's Office as a dispatcher, and I went to Fergus Falls as a police officer, then a Trooper, and then I retired as Lieutenant out of Mankato. All it shows is that I just can't keep a job. [9:03] **Officer Paul Larson:** I am one of the two officers in Cannon Falls that kind of helped spearhead the TZD through Cannon Falls. [9:03] **Jessica Sayed:** So what is TZD? Minnesota TZD works to create a culture in which traffic deaths and serious injuries are no longer acceptable through the integrated application of the four Es: Education, EMS, Enforcement, and Engineering. The program also uses data to target areas for improvement, employ proven countermeasures, implement best practices, and advance innovations and new technologies. When TZD began in 2003, there was an increase in traffic-related fatalities on our roads. 655 people died on our roadway that year alone. In 2018, we saw 381 deaths on our road, and preliminary numbers for 2019 show that we had 364 deaths on our road, which is a decrease of 44 percent in deaths since we began our work. I like finding these old pictures, and as you can see, we've come a long way and we have done a lot of great work to drastically reduce traffic-related deaths, which we should be celebrating. However, in recent years we have reached a plateau, so we need to continue to educate the public and change the way people think and view traffic safety. Why? Because 93 percent of the time, driver error is a contributing factor in crashes. This slide shows how factors such as the driver, roadway, and the vehicle are interconnected. Current traffic safety culture seems to be accepting that driving is just something that we're doing when in reality, to get to zero—excuse me—we need everyone to realize the importance of safety over convenience. [10:38] **Scott McKay:** I think this is where I'm supposed to jump in. You know, I did—last time I was here, I can't remember Chief, but I brought a radar. I was able to present a free about-a-$3500 radar to the PD. But I've learned from experience you have to be careful when you do that. This gentleman over here, he probably saw me go to him—his name captured me, my in-laws are Maroneys. My wife is a Maroney, it's the first time I've seen that name. But I happened to get to present the same type of radar to the city of Montevideo, and they live just outside of the city. And when you're all of a sudden, your picture's in the paper and your mother-in-law finds out you didn't stop by to say hello... I was in the doghouse. And then even worse, a week later my father-in-law got stopped for speeding. But last time I was here, I dropped my wife off at the Medford Mall and I had to talk very fast because the longer I talked, the more she was going to spend money. But I don't have that limitation today. I'm going to be talking about the enforcement "E," and we're just one "E" that wants to integrate into a total package to try to help keep our communities safer. We do that several ways, but before we go there... through my years as a peace officer and as the Law Enforcement Liaison, I've had the opportunity to speak to high school groups a number of times. I ask them some questions, and sometimes it sparks some pretty deep emotions. But I'll ask for a show of hands: how many know somebody that's been killed in a school shooting, a drive-by shooting, or killed by a drug-related incident? And I get some hands. But then when I ask, "How many know somebody personally who has died in a crash?" almost one-third, and then to one-half of the students raise their hands. So that tells me—I'm not a big stats guy—but that tells me that's a big deal. And we know that that's one of the number one killers of our youth. So what we have in common here together as elected officials, and myself as a previous law enforcement officer, and Officer Larson—we all took an oath to do all we could to protect those we serve. We're public servants. And why we're here today is not to tell you how you're going to do that; it's to share some options. But in the enforcement "E," it's kind of like being the parent. We hope we don't get to that point where we have to be the accountability. But you know, if you keep telling your kids "Don't do that, don't do that," but there's no accountability, they're gonna do that. So we're kind of the last resort. But we're hoping by integrating all we do as a package, it changes behavior. And as Jessica has shown, we were going up and then down; that's happened on a national level too because they have found when we take the most common violations that are contributing to death and serious injury and package them together with enforcement, with education, with the media, it has an impact on people that helps change behavior. We use enforcement we call "high visibility." We want people to see the squad cars. And then when they see the squad car and they might even make a traffic stop, all of a sudden they're going, "I just saw that commercial, I saw that billboard, I better behave. I better not text on my phone." We might not have stopped them for it, but that's a perception. One example was my tax man. He said one year, "Scott, I finally started wearing my seatbelt." I said, "What caused you to do that?" He said, "Well, first of all, my girlfriend." I said, "What were the consequences if you didn't?" He says, "I'm not going to tell you." At that time, I was a Lieutenant with the State Patrol and we were doing multi-agency saturations. And even as a police officer, I bucked against it. They were saying "Why'd you try it?" "I'm going to try it." Well, we finally went down on Riverfront, posted a squad or officer in the corner who was watching for people not wearing seatbelts, and then we had squads waiting. Well, he heard about that. He said, "I know if I don't buckle up, my day's gonna come. I'm going to get a ticket." What happened is Gary never got a ticket, but he changed his behavior. And that's kind of our goal: that by working as a group, we can change those behaviors and impact people's lives. Another thing that works in this... you're very concerned, and obviously so, because you want to be here to protect your citizens and make sure they are saved from traffic as one of those areas. But I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I'm pretty sure people in Cannon Falls travel outside the city levels. So my guess is there's a hope that there's people in other communities that are doing the same. And that's our desire. Cannon Falls has had a long history of participating in these events. My partner once talked to a city up north and they said they really didn't want to participate. And again, that's their choice. But he explained to him, "But you know, there's communities all over the state doing this. So when they leave your town, they know they're going to have the best odds for safety and traveling. Don't you think you have an obligation to do that for others coming here?" He goes, "Yeah, now it don't make sense." And that was a cop-to-cop discussion too. So that's one of the things that's been happening here as well. Goodhue County has—probably... I've been doing this for nine years. I've been retired as a cop for nine years. I know my youthful appearance kind of disguises it. But right away, Goodhue caught my attention because they have a very cohesive group of working together to try to have that impact, not just here but throughout the county. And then as people travel through your various main routes to help keep it safe. Now, and I want to make it very clear, if you have any questions, please ask. Because you have every right and an obligation to ask if you have questions about if we're going to be in this. We want to know this. So please ask those questions. But one thing... if you notice, I like to use humor in some ways, it's probably to cover up a lot of hurt I developed over the years. Because as a cop for 33 years, I saw a lot that I wouldn't wish on anybody. And there was nights I would come home and... I've forgotten how bad it feels, but some of those still haunt me to this day. But I remember going home many times thinking I couldn't feel any worse than I do, and I would sometimes even weep for days because of the experiences I had to see and the things I had to tell people and what I had to deal with. And when I think of all that, the goal here is not to have a program; the goal here is to save lives. And then we select programs that have the best impact. And that's why we work with Jessica and all the "Es" to do that. We're just the one in the corner doing that. And there's one other thing that they have done here, and you might have questions about that too, but sometimes they move throughout the county and a select group will work that area. So when we look at all our enforcement priorities—believe it or not, law enforcement has a lot on their plate. They have a lot of top priorities. But from what I explained, I think we all agree traffic safety and the safety of communities is one of them. Their resources are minimal and probably more—and it's not a requirement—but Goodhue County has used this compact agreement where they can move around and do this type of enforcement. Now, if you have questions about that, please ask. Not everybody does it; some do. And they have found whatever helps the best. But what I try to compare it to is like having a drug task force—another one of those priorities of safety in our community—but not enough resources. So we share those resources and they move around within the county or within the task force to help accomplish that. That's one thing they've done here. Another thing I've seen them do is over the years, the "move over" violations. Again, they worked as a group and I've used Goodhue County as an example of how you can work together to help save those or make it safe for those that work on the road—not just law enforcement, but your utility workers, EMS, fire that are out on the highway working. So again, this is a total package. Enforcement is one corner, but we want to work with all the "Es" and even more so, we want to work with local government officials so we can come together and see how can we best help each other to keep your community safe. And when your people leave your community to travel elsewhere... I was just seeing one more example. When I first started with high visibility, the goal is kind of to have less tickets. The more they see the cops, the more they know what's going on, the more behavior changes. Yet I remember when I first started this about eight years ago, there was a DWI saturation where they targeted the Afton area. And the cops came to me and said, "Sorry, Scott, we weren't very successful. We didn't arrest any drivers." I said, "Well, did you make some stops?" "Yeah, when we first got there we stopped a few cars, everybody knew we were there." 100% success. Because we had no crashes, we had no drunk drivers, couldn't find one. And that's what we're looking for: that high visibility to prevention. But there's those people that—I'm going to admit—everything doesn't work, so we are going to stop and deal with that as well. I talk a lot, but I just want to say I'm very passionate and I love your city. I love the people. I've driven out of my way from Mankato to your clinics because it's a beautiful town. One day I came through, you had music in the park playing, I just pulled over and enjoyed that a little bit. I haven't been able to enjoy your winery, but that's on my wife's list too. I enjoy your community. I thank you for letting me speak. Thank you. [22:10] **Jessica Sayed:** And then another way of working together not only as a county but as a region is everybody should have received the "save the date" on May 6th. Wednesday, May 6th, we are having our Southeast Minnesota Toward Zero Death workshop at the International Event Center in Rochester. TZD also coordinates some safety activities throughout the county and here are a few of the ones that we've done here in Cannon Falls. We have a bunch of them coming up for the rest of the year as well. Another aspect of TZD that we do here locally is facilitate our Goodhue County Fatal and Serious Injury Crash Review Committee. The committee includes representatives from all four "Es" and the purpose is to identify patterns that contributed to recent crashes and therefore the fatalities and serious injuries that occurred from those so that we can determine specific actions that we can take as a coalition to help prevent similar crashes in the future. And with that, our goal is zero. And we need your help because zero is attainable, but it takes all of us working together to achieve that. So thank you very much for your time today and allowing us to present. [23:31] **Mayor John Altaf:** It looks like a big crash fire truck. I did... with the law on "no cell" or hands-on, are you seeing it? I know I see all kinds of people still doing it, but has that helped a little bit in accidents there? [23:41] **Scott McKay:** You know, I haven't seen the crash stats. I know when they implemented this in New York and there was another state that our law was modeled after, their first year they saw a 10 percent reduction in fatalities right away. So we're going after a model that we saw work. The other thing is it doesn't necessarily stop the distraction, but it gives law enforcement a tool to deal with it. Before it was very difficult to make one of those citations stick. You know, it's one of those violations when you do stop somebody and give them the ticket, they go, "Yeah, you're right." You know, we all agree but we do it. The law allows a one-touch to make a call, but if you pick it up in your hand... And I remember, we all make some mistakes. My brother called, my wife was talking to him... "Well, here, here's your brother." Talk to my driving through my phone. Behavior gives you a great excuse not to answer your phone. [24:55] **Officer Paul Larson:** Yes. Yep. And August will be a year. So at that point, then we'll be able to tell a little bit. But August will be a year of that law. More to your question, what we've seen... initially right after the law came out, no one was using their phone. But now people I pull over, it's kind of the same things: "I totally forgot" or that "emergency" aspect. But for a statute, it's call 911. Someone's like, "Oh, I just had to get ahold of my sister really quick." Well, that's not an emergency. [25:15] **Council Member Bill:** Still got people not using your seatbelts? How is that? [25:35] **Officer Paul Larson:** Believe it or not, we've got people still speeding. The first fine is something like $75 and then additional court charges, but the next one is like $350. They really hammered that second time. [25:35] **Council Member Bill:** How many do you see around town here? [26:00] **Officer Paul Larson:** Um, I'll say within a week we maybe stop three to five. A lot of times now we're getting to where people were driving and texting and kind of doing this when it was legal—now it's hands-free, so it's worse in a way. And then as law enforcement, it's a little harder for us too; they're just looking down and say "Oh no, I was looking at something else." It can be a little harder for us to probe. [26:00] **Scott McKay:** Well, I got to tell you what I'm passionate about. Okay, maybe you figured I'm old. But when I see you have officers like this with this type of dedication and passion for what they do... and I think your Chief's getting old too. But when we see young people like this coming along, it just thrills me to see this as the kind of people that are serving our community. [26:49] **Mayor John Altaf:** Well, thank you. Thank you. [26:49] **Scott McKay:** Thank you. And if any questions ever do come up, don't hesitate. You get my email from the Chief or Paul. I’d be more than glad to come back. I just love her by St. Claire and Mankato... it's not too far. Thanks. [26:55] **Mayor John Altaf:** Okay, we'll move to the consent agenda. Consent agenda items may be adopted under one motion as presented or may be removed for discussion. The resolution is council business for you in the audience at home. I'll go through the consent agenda. Item A: the just and correct claims for the accounting period ending December 31st, 2019. Item B: the just and correct claims for the accounting period ending February 13th, 2020. Item C: minutes for the January 28th, 2020 City Council work session. Item D: minutes for the February 4th, 2020 City Council work session. Item E: minutes for the February 4th, 2020 City Council meeting. Item F: approving ownership transfer of liquor license to Rancho Loco Bar and Grill. Item G: Resolution 2465 accepting a 500-dollar grant from Renewing the Countryside for the Farmers Market. Item H: contracted police services. Item I: hire a Maintenance One operator. Item J: Resolution 2466 accepting a thousand-dollar grant from the USDA administered by Renewing the Countryside for the Farmers Market. Item K: Resolution 2467 accepting a thousand-dollar grant for the Farmers Market. Is there anything the council would like to pull down? [29:06] **Council Member Bill:** Item H. Contracted police services. I think we'll put that as the first order of council business. [29:06] **Mayor John Altaf:** That'll be A1. Okay, is there anything else council would like to pull down? If not, I accept a motion to approve the consent agenda minus Item H. [29:54] **Council Member Morris:** So moved. [29:54] **Council Member Derek:** Second. [29:54] **Mayor John Altaf:** Motion by Morris, a second by Derek to approve the consent agenda minus Item H. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. All right, opposed? Carried. We'll move on to council business. Item 1A is contracted police services. Bill, you pulled that down. [29:54] **Council Member Bill:** Yeah. In the past, I've stated my view that I'm not real in favor of having our officers do these contracting services. The city gets nothing out of it and I believe there still is some liability, although I know this is addressed in a little bit. There are so many questions on this. We all received an email from a citizen detailing a lot of questions that have never been answered on that. But I just believe it's—we should just shouldn't be doing this. It would be a lot simpler just to stop doing contracted services. What's the opinion of the winery? Do they need the services? What communication... [31:11] **Dave Murphy (Interim City Administrator):** So, I talked with Anne shortly after this conversation started. She indicated that they wanted to continue to use the services, they find value in it, they're hoping the city would continue it. [31:11] **Council Member Bill:** Did you show them the new sentence or paragraph here that got added? [31:11] **Dave Murphy (Interim City Administrator):** No. [31:11] **Council Member Bill:** So you don't know if they're in favor of that or not? [31:31] **Dave Murphy (Interim City Administrator):** No. From what she indicated was: "Just once you figure out what you want, send us the contract." They've had no problems with their service. They appreciate being able to hire officers for their events. They don't anticipate problems; they have us there proactively to prevent any issues that could occur. To them, it's the cost of doing business. I doubt if any change in price or terms is going to really impact their decisions. [32:14] **Mayor John Altaf:** Do your officers want to do that job, or is it...? [32:14] **Dave Murphy (Interim City Administrator):** We have Paul in the lobby. If you give me a second, I'll grab him. He’s the Union Steward; he'd probably be able to answer that. [32:38] **Officer Paul Larson:** Paul, we've been talking about the services right at the winery. [32:38] **Mayor John Altaf:** Oh yes, and do your officers want to do that job? Is it burdensome for you to work the extra hours, or how do you feel? [32:38] **Officer Paul Larson:** Every officer is a little bit different. We had an officer—I looked at the stats from the last three or four years—we had one, he left, but one year he worked like 14 of them. He had a wedding coming up, so he was saving up for that. But we distribute it about as evenly as we can. This past year was a little bit different. In my four and a half years here, it was weird. An officer out on approved leave, one who had a new baby, one whose husband was deployed, one part-timer who was working almost full-time day shift, and another one who works a full-time job along with this. So you take those five people right there and it's tough to always fill that spot. But as a group, yeah, we still enjoy it. We like doing it; we like being able to be there for the winery. I know it's a big tourist attraction and we want people there to feel safe. Something to think about: if they have a contract security company, their only ability is to trespass people from that property, and we're getting called there anyways. There's been a lot of write-ups in the paper and I saw it on the news too, and it concerned the Minneapolis Police. They have a problem that their officers were putting in a lot of off-duty time; they didn't have a policy and they were putting in the equivalent of three days besides their 40 hours a week as on-duty, and the fatigue thing came in. But that is pretty much the case here. [34:10] **Mayor John Altaf:** And that was one of the reasons why we wanted to look at constructing this as controlled by the city, so that we would know what they're working, how often. If the winery said "We want somebody seven nights a week," we'd be able to tell them that doesn't work for us, prioritizing nights that you want us there. Looking in the last four years: 35, 32, 37, and 43 total events. And that's from about end of April until whatever the wedding season is. Last year, I think they didn't really start until into May and all the way into November. So you know, it just is one of those things. Sometimes it's Friday, sometimes it's Saturday, sometimes it's both. Last year there weren't too many both; it was either one night or the other. [35:30] **Mayor John Altaf:** How do you arrive at that rate? What is it, 72...? [35:30] **Dave Murphy (Interim City Administrator):** What we did was we took the overtime rate for the top-end officer, which is effectively where we were last year. We took the administrative costs—Social Security, Medicare. Michelle had given us the numbers, the percentages of multipliers, and then we can factor all that out. And then I talked to Sarah to determine how much administrative time she puts into billing it out, and then we took her rate of pay at that amount of time and added that to it. And so that is how we came to it. I think it was 72. [35:30] **Mayor John Altaf:** Is that the same rate she had last year? [35:30] **Dave Murphy (Interim City Administrator):** It's about ten dollars more than that. [36:16] **Council Member Bill:** Ten dollars more. I guess my feelings are, I don't want to tell an off-duty policeman if he wants to do it... I mean feel free. But you know, this liability thing comes in. I think maybe we address... [36:31] **Dave Murphy (Interim City Administrator):** Yeah, the liability component—we checked with the League. They said that already this type of activity doesn't really have any more potential liability for us than the officers working other than that the officers would be working more. The types of events that they would expect to be involved in, the duty officers would potentially be involved in. So they said it really didn't matter. Our rates don't go up as a city; they've already factored what the risks are associated with operating a police department, and this is just already included in that. [36:31] **Council Member Bill:** But if someone was injured, our rates would go up after that potentially? [37:48] **Dave Murphy (Interim City Administrator):** It would depend. A comp claim could result in a change of indexing because they use a five-year average for that. So if we have someone who was injured significantly, yep. But the same thing happens relative to a regular patrol duty too. Right? In this way, we're providing a service that businesses or other entities may need; they're footing the bill rather than taking resources away from the rest of the community. [37:48] **Council Member Bill:** This policy also talks about that—the Chief, you seem to have the ultimate power in all this. If an officer is on sick leave, light duty, or injured or whatever and can't work for the city, you still have the power to approve them to do that duty at the winery? [38:18] **Police Chief Jeff McCormick:** In theory, yes. In reality, likely not. Because what we don't want to do is create... they can't be on vacation and do it. We don't want to create a situation of "double dipping." It just doesn't look good; the optics on it are not very good. Now, does that mean that there's something that could happen that we wouldn't consider? Could they do some part of it? Maybe. But it would have to be a pretty special, pretty significant event for us to look at that. And that's something that Dave and I talked about too. Like, if I'm out on paternity leave for two weeks and a church comes and says "We want someone," okay, for that day, then I'm gonna come off my paternity leave to fill this because it makes the most sense and other officers can't do it. So it's a very minute, small example of it. But right in there, we have that we need. In case we do—with an agency of only six full-time patrol officers—we want to be able to provide that to the community and not let it go to waste. [39:20] **Mayor John Altaf:** But say, not using that example, if you're out on leave or something and then do take a day, does that create more headaches for payroll? [39:20] **Police Chief Jeff McCormick:** Payroll... yeah, it would because he would be knowing what he was getting paid for it. [39:20] **Dave Murphy (Interim City Administrator):** Payroll gets done anyway on a two-week period. Sarah codes it; it really wouldn't have much of a difference because she inputs—if you've ever done payroll... we could get her here. I've asked her, she says she keys in everything that day. So if somebody's sick, she keys in sick. If somebody's on vacation, she keys in vacation. It's not like she does it differently because of any other status. Everything gets keyed in every pay period. [40:06] **Council Member Bill:** Well, I asked about this a couple weeks ago—the cost. And you said you've addressed it and what it is, but there's loss of productivity here too, whether it's for a payroll person or you or Joel. And again, that's why it's built into that number. But you guys blew me off last time like "well, it only takes a couple of seconds." [40:06] **Dave Murphy (Interim City Administrator):** I'm sorry, I’m not really blowing you off, but it's answering your question literally. It does; it only takes a couple of seconds on some of this stuff. The payroll side might be more, which is why we asked Sarah what it is to input it and then what it is to invoice it. [40:54] **Council Member Bill:** But I still think the amount... the potential, however small, like a chance of someone getting hurt on that duty. I just don't think it's worth it for our department to do that. That's my thought and I'm gonna make a motion that we... well no, unless there's still more discussion to be had. I'm gonna make a motion that we no longer engage in these—what's the word I want to use—contracted services with our police force. [41:43] **Council Member Steve:** Second. [41:43] **Mayor John Altaf:** Motion has been made and seconded. Any discussion? [41:58] **Police Chief Jeff McCormick:** Well, yeah... are you considering leaving town right under this proposal? And I'm not sure I follow your question... Oh, are you going to Treasure Island? Well, that was discussed at one meeting and it never was. I just want to clear that up. I raised the issue and I said if we're gonna look at something like that, we should build it into the policy. Now, it would have to come before council because there'd be a separate contract or mutual agreement for those services. We would not roll that in as part of this. But the policy has components to that. And the only reason we did that was to delineate because we've got this agreement that businesses would sign. If we had a Prairie Island type situation, that would be a local or tribal government that would initiate a request for contracting by contacting the Chief of Police, and then we would enter into an agreement for whatever those contracted services are. It just allows if Treasure Island or the Prairie Island community wanted to hire officers, or Red Wing had something that they needed a bunch of officers for, that provision is within this policy to allow that to occur. A good example would be the National Republican Convention when it was here; they put out a request statewide for officers. That would be that type of situation because they were then contracting with the city to provide X number of bodies. [44:05] **Mayor John Altaf:** That being said, if this is agreed upon, you still have to come to the council? [44:05] **Police Chief Jeff McCormick:** Yes, that would not be just blanket, it's done. No. Every agreement that we would enter into with any other local or tribal government would come back before this body before it would be approved and initiated. [44:57] **Council Member Morris:** There's been a motion made and seconded to discontinue the contracted police services. Is there any other discussion? I don't want them to... I mean, it's an opportunity for you guys to get some extra money. I don't know, I'm kind of tore up on it. But you gotta make money too. To me, this doesn't cost us anything if the officers want to take their weekend off to go do it. So be it. It shows some goodwill to the winery and the community. It also shows the officers some goodwill from us that, you know, "Hey, if you want to go make a couple hundred bucks on the weekend... go for it." [45:43] **Council Member Bill:** I wouldn't mind if they were not associated with the city of Cannon Falls. Like if they decided they were gonna go work at Treasure Island or go out of town where we are not responsible, that I might be able to live with. But the example that the Mayor brought up before of being able to control what they do on their time—knowing where they're at here at the winery versus having a separate job and working all those extra hours and then getting tired and making mistakes on the job that would cost the city more. [46:40] **Officer Paul Larson:** I think it's a good relationship. One thing with the liability: say we're not working there anymore and they do hire a company or they don't hire anybody and we get calls there—we're still responding. Because if we have a security company, like I said, the best they can do is trespass, and for that to happen, they’re still calling us. So if they have someone who has too many fireballs at the wedding reception and wants them removed, it's us showing up. And who do you want handling that? A police officer who has been trained in that and knows how to de-escalate the situation, who has a relationship with the winery, the bartenders, the manager, the staff there? Or someone who is coming in from a security company that's about 19 years old, going through a school program, or has never found a cop job and now they get to play "big bad bouncer" for the night? [47:15] **Council Member Bill:** Well, it's no different than if you have to show up at another place in town. [47:15] **Officer Paul Larson:** Right, so the liability is the same. [48:01] **Police Chief Jeff McCormick:** I think one of the things, you know, as Paul's alluding to... Mayor, in one of your other hats with the Fair Board... now, the Fair Board has had private security coming in, but they ultimately end up having to call us to deal with things that are beyond them. And what that does is it takes away on-duty resources. This is designed so if an event knows they want officer services, they are paying for it. They're dedicating an officer to that event so that it's not taking away officers from other things that are occurring in the city. It seems to me like a win-win. Paul's right—one of the things that the officers end up doing while they're working that event is just talking to people. And during that time, what are they doing? They're promoting our community, they're promoting our department. That type of community outreach is incredibly valuable. Whether it's somebody from out of town or not, we still want to have those contacts and they’re a benefit for not only the agency but our city. [48:47] **Council Member Bill:** You know, it's interesting... have you ever been asked to do this by Mill Street Tavern? [48:47] **Police Chief Jeff McCormick:** I don't think Mill Street has had an inquiry. We had an inquiry, I think, from the VFW for a wedding that they were concerned about; ultimately that didn't end up happening. [48:47] **Council Member Bill:** But you know, like Mill Street is big in the class reunions and all that. I mean, any place that serves alcohol's got this issue, this potential issue. I guess where I'm coming from is I don't understand, I don't see the compelling need to be doing this. You've never had an incident, right? You've never had... [49:34] **Police Chief Jeff McCormick:** Hold on, the winery... the winery could have said after not having a year of incidents, "We don't want to spend the money anymore." What they've told me is "We don't mind spending the money. We find it valuable." Because it's been a benefit for us when there have been problems. Somebody needed to be talked to, their staff didn't have to worry about watching them, the officer could watch them. If they had a wedding that had a lot of high-value gifts, they let us know, and then we can keep an extra eye on that vehicle. A lot of times we're having to move it up so that we can keep an eye on it in front of the place. [50:19] **Council Member Bill:** What I'm getting at more is, if we do this with the winery, remember it's not just the winery. I know you guys keep locking up on this, but let's say that now Artisan Plaza comes to you for 20 events a year, and the brewery comes to you for 20 events a year, and Mill Street Tavern comes to you for every class reunion—including my very raucous class the other year that had one. How are we ever gonna think about staffing these? [50:19] **Police Chief Jeff McCormick:** In those situations, yep, we would have to deal with those first-come, first-served. And if they needed three officers in one weekend, we might be able to do that; it would just depend on the weekend. [51:04] **Council Member Steve:** You mentioned the fair earlier. It made me wonder: we have the fire department there for the derbies. What's our relationship with that? Do they pay us for them or do they volunteer? [51:04] **Mayor John Altaf:** I think we make a contribution to the fire department... I mean, it's a similar situation. We also have our EMTs at the football games, but I'm sure the school pays for the ambulance. Football could hit the windshield and crack the windshield, you know. But we've hired security out of Rochester one year to do the security at the demolition derbies. I’m somewhat like Jeff—if they have to be called anyhow... [51:50] **Council Member Morris:** You know, the city loans out other departments to community events all the time, and to me this isn't a difference. [51:50] **Council Member Derek:** No, they're different. [52:36] **Police Chief Jeff McCormick:** One of the things is we've been doing it for five years and I think we've got a pretty good track record of these events without any issues. Granted, yep, they could happen, but I could walk out this door and trip on the mat and get injured. So I mean, the "what if this happened, what if that happened"—I don't think those are really things to worry about. They're something to consider certainly, but I think the same moment you could say, "Well, what if nothing ever happens?" We try our best to minimize things. When the officers are working these events, they're not there to try to get into fights. They may happen, but just as easily it can happen at Mill Street or at Brewster's because they don't have anything. [53:22] **Council Member Morris:** You recalled the one at the VFW that they were worried about—never materialized, but yep, they were worried. You know, we had another wedding that was going to be in a neighborhood and they considered hiring us just to help with controlling parking. [54:10] **Council Member Morris:** I want to call the question. Well, I was about to ask Morris if he wanted me to withdraw my motion... It’s a motion on the floor, though. [54:10] **Council Member Morris:** Well, that's fine. We can call the question now. Everybody else... we've got some new stuff and maybe we just have to try it out later, see how it really goes. Which I think it will. Now, you're okay with a one-year trial? [54:10] **Council Member Bill:** One year, see. Okay. Well, in that case, fine. I will withdraw my motion. [54:55] **Council Member Morris:** Do you want to make a motion then? Yeah, we'll maybe wait for one year and just kind of, you know, off and on just listen, because maybe we need to make a few changes in the wording or something. [54:55] **Dave Murphy (Interim City Administrator):** Well, I think the agreement that we have for you is certainly more in-depth. From the feedback I got from Roger as I included in the memo, he had one sentence he wanted to have added, and it was added to it. The policy is more concise, addresses essentially four components: outside employment, contracted services, officer interviews, and volunteer activities. And essentially what we're spending our time focusing on is contracted services, which again isn't just the winery; it could be any business, right? And we may not have any this year. I mean, the winery could say that they thought about it and we don't want to do it. We have no idea. I didn't go back to ask them. She just indicated, "When you get the stuff, send it to us." [56:27] **Mayor John Altaf:** And I'll ask it just one more time because this is really my biggest issue: we are not obligated to fill these? [56:27] **Dave Murphy (Interim City Administrator):** No. And in fact, a shift that's filled could be pulled because we have—let's use a tornado for example. The winery might have had a generator, but we need the bodies somewhere else. And then there's no liability to us for having canceled it. The agreement is written... I asked Roger to look at that component just to make sure they can't say, "Well, you didn't have somebody here, now our bartender got hurt, you owe us money." Exactly right. [57:14] **Officer Paul Larson:** I bring something up while you're still talking... I heard rumors around town about Jeff padding his wallet with this winery stuff. You look at the last four years... Jeff last year worked nine. And I gave you a lot of reasons why: we had almost half the patrol force that couldn't fill those shifts. Years before that: four, two, and two. So when you look at it, we get the list in about April and all the patrol officers sign up for what you want. When it's about that week before, that's when Jeff sends out the email and says, "Hey, there's one on Friday, did anyone pick it up?" And I’ve got family plans, Christine's out camping—that's when he picks it up. So when he got nine shifts last year, it was because half of our patrol force was out on something and the other half was working that week. [58:01] **Council Member Bill:** Well, and that kind of plays into my question because I just wanted to make sure that he wasn't taking all these shifts because we have to fill them. [58:01] **Officer Paul Larson:** They get first shot. As Paul alluded to it, they're bidding it in April for stuff in November. A wedding can happen, so if they can't fill it, we try to find an officer that can. Then Joel or I... this past summer Joel had a lot of other things personally going on, he didn't have the ability. If you look at the numbers Paul had, Joel usually beats me by one shift. Historically this was just an odd year because of the strain our staff was under. We did a great job of getting everything covered; those were just things we weren't able to get as covered. [58:48] **Mayor John Altaf:** So your motion is to accept the renewed contract service agreement for one year? [58:48] **Council Member Morris:** One year. Is there a second to that? [58:48] **Council Member Bill:** Go ahead, yes. This year. [58:48] **Mayor John Altaf:** Calendar year? [58:48] **Dave Murphy (Interim City Administrator):** Yes, because we're gonna have to set a rate next year anyway and it'll come back before you guys, whether it's as a whole component or just "Hey, do you want to continue to do this? Here's the rate we'd be charging for 2021." The way things are, it's not a big deal if it's done in December or January. Ideally, we would want to know what the wages are. So I may just ask you guys to continue this component until that's finalized. The only thing I would add is that this has been part of a larger component, not just the contracted police services but also the policy. The request I was requesting from you guys would be the approval of the contracted Police Services application agreement and department policy. What I would ask is if you're going to do this for one year, would be to separate those into two things: approve the contracted Police Services application and agreement to be used for the year 2020, and then approve the other policy so that that doesn't terminate at the end of 2020. [59:33] **Council Member Morris:** I'll go with that. [59:33] **Mayor John Altaf:** Okay, so you've got a motion to approve the contracted police services for 2020. Is there a second to that motion? [59:33] **Council Member Steve:** Second. [59:33] **Mayor John Altaf:** Second by Steve to approve the contracted police services agreement for one year, 2020. Any other discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? (Two opposed). It passes. Is there a motion to accept the police policy? [1:00:21] **Council Member Matson:** I'll make a motion to approve the policy. [1:00:21] **Council Member Morris:** I'll second. [1:00:21] **Mayor John Altaf:** Second by Morris to approve the policy. Is there any discussion on that? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? (Four to two). That passes. Thank you, Paul. [1:00:21] **Mayor John Altaf:** Okay, let's move on. Council business Item A: the City Administrator position. Dave, you want to lead us into that? [1:01:06] **Dave Murphy (Interim City Administrator):** Since the City Council interviewed Neil Jensen as a candidate for the City Administrator position, the Mayor and I were authorized to initiate contract conversation with Mr. Jensen, which we have done. Earlier this evening at a work session meeting of the City Council, we reviewed the employment agreement, and it's that document that I'll just overview tonight for the council and the public. I'm just going to go in order of the way that the contract is written. This contract would begin, if it's approved tonight, on the 23rd of March 2020. That would be the day that Mr. Jensen would arrive for full-time employment. The agreement relative to terms, benefits, and salary is consistent with the last several contracts for city administrators. Specifically with respect to health and dental insurance, like many contracts of this type, the insurance would be paid by the city. Specifically in this case for Mr. Jensen, because his wife currently provides health insurance for his family, that would continue to be in place here, which would save the city significant money. Within the agreement, there's specific language that details that relationship. Vacation holidays are consistent with every other employee in the city. Mr. Jensen is coming from Zumbrota with 30 days vacation per year; that's the same allowance offered here. For 2020, Mr. Jensen has asked for 80 hours of vacation in the bank as he already has an existing vacation schedule. The salary is proposed as a Grade 20 Step 7, which under the current 2020 system would be slightly over $113,000. That salary would be subject to review following the first six months of employment. There is an additional compensation provided for a car allowance; that's something that I currently have, and Ron Johnson and Aaron Reeves also had that. There is a severance agreement provision for a six-month salary and benefit payment in the event of termination. As we talked earlier, that's a fairly consistent severance provision for agreements of this type. Finally, this contract can be continued unless terminated by one or the other party. [1:05:17] **Mayor John Altaf:** Any questions? [1:06:08] **Council Member Bill:** I'll make a motion to approve this employee agreement. [1:06:08] **Council Member Steve:** Second. [1:06:08] **Mayor John Altaf:** Motion by Bill and second by Steve to accept this City Administrator contract for Neil Jensen. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? (No). Passes 5 to 1. Okay, moving on. We've got to reschedule our March 3rd, 2020 City Council meeting—Primary Day. We want to move it up a day or move it ahead a week? I would think March 2nd, the Monday, would work because we don't want to do it on March 4th because that's during Lent Wednesday. [1:06:54] **Council Member Mary Jill:** Thank you for that. So I would suggest March 7th. When was the school board? [1:06:54] **Mayor John Altaf:** Mondays are first and third. So should we maybe move it to the second Monday or second Tuesday? [1:06:54] **Dave Murphy (Interim City Administrator):** Let me offer just for consideration—we're two weeks from now. I'm not aware at the moment of anything particularly pressing for March 3rd. So potentially if we met March 17th and not March 3rd, that might be sufficient. But as a backup, if there was a date after March 3rd that could tentatively work out... right now I'm not aware of anything specifically that has to be taken care of March 3rd. [1:07:40] **Council Member Chris Nobach:** How about Thursday the 5th? [1:08:30] **Mayor John Altaf:** Would Thursday the 5th work? [1:08:30] **Council Member Chris Nobach:** Works for me. 6:30 time of day? Yeah, it depends on the orthodontist appointment in Northfield for my daughter, how long that takes on that Thursday. [1:08:30] **Mayor John Altaf:** Would 7 o'clock be better? 6:30 is tight, but just keep it 6:30 on the 5th. Okay, motion to move the meeting to March 5th at 6:30. [1:08:30] **Council Member Bill:** So moved. [1:08:30] **Council Member Morris:** Second. [1:08:30] **Mayor John Altaf:** Motion by Bill, second by Morris to move the next council meeting to March 5th, 6:30. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Carried. Resolution 2468 authorizing a Finance Committee. Dave, you want to take that one? [1:09:15] **Dave Murphy (Interim City Administrator):** Yes. This has been kind of a work in process going back even to the goals discussion a year ago in March about the potential of setting aside a smaller group that would become more actively involved with the finances of the city. What this committee would do if it's appointed would be to deal with the annual budget, as would the full council; it's not a substitute for the full consideration of the council. It would look at utility rates and charges—well as we agreed, there's going to be either council or a Finance Committee who will actually get in and look at the year-end financial of 2019, look at all our utility funds, and have a Finance Committee do the heavy lifting in terms of really reviewing rates and charges and coming back with a recommendation. Labor contracts and negotiating strategies: we have three labor contracts that are pending for consideration this year. Capital planning and equipment needs: we've talked most recently about the swimming pool, water tower improvements, and infrastructure equipment needs. To wait until the annual budget doesn't always meet the needs of when these expenditures are pressing. Infrastructure financing plans and projects—that could be a swimming pool, but it could also be is there going to be the fifth neighborhood? The mill and overlay project—we've got the money budgeted but we don't have any specific meat on the bones for where it's going to be. Tax levy and other revenue sources—we had a good conversation through the budget sessions and ultimately found a compromise of a four percent levy increase, but it took some time to get there. Employee compensation and benefit programs—most recently we've talked about health insurance; that's not going to go away. Debt financing and financial plans—when we look at refunding opportunities and issuing new debt, this group could become more involved and educated in the overall debt structure. And professional service contracts—the Mayor mentioned this morning at the Chamber that we are sorely in need of dusting off some of our arrangements with our professional service contracts. [1:13:54] **Dave Murphy (Interim City Administrator):** Finance is not going to go away; it's going to become more complicated and more politically sensitive. I've always been of the mind that the better staff can work with council and the public to share that information, the better. Everybody wants something, and it all costs money. This resolution sets up the framework for that committee. Our code allows councils to do things like this on a committee basis. If they become a permanent standing committee, we've got to do it by ordinance. If you're going to try it and you want to keep it long-term, it would have to fall into an ordinance format at some point. [1:15:27] **Council Member Mary Jill:** And just to be clear—like all of our other committees, this is just to make recommendations? This isn't setting policy? [1:15:27] **Dave Murphy (Interim City Administrator):** No. And this isn't, in essence, replacing our Personnel Committee. [1:15:27] **Council Member Mary Jill:** Yes, with respect to Finance. [1:15:27] **Dave Murphy (Interim City Administrator):** But again, what we did in 2019 and what I presume we would do in 2020 is that we don't have a Personnel Committee any longer. If we have personnel issues that rise to the level of being potential disciplinary actions, it will be the council who will serve as a Personnel Committee. The Finance Committee would only look at the costs related to that. [1:16:17] **Council Member Bill:** I'll make a motion to approve Resolution 2468 with just one minor change. I don't think it's "Mary Jo Bringgold," I think it should be "Mary Jill." [1:16:17] **Council Member Mary Jill:** Oh no, but then I'm not responsible! Don't do it that way. [1:16:17] **Mayor John Altaf:** I’ll accept the motion with the change. Is there a second? [1:16:17] **Council Member Steve:** Second. [1:16:17] **Mayor John Altaf:** Motion by Bill, second by Steve to approve Resolution 2468 authorizing the Finance Committee. Any other discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Carried. Okay, moving on. Reports. Kyle, you have something for us tonight? [1:17:04] **Kyle (Chamber of Commerce):** Always the "Kyle moment." Actually, I think you guys need me for the lightening up of this meeting. I like to smile and laugh! All right, the Chamber doesn't have our big events during this time of year, however, our business recognition luncheon was last Tuesday. We had Darryl Thompson, the Minnesota golfer and Green Bay Packers person—wonderful speaker. We had between 60 and 65 people there. Then today, this morning, we had our Chamber breakfast where our Mayor John Altaf did his presentation called "State of the City." We had over 40 people here and I commend you for a very nice presentation. Tomorrow, February 19th, is the open house at the Cannon Valley Senior Center from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. to welcome Laura Bremer, their new Executive Director. On the 20th is a blood drive at First Farmers and Merchants from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Ferndale Market has a Winter Fest on February 22nd from 11:00 to 2:00. And the Rotarians are putting on a Mardi Gras right here in Cannon Falls on February 25th at Falls Landing. One last item: this weekend will be the last weekend for the Cannon Arts Board dinner theater at the Artisan Plaza. [1:20:16] **Mayor John Altaf:** Wonderful, thank you very much. Library Board, Mary Jill? [1:20:16] **Council Member Mary Jill:** They talked about bylaws. It was not exciting. So, yeah, there wasn't a lot. [1:21:01] **Mayor John Altaf:** EDA met on February 12th. Morris or Dave, you want to comment on that? [1:21:01] **Dave Murphy (Interim City Administrator):** The EDA approved the last remaining contract document to further facilitate the redevelopment of the Cannonball Inn. That agreement is between the Economic Development Authority and Goodhue County. I anticipate the County Board also approved the agreement tonight to deed over the ownership of the Cannonball property for $1 in exchange for jointly financing the environmental evaluation and cleanup. I will authorize ATC Dane Ralston, our consultant, to move forward with about $100,000 for the next phase of contract work to clean that property out. Also, Laura Qualey attended the meeting. She’s been working with myself and others on the Blandin grant program and the digital marketing program. We talked about the application process for individual businesses who might like to take advantage of some grant dollars for digital marketing assistance. We finalized some of the administrative details. Laura has a handful of businesses waiting to make application. [1:24:06] **Wes Anway (Utilities Supervisor):** I just got one quick thing tonight. We're gonna be doing some work in an alley just east of the post office, so we're gonna be shutting that down Thursday. We’ll try to keep the mailbox open so you can still use it, but just keep that in mind. [1:24:06] **Mayor John Altaf:** I think we should set up a Public Works meeting pretty soon. We’ve got to talk about the trail down at Hannah’s Bend and Marcy French has got something with "I Bike Cannon Falls." Maybe first part of March. Chief? [1:25:39] **Police Chief Jeff McCormick:** We are just continuing to watch the weather. People have been actually pretty good this year. When Public Works is going to be out, they let us know, and the officers go out and try to get the roads cleared. We've been able to get out from 9:00 to 11:00 trying to get people that may have forgotten to move their cars. [1:26:30] **Council Member Steve:** A couple things. Wes, again you guys are doing a terrific job. I get up early going in the morning and everything seems to be done already. Is anybody interested in revisiting the fee structure for the downtown Farmers Market? I've been getting some requests and calls about that. [1:27:21] **Dave Murphy (Interim City Administrator):** The council is going to be asked to deal with the downtown Farmers Market permit issue. Last year's permit was for 2019; there needs to be a permit issued for 2020. So there will be a need to have a conversation, either at a work session or full council. [1:28:07] **Council Member Mary Jill:** I do have something of great importance. It says here on the upcoming meeting schedule that there's a Joint Powers Trail Board meeting on Tuesday, February 25th. That is not correct. They scale back their meetings in the wintertime. So the next meeting is on the most sacred day of the year: March 24th. That's my birthday. And Bill's birthday, but he's much older. [1:28:56] **Council Member Morris:** I wanted to congratulate the Bombers girl high kick team for going on to State. I think you finished... they tied for third, and so they actually came in fourth as far as it goes. But they should have been second! We're proud of them. [1:30:42] **Mayor John Altaf:** Motion to adjourn? [1:30:42] **Council Member Morris:** Second. [1:30:42] **Mayor John Altaf:** All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Carried.