This transcript appears to be from a **White Bear Lake City Council** meeting. Based on the context of the dialogue and the officials mentioned (Ramsey County Attorney John Choi, Public Works Director Paul Kauppi, etc.), I have identified the speakers and formatted the transcript accordingly. *** **[00:00] Mayor Dan Lewis:** You got the ship. [Applause] I got 6:59. It's off by a minute. This is wrong. 6:59. Heidi's on time across the street. Spring concert, oh yeah. I just saw, just walked by, people are flooding. Would you do a sprint? I did. I need to get a ride. And you, Edberg, Strand... all right. Full complement. Will you please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance? **[00:35] Group:** 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, with liberty and justice for all. **[00:50] Mayor Dan Lewis:** Everyone's had a chance to review the minutes from the May 10th meeting. If everyone's good with it, I'd entertain a motion to approve the minutes. **[00:58] Council Member Bill Walsh:** So moved. **[01:00] Mayor Dan Lewis:** I have a motion, a second? All those in favor of approving the minutes from May 10th say aye. **[01:05] Council Members:** Aye. **[01:06] Mayor Dan Lewis:** Any opposed? Motion carries. The minutes pass. Moving on to Item 3, adoption of the agenda. Any additions or amendments to the agenda that anyone has? Seeing none, I'd entertain a motion to adopt the agenda. **[01:15] Council Member:** Second. **[01:17] Mayor Dan Lewis:** I have a motion, a second. All those in favor say aye. **[01:20] Council Members:** Aye. **[01:21] Mayor Dan Lewis:** Any opposed? We have an agenda. Moving on to Item 4, the consent agenda. I'd entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. **[01:28] Council Member:** Move to approve. **[01:30] Mayor Dan Lewis:** A motion, a second. All those in favor of approving the consent agenda say aye. **[01:35] Council Members:** Aye. **[01:36] Mayor Dan Lewis:** Any opposed? Consent carries. **[01:38] Council Member Bill Walsh:** I really wanted to remove Item D from the agenda just to hear you say that word in that sense. [Laughter] **[01:43] Mayor Dan Lewis:** Yeah, yeah. Well, Bill, you missed your opportunity, so I don't have to pronounce it. So, we'll plug right on. And with that, we'll move on to Item 5a. We're joined by Ramsey County Attorney John Choi. If you wouldn't mind joining us, and I'll turn the floor over to you. I understand you have a presentation for us and then I think after we might have a couple of questions for you. But with that, please jump right in. **[02:10] John Choi (Ramsey County Attorney):** Thank you, Mr. Mayor and members of the Council. Thank you so much for the invitation to be here with you today to talk a little bit about some public safety trends and crime in our county. I don't know if we have a clicker or someone's going to click for me? Oh, thank you very much. I'll just tell you when the next slide is. You know, in this community across Ramsey County, we have had—we are experiencing things that we just haven't experienced for quite some time, and the level of fear and sense of safety is diminishing. The first thing I want to do is acknowledge that and recognize that this conversation that we're going to have tonight, I want to take you through some of the information and the data that I have. What I see is that—I’m not on the front lines. My office isn't necessarily on the front lines in actually responding to situations in which incidents are occurring, but when we do, then a case is presented to us and then what we do is we can respond. One of the things that I want to first talk a little bit about is that—if we could just click to the next slide—I want to talk a little bit about referral data and charging data. This is, again, I can't do anything about the incidents that are happening in our community until and such time we have a full investigation. One of the things that I think we've been talking a lot about is the carjackings that are happening in our community, right? One of the things that people don't talk about is the fact that we only have a 30% clearance rate for those types of incidents. So an incident occurs, but we don't actually catch the suspects; we don't know who the suspects are. In Minneapolis, it's a lot worse—it's about 10%. And so there's a lot of things that are happening in our community right now, one of which is that—and I think this is an important conversation for all of you to have and I want the Chief to hear this as well—is that we have to make certain that we have enough police officers to do the investigation so that when these cases are presented to our office, that we can actually do something about it. The next slide I think is going to show just historically—and this just goes back to 2017—about the adult cases that we have. But this top line, the red line, references the cases that we get submitted to our office. This is all broken down on a monthly basis. And then the blue line references the charges. This is just generally every case, all the way from homicide all the way down to—for the adult cases it would be just the felonies. The pink period is where the pandemic period starts, which would be about March of 2020. For the most part, the numbers of cases coming into our office have actually just increased a tad bit, but the numbers of cases that we're charging remain about generally the same. If we go to the next slide... interestingly here, and this is the one that I find the most fascinating because this is where some of our challenges are: this is with regard to referral data and charging data with respect to youth crimes. Under the age of 18, I have jurisdiction over all of those crimes. Again, the pink area is the pandemic period, but we've had a dramatic drop of referrals—cases coming into our office—starting in about March of 2020. I think there's a lot of reasons for that, one of which is I think we've struggled in many ways, whether we're just having enough police officers—if we think about this time period, we've had civil unrest, all of those things—and so I think a lot of these cases have just dramatically dropped. Now, if we specifically hone in on some of the specific crimes... next slide. We talked a little bit about carjacking. We didn't count carjackings before. We now do; it wasn't "a thing" prior to the pandemic. But the way that it would come into our office, it would be on a probable cause of motor vehicle theft and some form of an aggravated robbery. But as you can see, specifically when it gets to more serious, more violent crime, the top line is the adult cases, the bottom line are the youth cases. As you can see, there's a very tight gap between referral and charging because we prioritize those types of offenses. Next slide real quickly... Aggravated robbery. We see some weird things that are happening during the pandemic on the youth cases, but we're trying to respond as best we can. And then on the adult side, you can see the line is very, very tight in terms of the difference between referral and charging data. Next slide. This is just some data about—and again, I want to make sure you understand this is not crime data, this is just data that I get in terms of what comes into our office. But again, the red line represents what is referred to us for potential prosecution. And by the way, if we don't prosecute a case, it's not because there might be a policy involved, but it's not because we don't want to; it's because there's not enough evidence to prove that case beyond a reasonable doubt. I know that none of you would want us to be prosecuting people if we didn't have sufficient evidence. Next frame. Now there has been some discussion about, you know, are there certain policies that are in place that would prohibit the county attorneys from charging particular cases? One of which is, at the onset of the pandemic, I have a fifth-degree drug possession policy. It's something that I've always felt from the moment I became county attorney: that those drug possession cases are the lowest priority for me on the adult side, and I don't really believe that the criminal justice system is a place where we get the best outcomes for these types of situations. So I do have a policy in place that was enacted, I believe, in spring of 2020. As you can see, those referral and charge numbers have dramatically dropped. But as you can see, I also have a public safety exception, as we've been working with the police to respond to some of the livability issues, especially in downtown Saint Paul, where we are charging some more of those cases and working collaboratively with the police. Next slide real quick. This just gives you an idea of what our overall charging rate has been in the county attorney's office. I became County Attorney in 2011. Before being County Attorney, the charging rate was about 49% on average. It's been steady at about somewhere between 55 to 65%. Next slide. Here are some of the issues that I think are really critical about what's driving some of these issues. I think it requires deeper conversation beyond the conversation that we're having here, but I want people to just flag these issues. Next slide. For sure, without a doubt, across this country, large metropolitan jurisdictions have had an increase in violent crime. Next slide. One of the hot issues obviously is carjackings. As you can see, we've had a... we've been doing a lot of work trying to work collaboratively with the Sheriff's Office. We've got a CAT team in place working with the prosecutor, working with specifically the Sheriff's Office which is working throughout the county around some of the responses. But our worst months were in January and February of 2021, and that's when we started really having some really serious conversations. I think what happens is that in the moments of stress, it's really easy—and it would be really easy for me—to blame somebody else. And so then you've got everybody deflecting and saying the issue or the solution is over here. Really what it is is that we all need to really come together and start working on some of these issues. In the background, we started meeting on a regular basis back in February, March, April [2021], and we've been meeting ever since. It's been a collection of our law enforcement leaders including our Sheriff, as well as the police chief in St. Paul, and now we've included suburban chiefs. Chief Erica Scheider is representing the suburban chiefs in that particular discussion. We also have the Mayor of Saint Paul and the county manager, county commissioners, and we also have Marylee Abrams, the Mayor of Maplewood, who is now representing the suburban interest. And so through those conversations, we've had a really just a better understanding of what's going on and actually getting to real solutions. Next slide. If you're wondering why this is all happening, this is not isolated to here in Minnesota or just in our community. This is happening across the country. I think a lot of it has to do with the pandemic; there is a connection with insecurity and crime, the civil unrest, and decreased trust in police. If you think about the policing challenges that we've had, we've had scores of police that have retired and that aren't on the job, and the police are having a difficult time filling those positions. That's a real issue, and I have a very vested interest in that because we're never going to get to good investigations coming to my office to be able to do something about it unless we have enough police officers. And then also too, I think we have to have a conversation about just the proliferation of guns that end up legally manufactured but at some point, there's an illegal transfer that's happening. Next slide. These are three issues that I want all of you to, if you can, please engage me in the conversation. At the legislature, it's, from my perspective, a bipartisan mess. They can't agree on anything. The Democrats talk about A, B, and C for justice and safety, and the Republicans talk about X, Y, and Z. There is no public safety or justice type of solution that has come forward from the legislature. But the good news is there's one thing that has happened: they've heard the pleas of law enforcement and county attorneys across the state to say that we really need to work on these "gap cases." Because a lot of people, especially now during the pandemic period, people have been found to be incompetent to stand trial. That means that I can't prosecute them because they don't understand what's going on. If the judge finds that, I have to suspend my prosecution. We will seek to commit them into some form of a hospital institution, but the problem is that the standard for that versus the incompetence—which is a temporary thing—doesn't match up. And so we have scores and scores of people who can't be held in custody, and I can't do anything about it in terms of prosecuting them. This issue has been around since probably about 2019 when the State of Minnesota pulled their "restoration to competency" program. Но this year, this one thing that happened that is good for public safety at the legislature is that the Republicans and Democrats agreed on actually funding a bill to the tune of about 30 million dollars. It is a bill that everybody agrees with in terms of providing that framework to how to handle these types of situations. So I'm really optimistic about that. On the issue of cash bail, I think a lot of people don't understand that in the wake of George Floyd's murder, there was a little non-profit organization called the Minnesota Freedom Fund that raised 36 million dollars. Well, what do you think that they did with that money? The organization was there to bail out people who had low-level bails at $78, but they were bailing people out on an average of 11,000 dollars bail, sometimes as high as 75,000 dollars in Hennepin County and Ramsey County. That had a huge impact. I think they've spent around 15 million dollars according to our analysis. There's a greater and broader conversation about the inequity of our current cash bail system. I don't believe that we should just replace it... we got to replace it with something. We can't just have a bumper sticker that says "end cash bail" because that's really not a solution. Another issue: people have talked about Boys Totem Town closing in Ramsey County. I didn't make that decision; the commissioners did, right before the pandemic. But there were a lot of reasons why they wanted to do that. They weren't getting the outcomes at Boys Totem Town that we wanted. There were some issues there, as well as some other placements where they were having "fight club" amongst the young people that were there—it wasn't good. So they made the decision to close Boys Totem Town. What can we do instead? What we agreed on was that the solution would be to have intensive therapeutic residential type of placements outside the home in which you cannot leave. This is very expensive—like a hundred thousand dollars per kid. I would argue that it's actually cost-effective because if we can avoid that kid being in prison and hurting more people, that's money well spent. I am absolutely confident that if we can get a bonding bill, Ramsey County will be funded to do these "MIT homes." This is the only bill around safety and justice that has bipartisan support. I just recently had a meeting with Representative Kurt Daudt as well as the Speaker together and we talked about this issue. That is a real solution that is going to make a huge difference because all the judges, if you ask them, they will say that we need more options. We've got Red Wing on one end and then we've got electronic home monitoring on the other, and we've got some placements in the middle, but we can never get our kids placed oftentimes because the placement says "we're full" or "we don't want your kid." Next slide. That's the Violence Reduction Leadership Group that I've talked about. This is the one in which Representative—Mayor Marylee Abrams as well as Chief Erica Scheider from Roseville—is representing and working with your Chief, Julie Swanson, to bring the issues to the table to really have a common diagnosis and understanding of the issues and challenges. Next slide. The carjacking and auto theft team (CAT team) out of the Sheriff's Office is working regionally. We decided together that we would apply for some grants; we got them. Since September of this past year, we've been working on that. We'll be the first jurisdiction in the country to actually employ something called "focused deterrence" strategies around carjackings because we think we actually know who some of these young kids are. People don't realize that if you're in Red Wing, you're gonna probably get out within six months to a year; that's just the way the correctional system operates. But if we just kind of know that they're involved, what we do is something called a "custom notification" where police, working together with community and partnerships with the Black Ministerial Alliance, provide a moral voice. They say, "Hey listen, we think you are involved in this type of activity. We need it to stop. If you don't, we're with these guys [law enforcement], but we want you to be free, we want you to be alive." We have real tangible, sincere offers of service that would be 24/7. Thanks to Representative McCollum, she was able to successfully get us a 900,000 dollar appropriation to help provide the technical assistance. Last slide. I want to leave you with this: this is our most important policy that we have in our office. We prioritize violent behavior and we do everything that we can to prove the highest provable offense. With that, I'll stop because I was told I only had 20 minutes. I was just in Maplewood about two weeks ago and it took me about 40 or 50 minutes to get through it, so I was trying to hurry. **[20:10] Mayor Dan Lewis:** No, you're right on time. I appreciate that and I think we do have a couple questions. I'm going to kick things off. I would like to talk about non-public safety traffic stops. I don't know if you are aware, but the city has taken the position that we are *not* in favor of non-public safety traffic stops—excuse me—I think we've taken the position that if the legislature says it's a violation of the law to hang an air freshener on your mirror, you can be pulled over for that. If the legislature says you need to have two working taillights, you can be pulled over for that. Our position further is if you pull someone over because they're violating the law and that leads to a more substantial charge—whether it be seeing contraband, drugs, a weapon in plain sight, or if there's reasonable suspicion to dig a little bit deeper—I find it deeply troubling that if an officer does their job and is able to effectively stop a crime or see a crime, to know that the prosecuting attorney's office is not going to then take the handoff and do their job and make sure that the bad guy is put in jail and that justice is done. Isn't that demoralizing to our police officers that are trying to serve us safely day in and day out? **[21:40] John Choi:** Mayor, thank you for that question. So the first thing is that stopping somebody on a probable cause with one of these non-public safety traffic stops is completely legal. That's in a Supreme Court case, nine-nothing decision. But I want to make this absolutely clear: I'm not telling the police what they can or can't do. What I'm saying is that I have the ability, through prosecutorial discretion, to say what kind of cases am I going to prioritize. Through this policy, I've worked with the chiefs. Not every chief is with me in this jurisdiction, but St. Paul is, Roseville very much is, Maplewood is taking steps in that direction and others are as well. And I do have a public safety exception. So if the police want to do that, they certainly can because it's completely legal. But if they present the case to me, they're going to have to make the case that this case is so important that I should prosecute it. There's an exception to the general policy. But what I'm trying to say is that for these low-level non-public safety stops, first of all, I haven't found any data—and I challenge anybody to give me the data or the research—that would tell me that these traffic stops are actually effective. I know that there's anecdotal evidence that, yes, in one case you would have found the contraband. But I haven't seen any data that says that with regard to weapons it's effective more than 2% of the time. Where in America would we ever allow industry to perpetuate a practice that's only 2% good? I don't want to perpetuate this because what I know within that 98% is there's a lot of racial disparity that I just don't want to incentivize nor do I want to perpetuate. For me, what I'm saying is: listen, I'm going to make it a little bit harder for you to get that case charged. You can do whatever you want, but I think that the criminal justice system has to be worthy of its name to everybody in this community. "Driving while Black" is a real thing. The data tells us so and the stories of people tell us so. In my community where I live, in Highland Park in Saint Paul, Black motorists are subject to being pulled over four times more than others. They're also subject to consent searches more than anybody else, but yet they find less contraband on Black motorists. This is an important conversation. It's nuanced and it deserves conversation and thinking about it from the perspective of those who've been the most impacted by this type of policing. I used to be a prosecutor that believed that it was all good. I was a city attorney in St. Paul; I said, "Yeah, absolutely." We actually did trainings to help police ask the right question to say "can I search your vehicle?" Но if you think about that—would anybody here say "no" to an officer if they ask if they could search their vehicle? The feeling that people get when they've been suspected of criminal conduct when there is none... we have to think about that group of people. I did this after George Floyd. I had lots of meetings with lots of chiefs across this county, numerous ones with Sheriff Fletcher and Chief Axtell. At the end of the day, Chief Axtell was standing where his department was standing with me, and so was Roseville. Another important piece of this: we announced this policy on September 8th. I have yet to receive one case from anybody in this jurisdiction that would implicate that policy. Maybe it's working. Maybe we're figuring out some ways to think about doing things differently. We have the Justice Innovation Lab at George Washington University that's going to come in and pull all the data and look at the traffic stops and see if actually there was an impact around public safety. And I'll be the first to tell you if we negatively impacted it, we'll change it. **[26:50] Mayor Dan Lewis:** I appreciate that and I do understand the basic thesis of the policy. You mentioned a couple things. One was that effectively law enforcement has to "prove that this case is worthy of charging." The issue that I take with that is if you have two like cases—let's call it a fourth-degree drug charge—and one stems from a non-public safety traffic stop and one is discovered through other means, the notion that they're both not equal crimes and that both criminals are not equally criminal subject to the same penalties... To not charge both of those crimes because one emanated from a lawful stop—a violation of the law that the legislature has codified and through a means that the Supreme Court has said is okay—how is that acceptable? How does that serve justice? **[27:40] John Choi:** Because I believe that I have the discretion to have these policies in place and what I'm trying to do is actually try to find a better version of justice for everybody. **[27:50] Mayor Dan Lewis:** Since September when this policy was implemented, you have not seen it implicated. Now, do you make room for the possibility that because of this policy it has stifled proactive law enforcement and as a corollary we're seeing crime go up? **[28:10] John Choi:** I don't think it has. I don't think Chief [Swanson]—I mean you can speak for yourself—but I don't think she told her police not to, and I don't think other jurisdictions in this county have. **[28:20] Mayor Dan Lewis:** They read the paper, though. I mean, they don't need the Chief to tell them. To that point, cops are intelligent people and they know that if they say, "That car looks suspicious regardless of who the driver is and what the race is," and they're a good cop, a proactive cop, their taillight's out, I'm going to pull the vehicle over. If they know that if that suspicion leads to a charge—a discovery of a crime—that your office will *not* charge, that does by definition necessarily stifle good active policing, does it not? **[28:50] John Choi:** What I'm talking about—let's be really clear—I'm talking about six offenses. If your only probable cause to pull somebody over is because something is dangling from their windshield or if they have an expired tab, I think that that type of probable cause is not the type of probable cause that we should be looking for. **[29:10] Mayor Dan Lewis:** But it is no doubt a violation of the law. You don't dispute that they can pull someone over? **[29:15] John Choi:** Yeah, they can absolutely. **[29:18] Mayor Dan Lewis:** If others on the Council have questions specific to this, I'm going to ask that you hold them because I want to march through a couple of things. **[29:25] Council Member Kevin Edberg:** Just a legal question if I could, Mr. Mayor? This isn't really so much about the policy, but how you get there. You said you have prosecutorial discretion, but prosecutorial discretion to me means, "I'm going to charge this one, I'm not going to charge that one." But when you apply it to a whole class of crimes like you've done, that's not discretion; that's a blanket "I'm not going to do it." So you've lost your discretion. How do you sort that legally out? Because I would think the legislature would say no, you're not being discrete on this—the whole class is the same. **[30:05] John Choi:** Well, Councilmember, it's not a whole class. There is a public safety exception. **[30:10] Council Member Kevin Edberg:** So that's how you sort of get through it? With your public safety exception? **[30:15] John Choi:** Absolutely. **[30:16] Mayor Dan Lewis:** I'd like to talk a little bit about sensible sentencing and restorative justice. While I understand the spirit of it, what I'm concerned about is that we look out so much for the criminal that we lose sight of the victim, the one who we really should be protecting. What are we doing to help provide support to victims? What are we saying to victims that say, "I was the victim of this crime," and because of restorative justice or lack of prosecuting in the first place, the person who victimized me is just going free? **[30:50] John Choi:** That's a really blanket generalization, Mr. Mayor, about that someone would go free. If you could clarify, like in what context would you be talking about? **[31:00] Mayor Dan Lewis:** In the name of restorative justice, you correct me if I'm wrong, it pivots less towards jail time and more towards allowing someone to have a second chance, if you will. But either way, to be back on the street—we'll just call it that. So if you're the victim of a crime, a sensible person says, "I was wronged, the bad guy went to jail." That seems like justice. "I was wronged, the bad guy has to go through X but is back on the street and still has his freedom." That's the context I'm talking about. **[31:35] John Choi:** Thank you for that clarification. So let's talk about those cases. We are a "guideline state." So if it's a case that involves murder, some sort of serious assault, we have the guidelines grid. Severity is here, criminal history points are here. What people don't realize is that guidelines grid cuts right in half. If it's in a place where it says "no prison," it's for sure going to be no prison. And if it says prison, I could assure you it's going to be prison. The criminal justice system in the State of Minnesota is probably one of the most predictable things in terms of if somebody actually is supposed to go to prison. When we might negotiate something, the conversation always starts with the grid. There's nothing that deviates from that. But in the vast majority of cases—auto theft, things like that—those are also very predictable. It's going to be some term of probation, probably three years, community service, supervision. **[33:10] Mayor Dan Lewis:** So you acknowledge that in any case there are mitigating factors and aggravating factors, and there is broad discretion. Courts often look to the prosecution. If it were so rigid, we wouldn't have a need for sentencing hearings. So in the name of restorative justice, we can start recommending downward, which is more leniency. **[33:35] John Choi:** Mr. Mayor, we don't recommend downward unless there's like some reason that might get the plea deal done. People should understand that the sentencing hearing in many instances is predetermined because less than two or three percent of the cases actually get tried. We don't have enough judges or courtrooms. For the most part, it's going to be within the guidelines. But talk about the youth cases. You stole something. What we traditionally would do is petition the case into the youth justice system. That will take time. The young person wasn't going to be arrested or even accepted by the juvenile detention facility. So you've got anywhere between 6 to 12 days for investigation, and then it would take us about the same time to decide whether the case should be diverted or petitioned. If we do petition it, another 30 or 40 days go by before the first hearing. Often times young people don't even know what's happening. And then it results in either an adjudication (a guilty plea) or a "stay of adjudication," meaning we're not going to put this on your record if you remain law-abiding for a year. Is that really getting to the outcome that we all want? I think the outcome we want is to figure out a way to make the victim whole and we want the behavior to stop. I'm not so certain that the traditional system actually works. I think the definition of insanity is to do things over and over again but to expect different results. I think it's high time that we're skeptical about the criminal justice system and ask ourselves: how do we get what it is that we really want? Maybe up here we could figure out a way to do some restorative justice programming. How can we map out who they are—because positive and caring adults are the most important thing for kids. **[38:15] Mayor Dan Lewis:** I agree they do. The last question I have for you: I have talked to a lot of people in the community—private citizens, business owners—and the constant complaint, point of frustration, is there seems to be repeat offenders over and over and over again. People wondering, "Why aren't they in jail?" I'll give you one example in the context of theft. Typically it's an enhanceable offense, but the sentences run concurrent, so you've effectively incentivized someone to continue. Automobile dealers have been hit very hard with auto theft. When I talk to the officers, it's the same narrative: "These are the same guys I arrested last week, he's back on the streets, he's doing it again." Is that because of restorative justice, a diversion program, or what? It just comes down to: are we aggressively prosecuting criminals and saying, "No, Your Honor, we're recommending a high bail because we believe there's a high rate of this person committing the crime again." That's a significant point of frustration. **[39:40] John Choi:** Well, I'd invite you into more conversations; it's really hard to have it in this format. But if we could just go back a few slides to "Issues." Somebody gets arrested, then all of a sudden they're released. Everybody in this room has a right in the State of Minnesota to have a number—meaning cash. Look, if you've got the dough, you can get out because people haven't been convicted of anything. Typically the decision the judge has to make is whether or not someone should remain in custody pending the outcome of their case, which could take up to a year. So the judge has to think about whether this person who has not been convicted of anything should remain in jail. What we have concocted in this country is a system by which it is a "wealth-based system." If you've got the money, you can post the money and get out. We also have a for-profit bail bond industry. Someone put 15 million dollars [the Minnesota Freedom Fund] into just bringing people loose. That had a huge impact on some of the repeat offenders. I had the same conversation a year ago—you give me a case number and let's go look into it. The vast majority of those cases, until more recently because the Freedom Fund has now changed their practices, we'll see it say "MFF" in our notes. That means somebody posted their 10,000 or 15,000 bail for the auto theft. Then what we're seeing more of in the pandemic is that mental illness is becoming a big driver of crime. The Rule 20 issue is a real issue. We've got people where the prosecution's suspended because we can't prosecute them because they're deemed to be incompetent. We move to civilly commit them, and the judge says "Yes." Well, we've got like 25 people in our jail right now who can't even get admission into the Anoka County Hospital because they don't have any room. They're sitting decomposing in our jail. The jails are serving as the mental health institutions for our community, and the legislature can't get anything done because they're so polarized. **[43:55] Mayor Dan Lewis:** On that note, I will take you up on your invitation because I think these are important issues and I would welcome the opportunity for you and I to sit down and discuss further. I recognize this forum only gives us so much ability to do that. I've taken up a lot of time, but I do want to reserve more time for the Council if they do have questions. **[44:20] Council Member Steven Jones:** Just clarification on the non-public safety stops. I kind of equate it to: I'm walking down the street, I get stopped walking, "can I search you?" Is that an equivalency to that? **[44:35] John Choi:** Yeah, there's some equivalency to the "stop and frisk" practices that were happening in New York. **[44:45] Council Member Steven Jones:** My clarification is: because we hear the comments—we all do—is that "well, I don't need to pay my tabs" or "I can have a broken taillight." Those still can be pulled over, no matter what jurisdiction? **[45:00] John Choi:** It's really "Part B" that you're talking about. If a driver I thought might be impaired and I smelled something, that would be reason to take that to another level. Councilmember Jones, I really want a better version of policing and I believe passionately that police are part of all of the solutions. This whole narrative about "either/or" is wrong. We just need a better version of it from everybody. Who said that the police have to be involved in enforcing license tabs? I think the best people to enforce the license tabs is the Department of Public Safety. Why does it have to be the police? **[46:35] Council Member Steven Jones:** Follow-up question, Mr. Mayor. My issue is that the government—your office, police department, teachers—everybody is being asked to do the role of parenting. And I guess I'm looking at our community going: "do your job as if you are that guardian, if you are that role model." I get it, you're working two jobs... but we as a society have caused your issues by not doing a good job raising our children. I'm looking at your office and the Chief of Police and the teacher being asked to do that job and that's not fair. **[47:45] John Choi:** In many ways, it's a product of the decisions that we have made historically. Some of these kids are living survival-based lives that we could never even imagine. They don't know where their next meal is coming from. Somehow we've got to figure out a way to break that cycle. We need more curiosity and less judgment. There are so many families out there too, a lot of good people, who have lost control of their kids and they don't know what to do. **[50:15] Mayor Dan Lewis:** Council, any other questions for Mr. Choi? **[50:20] Council Member Bill Walsh:** Well, thank you. I mean, this has been a great conversation. Let me just make an observation. I think there's a disconnect. You said "since the pandemic," but really the pandemic exacerbated a situation that with the death of George Floyd—we have to be real here—there were riots, there was unrest. I think that's bred a sense of lawlessness that we can't seem to get out from under. I think we're underwater and we're in a crisis. I think we got to stop and spend a lot more time on "stop the bad behavior." To me, that means putting bad people in jail longer. I think it's playing on itself with: "I've no accountability, nobody's going to put me in jail, I'm going to get spun out, I'm going to keep doing this." My message to you is just: let's catch up. That means tougher jail times. A lot of us are really freaked out by the revolving door right now. **[52:05] John Choi:** Thank you, Councilmember Walsh. I invite you into more conversation. I will tell you that on violent crime, our office will take the position that it should be a guideline sentence. A downward departure—we're not going to agree with that unless there is like, it's so obvious that we should be doing that. **[53:25] Mayor Dan Lewis:** Well, thank you again for being here. I appreciate it. Moving on to Item 5b, Climate Smart Municipalities German Delegation Visit Recap. Tracy Shimek? **[53:40] Tracy Shimek (Community Development Director):** Hello, Mayor, members of Council. I will try to be quick. Just here to give an update on our visit from our Climate Smart Municipality partners earlier this month. They were visiting Minnesota the first week in May and we had the opportunity to host them specifically in White Bear Lake from May 3rd to May 5th. We started our visit on the afternoon of May 3rd in Lakewood Hills. We invited a group of city officials and school district officials for a ceremonial tree planting hosted by the Mayor in honor of reciprocating a ceremonial event that happened while we were in Germany. Our German visitors included the Lüdenscheid Mayor Sebastian Wagemeyer and others. I want to take the opportunity to thank Andy Wotecki for all his hard work in organizing this. Mayor Wagemeyer was formerly a principal, so he's very interested in education. We reached out to the school district. Our morning started with a breakfast at the district center with German language students. We had the opportunity to take a hard-hat tour through the North Campus expansion. We then had the opportunity to tour the early childhood learning facility at Tamarack Nature Center. We also visited Century College and learned more about their solar and renewable energy program. Finally, I would like to take the opportunity to thank Mayor Lewis and Councilmember Jones for taking time out of their day to meet with the delegates. We had a panel about electric vehicles and a lake walk tour over to Goose Lake to talk about water management. Finally, thank you to all the partners who helped out with this visit. They are now officially "knighted" by King Boreas of the Winter Carnival. **[58:15] Council Member Kevin Edberg:** Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Working with the City Manager, I'd be interested in following up on some past action that this Council has taken with regard to our sustainable energy approaches. I'd like to plant a flag for a future conversation to explore that as a tangible way of following up on the work that we've done previously. **[58:50] Mayor Dan Lewis:** Duly noted. I think there'll be some follow-up on that. Any other questions? **[58:55] Council Member Bill Walsh:** If I could, I just wanted to say... I'd like to thank Tracy in particular. We know how much work this was for you. You're the reason that happened. **[59:15] Mayor Dan Lewis:** All right, moving on to Item 8a, resolution authorizing construction of a fence around the water treatment plant. Mr. Kauppi? **[59:25] Paul Kauppi (Public Works Director/City Engineer):** Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the Council. In 2021, we were required by the Federal Safe Drinking Water Act—there's an amendment called the America's Water Infrastructure Act—that required us to do a risk and resilience assessment. One of the outcomes was security. Our current fence is in somewhat disarray. We looked at what it would take to put a new fence with key-card access and automatic gates. We started doing research on the property line. Come to find, the fence on the west side of the property is located about 10 feet into the property, meaning it would extend the yards of the adjoining properties. We did find one property at 3368 Ebba that does have an agreement with the city that allowed them to temporarily put a fence on there. The rest of them did not have any formal agreements. Staff feels we should relocate that fence to the actual property line. Part of the reason is maintenance. The fence is right on the edge of the access drive, making it very difficult to plow. Moving that fence would allow us to have snow storage area on our property. Also, we decided the best option would be to tear down the old lime sludge lagoon building. It was an eyesore. We'd like to build a building that better matches the water treatment plant—a brick building—to house vehicles and store our pipe and hydrants inside. **[01:03:00] Mayor Dan Lewis:** Replacing the fence and moving it 10 feet over is necessary to secure our water treatment plant and for the logistics of snow plowing? **[01:03:10] Paul Kauppi:** That is correct. **[01:03:15] Mayor Dan Lewis:** I see this as pretty cut-and-dry in that it's our property. I will give anyone who wants to speak two minutes. Please state your name and address. **[01:03:30] Robert Sharer (Resident):** We live at the northern edge of that property. There are two relatively large trees there. I was wondering, if you're going to move it 10 feet, will you need to remove those trees? **[01:03:45] Paul Kauppi:** As long as it does not interfere with the construction of the fence and they are not unhealthy, we would propose to leave them in place. We may actually even plant additional trees or shrubbery to provide additional screening. **[01:04:15] Resident (Unnamed):** I’m from 3416 Ebba Street. I was told when the fence was going to be moved, that the city would move our full six-foot privacy fence back to the property line. I haven't heard anything mentioned of that. **[01:04:45] Paul Kauppi:** We would propose that we would cut those side-yard fences off as a courtesy as we move ours back 10 feet. In respect to 3416 Ebba, we would move that one back with ours as well. **[01:05:15] Pat Callahan (Resident):** 3408 Ebba. Is there some documentation of the 10 feet? A survey report that can be available to the public? **[01:05:30] Paul Kauppi:** We did have our city surveyor out there. It's a perfectly straight line based on the plat. We have it marked with wooden lath. We'd be happy to meet with any resident out on site and show you the pins. **[01:06:20] Resident (Unnamed):** I've been living on that street since the late 60s. I've seen those trucks going in and out for 50 years. It's never been an issue where they got to change the fence. In doing so, they're going to add about 12 more feet to their property, but we've been maintaining that property all along. They're going to come in and throw up a six-foot-high fence. If they're going to put in an automated gate, I hope it's a quiet gate, because that thing will be going in and out constantly night and day. **[01:07:30] Council Member Kevin Edberg:** I'm appreciative that the city does everything in its reasonable ability to ensure that the transition goes smoothly for those folks who have maintained that property. I'm appreciative of the willingness to move the private fences back. Is the fence over by Orchard Lane to be reconstructed as well? **[01:08:15] Paul Kauppi:** Our intent is to replace the entire fence around the entire property. We would remove invasive species like buckthorn. Both gates would get automatic access. We will double-check that the gates are quiet. **[01:09:10] Council Member Bill Walsh:** I'll move approval of the resolution. I think we should protect that asset. **[01:09:30] Mayor Dan Lewis:** I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. **[01:09:35] Council Members:** Aye. **[01:09:36] Mayor Dan Lewis:** Motion carries. Moving on to Item 10a, Quarterly Sports Center Report. Mr. Juba? **[01:09:45] Brian Juba (Sports Center Manager):** Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Business has been great this year. We just wrapped up the skate show. We replaced the "Oly" (ice resurfacer); Bruce is very happy with the new machine. Also, we partnered with the hockey association to revamp the racquetball courts into their training center. They've put in a weight space, a "RapidShot" lane, and a skating treadmill. **[01:11:15] Council Member Steven Jones:** Red or black on the numbers? **[01:11:20] Brian Juba:** It typically does run in the red. One more item, Mr. Mayor: I received some bittersweet news that Kara Coustry is moving on to a different position. This will be her last City Council meeting. She's worked with three city managers. She was an integral part of the 2016 election and managed our meetings during the pandemic on Zoom. Kara, thank you very much. **[01:12:30] Kara Coustry (City Clerk):** Thank you. It's been my real honor and pleasure to serve the City of White Bear Lake. It's like leaving family. Thank you. **[01:12:45] Mayor Dan Lewis:** I'm sorry to see you go. We wish you the very best in your next endeavor. All right, I will entertain a motion to adjourn. **[01:13:00] Council Member:** So moved. **[01:13:05] Mayor Dan Lewis:** All those in favor say aye. We're adjourned.