[0:02] Speaker 1: copied you or having you copied on theous about what it is how it goes up you go curious about what it is how it goes up what you go to one of these otherwise works hasy and Mike L duties if I don't will I be Shing my duties if I don't go I mean I trust that [0:30] Speaker 2: yep so the implementation thing is really anytime any law enforcement calls for it showing up um Public Works is there to you know those the implementation team is there to load it up on trailers get it set up assemble it [0:47] Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff so more of an awareness for you than anything expain you gotten any umed [1:14] [Music] [1:23] Speaker 2: about we all the time [1:36] Speaker 1: is good I want to do [1:49] Speaker 2: it so popular what they do I was actually wondering if we if it was [2:16] Speaker 1: without you didn't [Laughter] [2:27] Speaker 2: complain do one more double check and I'll give you a thumbs up wow that's a [2:44] Speaker 1: kill Lake well but a lot of people a lot of people put in on on [2:58] Mayor: though all right we're going to call the meeting to order will the clerk please note those in attendance [3:01] City Clerk: all will be noted with the exception of council member angran who is excused for the evening [3:06] Mayor: very good will you please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance [3:10] All: 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 [3:23] Mayor: all right I trust everyone's had a chance to review the minutes from the regular city council meeting on September 26th if so I'd entertain a motion to approve the minutes [3:32] Council Member: move to approve [3:33] Council Member: second [3:34] Mayor: I have a motion to Second all those in favor say I [3:43] All: I [3:44] Mayor: any opposed minutes are approved item three adoption of the agenda we will be removing item 7A resolution regarding school resource officer agreement with the whitee Lake Area Schools so with that one Amendment are there any other Corrections or amendments to the agenda seeing none I'd entertain a motion to adopt the agenda [4:05] Council Member: second [4:06] Mayor: I have a motion to Second all those in favor say I [4:10] All: I [4:11] Mayor: any opposed we have an agenda item four consent agenda I'd entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda anybody at all do I have a second [4:20] Council Member: second [4:21] Mayor: I have a motion to Second all those in favor say I [4:24] All: I [4:25] Mayor: any opposed motion carries the consent agenda is approved item five the minute should know with enthusiasm emphasis added item five visitors and presentations we have the swearing in of a new police officer and our biannual Police Department report so with that Chief Hager if you can please take it away [4:39] Chief Hager: thank you Mr Mayor members of the council thank you for the opportunity to share uh our newest police officer tonight with you as we celebrate with he and his family and friends uh as he takes his oath of office officer Dan Swinson was welcomed to the white beer Lake Police Department as a patrol officer on September 11th of this year Dan is one of our own he was born here born and raised here in the city of Whitebear Lake he graduated from whiteb Lake High School and he later graduated from bethle University he then in furtherance to uh as a desire to become a police officer he attended Sentry College to obtain his law enforcement certificate Dan's first exposure to law enforcement was when he volunteered for our department in 2007 he worked both as a reserve and as a part-time Community Service Officer for White Bear Lake for four years during that time he not only worked as an employee for us but he volunteered over 1100 hours for the white be Lake Community Dan started um stated that uh while serving as a reserve he thought he was doing something meaningful for his community and it lit a spark in him which led him to become a police officer Dan was first hired as a police officer by the Prairie Island Police Department where he served a total of 10 years his time working for this Department located on a large reservation here in Minnesota provided him with some very valuable and unique experiences which has served him well over his career Dan left the Prairie Island police department and transition to metrotransit Police Department where he served for two years during his time there he worked through some very tough trying times in our nation's history of law enforcement to include complications brought on by coid and protests and riots in Minneapolis these experience also left a mark on Dan and gave him experiences some of us thankfully will never have Dan left Metro Transit in 2021 and returned to Prairie Island Police Department where he helped fill um some gaps in their Staffing shortages through his time in law enforcement for the past 10 years Dan has also worked for the southern Minnesota Regional medical examiner office and most recently served as the lead death investigator again a unique experience that uh will make him very valuable to our department he's very excited to come back home to Whitebear Lake he's grateful for the opportunity to work in his home Hometown with his unique and plentiful experiences to draw upon I can tell you that we're also very grateful that we coaxed him back to the city as well he also has like I'll just say it a really incredible voice like you'll hear him when he stands here he's got a combination between like a radio DJ and and Darth Vader I'm not sure what it is but it's really awesome to hear him speak you guys will experience it today uh he's joined today by many of his family members his mentors his friends including uh his parents and our former police chief Julie Swanson who's also served as a mentor for um for Dan we we're grateful for that and then of course um uh by Becky who will be pinning on his badge tonight uh Dan would you come up front and our city clerk will um issue your oath of office [7:42] City Clerk: all right please raise your right hand and repeat after me I state your name [7:48] Officer Dan Swinson: I Dan Swinson [7:49] City Clerk: do solemnly swear [7:50] Officer Dan Swinson: do solemnly swear [7:51] City Clerk: that I will support [7:52] Officer Dan Swinson: that I will support [7:53] City Clerk: the Constitution of the United States [7:55] Officer Dan Swinson: the Constitution of the United States [7:57] City Clerk: and the state of Minnesota [7:59] Officer Dan Swinson: and the state of Minnesota [8:01] City Clerk: and will discharge [8:02] Officer Dan Swinson: and will discharge [8:03] City Clerk: and Faithfully execute [8:04] Officer Dan Swinson: and Faithfully execute [8:06] City Clerk: the duties devolving upon me [8:08] Officer Dan Swinson: the duties devolving upon me [8:10] City Clerk: as a police officer for the city of white Fair Lake [8:18] Officer Dan Swinson: as a police officer for the city of white Fair Lake [8:22] City Clerk: without fear or favor [8:24] Officer Dan Swinson: without fear or favor [8:26] City Clerk: to the best of my judgment and ability [8:28] Officer Dan Swinson: to the best of my judgement and ability [8:30] [Music] [Applause] [8:58] Mayor: congratulations [9:15] Chief Hager: Dan and his family and friends will leave and uh we'll go back to the police department and we'll continue on so go ahead [9:25] Mayor: very good [9:42] Council Member: the crowd is kind of thinned out move to adjourn only staff left [9:47] Mayor: all right all right Chief whenever you're ready with the report proceed [9:51] Chief Hager: that's right we got our thank you Mayors uh mayor members of the council um I was told that I might be the only thing on the agenda tonight I said it would just take 50 or 60 minutes here and you guys will be out of here [9:58] Mayor: stretch it out we appreciate that [10:00] Chief Hager: yeah thank you for having U me here I've had a pretty active first 40 days or so on the job and I'm just really grateful um City manager's office and for the leaders that are sitting before me here that kind of help me um ease me into this position I'm really grateful to you and all my staff for that so this is my department uh family this was the most recent picture we had sitting right exactly where you are right now um earlier this year as you can see former Chief Swanson uh is still in that picture and mostly that depicts our department um save just a few officers who we have hired recently um this is our current um Department staffing issues that we have or current Department staff um I've put pictures of our leadership team there because they're the ones that really helped me out here in the last 40 days or so and um I can say that of course we have a chief of police we have one Captain uh we will have one to take my spot eventually here when we get a little bit more Staffing u a little more secure in our staffing we have four sergeants we have 16 police officers I should say at the bottom there um we currently have 24 28 sworn police officers U working for our city we're we're authorized for 31 but as you see there one captain we're missing one there out of the 16 Patrol officers we soon will have four on um we have three now injured we will soon have four injured so that is a total of seven that were down out of the 31 additionally we have two officers who are on fto right now so they're training so do they count as officers don't they they ride two to a car so you know really out of 31 we're about eight down um which is taken its toll not saying it for any reason you guys can't do anything about it you've done you've been nothing but supportive of us through this entire time we have four community service officers we'll hire one very soon um we have four administrative staff records and evidence body camera uh body warn cameras and digital media um Personnel so that's what our staff currently looks like uh we have four patrols uh teams each one of them are led by a sergeant you can see here's some pictures a couple of them are dated I think one of those one of those is now a school resource officer but our um the shifts we work you're either a Sunday Monday Tuesday car um or your Wednesday Thursday Friday car and then you're every other Saturday and if you're um a day shift you work somewhere around um 600 or 7 in the morning to somewhere around 5 or 6 or 7:00 at night so they're about 11 and 1 half hour shifts um um you know we're we're at minimums now sometimes we're a little below minimums because of our staffing issues um but that in a perfect world uh we would have four officers and one Sergeant on each shift our investigative uh staff uh includes for the most part the folks on the screen here we have three adult criminal investigators and they work um for lack of a better term Bankers hours uh we have two juvenile uh investigators or SRO and they work generally they work school hours and then we have one um investigator not pictured here on the violent crime uh enforcement team and um we're relatively staffed up there although we have had an injury in this area and we'll be one light there as well our staffing changes this year uh include all the people that you've sworn in so far in 2023 to include Dan there we haven't had an official picture of him so I made him stand there and get his picture taken so I could put him back up there then hold him make him hold me numbers right that kind of what it looks like um so anyway I think this is a we we have a really great run of officers right here I think that I'm really proud of how these um have turned out more than a few of these are my former students uh which just makes me even more proud but the story of Our Lives over the last 6 months have been construction as as you can see um our side of um you know the city buildings are are torn apart have been we're the department that's kind of living through it we're just moving around from room to room as they do their construction um and but the good news is is this week last week and this week we started to move back into the 1990s building we were the last 8 months or so living in the 1960s building and uh we've moved into the 1990s building and and um we're extremely happy about it these are just some pictures of some of the rooms that we've um already kind of taken over some of them will be permanent some of them are temporary until the other building then goes through their facelift and then we'll go back into that building just more examples of how we've kind of occupied some of the space here you see on the bottom left there that's our conference room that's a space where we just stuck Three Investigators to work out of the same office there um and then we had our Patrol room there on the bottom right um that's where all of our cops are in that room at some point in time during the day but for the most part all the other rooms are that's the way they'll look um moving forward and we're really grateful really excited about this project we all every time we have just a little bit of a hiccup in our department due to construction um we just kind of have to remind ourselves that this will end and it'll be great when it's over and we'll park indoors and everything is just going to work out a lot better so we're certainly grateful to all of you here for that um just a little background I think you know this about the Minnesota post board they are our the the board Minnesota excuse me the board in Minnesota that handles our training and Licensing of officers in 2023 they adopted many new rules on us and um kind of all stemming from you know some bigger picture um law enforcement and Criminal Justice Reform um activity that's happening and and they have affected us we've of course acted accordingly and made the required changes but they revolve around background investigation requirements and some discrimin discriminatory conduct um definitions uh some selection standards that have changed standards of conduct that have changed and then they've added some required policies a lot of our policies are postmand policies they're the same in every Department across the state we have to have them worded the way have uh they give it give us which we're pretty grateful for because then we know exactly what the rules are we don't have to guess so that that's changed a little bit in 23 we had to just kind of follow some new some new guidelines from them we have several Partnerships as um as you are all aware a Northeast family service Community Action Advocate Program we share an advocate with many other Suburban agencies in in the ramu County um to um kind of help us deal with some of our regular customers or people that maybe need some additional help in the area of potentially mental health or some other kind of systemic issue that they're having uh we also have a um staff on board uh Jonathan bunt um who deals helps us deal with a lot of our officer Wellness programs and mental health with officers were were extremely grateful I know you heard this last time but I know he was on board you know last January 24th when we when our department went through our struggles and uh we're so eternally grateful that he was and really kind of gave us some guidance through that we of course have officers that serve on the violent crime enforcement team as I said earlier um on the SWAT team and with the mobile Field Force we have officers that help the rest of the county in doing that we lean on the Minnesota BCA often for testing of our evidence and processing our crime scenes and then of of course we lean on Minnesota Chiefs Association and the Ramsey County Chiefs of Police Association um and just kind of sharing bre best practices and um you know I I lean on both those organizations um as well as um Public Safety commissioner um when we went through this um issue with our SRO and so it was greatly appreciated that I had um these folks to lean on we have a a pretty um active volunteer program uh to include our CER our community Emergency Response Team we've trained over a 100 people in C over the last uh six years let's say we're taking a little break because we don't have much of a building to have classes in uh this year but we'll pick that up again next year same thing with our citizens Police Academy we're taking a little bit of break there and we'll uh pick that up again Triad um and um our police reserves are still a very um active group in the city and they help us out in a variety of ways and um just a really great group of people that want to give their time um for the betterment of their community and and we we appreciate that we can help kind of foster that and and arrange for that to work out and then lastly the thing that if I had to say what we're made of here in Whitebear lake is our community engagement and uh these are just some of the things that we do I threw a few pictures on there of this year's um events and um as you can see we're all summer long we're very active I suppose um one of my uh goals uh when I was hired is that we multiply this um a great deal I know that this is a lot uh I know that our officers won't be loving the idea that I'm saying hey remember what we used to do let's double that let's let's get going let's let's do some more stuff I think we can um refocus some of our energies to um reach some people in our city that maybe don't have regular um positive interactions with police and so I'm that's my goal for this winter and next summer so with that short and sweet like I promised um if anybody has any questions or anything they'd like to add or [20:30] Mayor: thank you Chief I don't have any questions uh and before I throw it to councel I just want to say in the 40 days or so that you have been Chief I have gotten some feedback from residents and it's all been positive so um I think by and large the consensus has been that you're doing a great job and the residents feel good that you're in this position so I at least wanted to relay that to you that uh several people have reached out and it's all been positive so thank keep up the good work thank you um and with that is Council have any questions for chief council member edberg [21:13] Council Member Edberg: thank you Mr Mayor Chief um the your report on our staffing vacancies is um concerning um what are the strategies that you have available to you to uh uh address that um for example when your counterpart Chief Peterson was uh over the past year we've talked about we don't send our co uh we don't send our firefighters uh as often or as consistently outside the uh outside the community we have obligations with bramsey County and others so I don't know what those options are but um the fact that we are down as many as we are um it's a concern what strategies do you have [22:00] Chief Hager: yeah thank you Mr Mayor members of the council I um I've been lucky to work with our city manager um Crawford in kind of developing some of those strategies uh right now we're in the mode of um trying to keep this afloat and so we are circling the wagons a little bit and that we have um some investigators that um could possibly help out on the street so we are taking that's one of our options to allow to get one of our investigators on the street to help fill some shifts we're doing that um additionally we lowered our minimums this summer to um because we just simply couldn't put that many people on the street without having every shift be an overtime shift and it's just not sustainable to do that so um the thing that suffers in that is our self-initiated activity um I don't you can probably tell I don't have our statistics here in front of us and there's a few reasons for that not shame or anything like that I'm very proud of the work that our people do but this summer we um we got a new records management system and that records management system and our old one they don't play that well together and so if I were to get some statistics to kind of show some year-to-year averages and what has changed I I I was fearing that I wasn't going to be completely honest and that was the last thing that I wanted to do if I gave you some bad numbers as far as you know citations or arrests and that kind of thing I can say that um when comparing to 2022 numbers to preco numbers we're down and we're down in almost all categories um the intensity of the calls that we respond to are more serious um but the number of of self-initiated activities that we're doing is down so what we're doing as a strategy is we're um stirring the Hornets Nest less to to occupy our officer time we're circling the wagons to get more of our maybe non- Patrol officers to help out on patrol um and then we are trying some maybe some new strategies just testing them out again with the city manager's um um kind of leadership on that we're we're trying a new method of hiring to maybe get people in the door maybe a little bit more efficiently um and and maybe not lose out to other departments because it's such a competitive market right now that the slower you go to get to onboard officer excuse me officers um the more you're going to lose to other department so [24:22] Council Member Edberg: we've um I've observed more pinning Ceremonies for police officers in the past oh I don't know year or two than perhaps in the previous 12 years um that I've been on the council um can you speak to the turnover issue and it's not just turnover turnover recruitment competition um competitive advantage and hiring that whole ball of whack um where we at with that [25:03] Chief Hager: sure thank you Mr Mayor members of the council as I said earlier this is really competitive dep um Market that we're in right now um prior to I would say somewhere around 2017 or 18 the average number of departments that were hiring in the state fell somewhere around between 9 and 30 departments in the state we hiring it was uh it was down from a few years ago uh but yet you know 10ish 15 departments were hiring every day as you look on the website that contains all jobs in the state of Minnesota um last I looked is over 200 so there are U multiple agencies hiring multiple officers um with that everybody's competing against each other and everybody's battling for each other's officers um if there's any you know when I started if I just can be honest when I started you start with a department you better stay there because the likelihood that you're going to get somewhere else um is very low and if you went somewhere else you're going to start at the bottom of the totem pole again and it and it's not a great position to be in those things have changed drastically now and they're doing that specifically to attract more people um we had a few officers last year that went to the county um three officers now that went to the county and each one of them was just able to to call the position they wanted and they got it and um we can't do that which just not big enough to allow a f a one-year officer who has been working nights for one year to just call a day position and then have it we just can't do it but other bigger departments can um there was some we lost two officers to Stillwater uh last year both of them happen to live in Wisconsin across the bridge from Stillwater it's pretty hard to talk somebody away from going to next door where they can just drive across a bridge and be at work for roughly the same pay and because we're so competitive with each other you know other departments are offering exactly what they're making walking out the door here so there's very little downside to new officers leaving departments um and I think that I think that we had a string of that for a while now we haven't had somebody leave for I don't know it must be six to eight months maybe um so maybe you know that's there's an end to that there's an end in sight for that as I said this is our fifth officer that we swore in tonight if I had my uh wish we'd we' um we'd swear in three more by the end of the year but I don't think we're going to get there so possibly we'll sign swear in one more by the end of the year but most likely we'll be doing the same thing through uh the holidays and through uh spring next year and by the time they all get out back on the street in a perfect world if we get them all out on the street all of our injured people back on and we we start plowing forward that that's looking at next summer to next fall when that'll happen so a lot of things can happen between now on next summer or next fall [28:13] Council Member Edberg: Mr Mayor could I ask one last one please so Chief um being within an organization and promoted from within is both Bane and blessing uh it comes with each and um at some point what if you have any observations that you'd care to share with us about what is the status of our force and what are the emerging needs and the uh emerging opportunities threats that we need to prepare for um I'd welcome hearing about that now you may or may not want to uh or feel prepared to do that now maybe that is your next visit with us but kind of that um I'm kind of thinking that our status quo isn't going to isn't going to uh perpetuate itself very well going forward and that um from a policy and budget standpoint we need to be thinking differently no that's just one uh one council member but um is there anything that you would prefer to that you'd like to say at the moment about forces facing us and uh issues facing us [29:02] Chief Hager: sure U I'll I'll say a little bit but I'm also certainly willing to get you more information if you'd like in the future but just right off the top of my head um you know we are dealing with Mr Mayor members of the council sorry to get ahead of myself there but um we are dealing with Mental Health crisis every day and what is unique about our city having some experience from some other cities I still feel like the new guy here I've been here nine and a half years as a captain definitely feel like the new person still um and I have some familiarity with some other departments having worked in other departments and having close friends and colleagues with other departments everybody's dealing with the same thing what I really appreciate about our city is that we're tackling it we're we're taking on um you know psychiatrist psychologists uh to deal with our officers problems and we're also you know partnering with other agencies to have uh through Northeast Family Services uh Youth and Family Services to try to deal with some of our community's problems that is our future I think uh violent um behavior is moving out towards us it used to be if you're kind of a northern suburb you kind of were insulated from that some of some of the activity that's moving our way we had an officer shot last year as you're aware violence is moving out in our direct towards us in our Direction and I think um between um mental health calls and our response to it and uh the violence that's occurring on our streets and more uh continuously every day um I think that our department is handling it well in that um we're we're tackling it headon and so I appreciate that I don't know that all departments are doing that um I'm appreciative that we work so well with the city manager's office and with you folks to make sure that we have the equipment that we need um there's shortages all over the place we're short squad cars not due to anything that anybody here did but for just is they're not making squad cars like they used to we're down six right now we have to get six squad cars made and um they've already been ordered they're all set to go and they just can't catch up so there's just some potentially some issues uh on the horizon uh with Squad issues um and then you know as you you all aware we um we picked up a couple drones and we have four drone operators and that is going to be crucial for us moving forward um we're not the last ones to get them but we're not the first ones to get them we we're doing what we're supposed to do that's the future of law enforcement is drones they'll have all kinds of case law and all kinds of best practices that'll move forward over the next 10 years over drones and I know we got two and it probably took a lot to get some but I suspect they'll be knocking on your door real soon to try to get a bunch more because I think that's the future of law enforcement is drones um the community is clamoring for us to stop dealing um with certain types of cases and C certain types of people and the answer to that I think is through drones we can get out and see a problem before officers ever get unseen we can be safer that way I think that that's happening soon I won't ask yet city manager Crawford but I see day that that that's going to happen [32:41] Mayor: thank you Chief sure any other questions from the council all right thank you very much for your report all right let me March through item six public hearings we have nothing scheduled item seven we no longer have anything scheduled item eight new business nothing scheduled item nine discussion nothing scheduled item 10 communication from the city manager Miss Crawford [32:53] City Manager Crawford: thank you mayor and members of the council just a couple of upcoming events couple ribbon cuting um that I definitely would request your presence at if you are available um the walking bridge in the arts district it the ribbon cutting is Tuesday uh October 17th at 400 p.m. just a few hours prior to our work session and this bridge has been in the works for a while it connects the white bear Center for the Arts with the hanil Performing Arts Center um and so there'll be a naming um uh naming ceremony and and I believe the city clerk U give you some information on that so please come as well as uh Northeast Youth and Family Services their uh their Clinic here in white bro Lake which we the city owns that building um they are having a ribbon cutting they've made some renovation Renovations inside so that is Thursday October 19th at 3:45 p.m. and uh again just they've updated the space so please um try and come that is a very important partnership actually all everything that's listed on there are very important part Partnerships for the city so we would welcome you to join staff at at those two upcoming events and that's what I have for tonight thank you [34:11] Mayor: thank you Council any questions from Miss Crawford seeing none I would entertain a motion to adjourn [34:20] Council Member: move to adjourn [34:21] Council Member: second [34:22] Mayor: all those in favor say I we're adjourned