[0:53] Mayor Luke Hellier: Good evening. Welcome to the May 5th city council meeting. If you join me for a moment of silence in the pledge of allegiance. [1:11] Mayor Luke Hellier: 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. Okay, Ms. Orlofsky, roll call, please. [1:29] City Clerk Ann Orlofsky: Michelle Volk? [Silence] Mayor Luke Hellier? Mayor Luke Hellier: Here. City Clerk Ann Orlofsky: John Bermel? Councilmember John Bermel: Here. City Clerk Ann Orlofsky: Dan Wolter? Councilmember Dan Wolter: Here. City Clerk Ann Orlofsky: Joshua Lee? Councilmember Joshua Lee: Here. [1:29] Mayor Luke Hellier: Okay, we'll now move on to item number three. This is citizens comments. Opportunity for those here to address the council for up to three minutes. If you just come up and state your name and your address. [1:53] Katherine Kaine: Hello, I am Katherine Kaine. I live at 17358 Elwood Avenue, Lakeville. Mayor Luke Hellier: Excuse me. You can pull the mic down, honey. So it's easier to hear. All right. Thank you. Don't worry about it. Just take your time. [2:11] Katherine Kaine: Right. I might just to honor the time limit and I just have to read from my paper. So please excuse me. I just want to thank you council for having us here and serving our community. Council member Michelle Volk, thank you for your time speaking with me on the phone Thursday evening last week. I'm a registered nurse and care for people and want the best for all. Here along with my husband and some neighbors behind me as encouraged by one of the police officers who was called to our HOA property on Friday, the third time police were called in four days. We're hoping the city—here is a picture of our HOA. We're hoping the city will place no fishing signs on the pond behind our homes or at the very least on the half of the pond where homeowners in our HOA reside. Most of our homeowners are retired. Many are elderly, some disabled, and in very fragile health. We're all for kids fishing, and it was good to see at first, but now has become a source of stress and anxiety. The kids and teens trespass on our HOA private property, urinate in plain sight, and leave garbage, including a residential garbage container that was in the pond for days. Last summer, they targeted the ducks and baby ducks with their lures and threw rocks at the snapping turtles. Since the bike path was put on the other side of the pond, the foot traffic and number of kids and teens and now adults um coming onto our HOA private property, our backyards to access the pond is increasing. Along with their disrespect, they prefer the homeowner private property side. Is there a side versus the other side of the pond without homes where they could easily fish? It's a small enough pond they can and do cast across. At first, they respected our request to please fish on the other side of the pond rather than our backyards, mere feet from or close enough from our windows so they can stare in and wave and gesture at us. Now, there's a trend to stay on our HOA private property side. For an example, I got up at 6:00 one morning to see a tall male teenager outside my window staring in waving at me in my night gown. I'm not alone. Others have told me strangers stare in and wave at them. One of my neighbors is here right now had that experience. Another day, six teens alone were behind her home. And most recently, myself and another homeowner observed a young male teen pointing a cell phone at our homes, appearing to be videoing and taking pictures of us. I've got some pictures of that the teen with a cell phone and looking at us. Uh anyway, just I don't know how if these can show up very well, but—oh, I'm sorry. I can I see now they're upside down. Oh, I see. I just looked up for the first time. It's okay. So, just here's a few that would fit on there, but okay. Anyway, I think that um I did send videos of this to council member Michelle and myself and other neighbors are feeling violated and vulnerable and it makes it difficult to sleep and we're reluctant to go on our patios to water our plants and grill when there are strangers mere feet away. We feel pretty threatened, intimidated. Some of us feel like prisoners in our own homes and myself included. When we left this morning for this meeting, the dad and his son were behind our homes and he was looking in again at us and the quality of life and sense of peace and security to enjoy our own homes and our own property outside in our backyards. It seems to go downhill. We wouldn't think anyone in this room would want adult or teen strangers outside their window staring in or watching you, invading your privacy. Um we welcome you to come to our HOA to see how close the bank of the pond is to our homes and windows. Thank you for your time and your consideration. [5:35] Mayor Luke Hellier: Yeah. Thank you for coming. We'll follow up with you. Okay. I think we have contact information. Okay. Thanks for sharing. [5:52] Katherine Kaine: Thank you for having us. Mayor Luke Hellier: Okay. Any other citizens comments? Okay. Uh moving on to—oh, yeah. Go ahead. [5:52] Thomas Kaine: So, I'm Thomas Kaine, Cassie's husband. 17358 Elkwood Avenue. I just want to emphasize that we are literally only 20 ft from the edge of the pond and it's continuously they're staring in our homes waving at us. It's very intr—uh, it's violating our privacy of our home. We feel threatened by them. They're literally taking pictures of us in our own home. And I don't think any one of you—anyone in this room—would want any stranger or teenagers behind your home 20 ft—in some of the homes on the map I provided some of you are less than 20 ft—taking pictures and video of you in your own home. So I really uh would like to emphasize encourage if there's something we can do to resolve this whether it's no fishing on our half of the pond or maybe just no trespassing signs on our side of the pond but something has to be done. We've called the police three times last week. Um, including the other neighbors, just not us. So, um, if there's anything I or we can do—or I mean, there's nothing we can do other than, uh, what, uh, Joe has encouraged us to continue to call the police. Well, the police come and they say, "Well, they're on Lakeville property," but they're not always on the Lakeville property. As one of the pictures show, they're sitting on our land. They're walking across it. As Cassie described in her um in her what she was reading that they frequently access our property to get to the edge of the pond. It's we're here not because we're against kids fishing. We're here because it's violating our privacy, the quality of our life to the point where some of us are actually talking about moving and that's not how it should be. And if somebody else moves in, you're probably going to have the same problem. So, thank you for hearing us. [7:48] Mayor Luke Hellier: Okay. Thank you. Any other citizens comments? Okay. Uh, additional uh, agenda information, Mr. Miller. City Administrator Justin Miller: Nothing tonight, Mayor. Mayor Luke Hellier: Okay. We'll now move on to presentations, introductions, and I will turn over to Council Member Lee to read their Together in Peace proclamation. [8:20] Councilmember Joshua Lee: Thank you, Mayor. And if uh, if I could yield to the board of the Together in Peace uh, group to say a couple words about the upcoming event before I read this proclamation. [8:20] Jennifer Thier: I'm Jennifer Thier, the communication director. That's why they're pointing for me to go up. We are so pleased to be here and so pleased to have heard about the proclamation. We look forward to hearing it and um we are so grateful for every one of you and as I look at many of you, uh we're participating and have talked with you and have planned with you and we're grateful for your support. We are um having more people join us every day. It's really exciting. So um we're thankful for this opportunity to be here and uh Tess will just say thank you. [9:07] Tess: Thank you very much. We really do appreciate the support that we've gotten from community members but also from the city of Lakeville especially Joshua has been amazing and helping us and supporting us. And Luke, thank you. We really appreciate all the support we've gotten and the Rotary and Lions clubs everybody. Thank you. [9:07] Councilmember Joshua Lee: Do you want to remind people of the date, time, location of the event? Jennifer Thier: Yes. May 17th at Casperson Park from 12 to 3. Councilmember Joshua Lee: Very good. Thank you so much. And we hope you'll all be there. And I'm sure, by the way, this is uh coming together like this. We appreciate it, Joshua and everybody in here. So, please do come. We have free food. [9:38] Mayor Luke Hellier: We'll put that in the meeting notes. We'll put that in the meeting notes. Councilmember Joshua Lee: Council member Lee, appreciate that. Um, one thing I will add is that in addition to May 17th from 12 to 3, there are performances, free food, uh, booths to explore for kids activities. Um, so it's a full family event. Uh, so with that, uh, city of Lakeville proclamation for together in peace day. Whereas the city of Lakeville recognizes the importance of fostering peace, mutual understanding, and the belonging within our community and beyond. And whereas the United Nations has designated May 16th as the international day of living together in peace, encouraging people worldwide to promote values of peace, tolerance belonging understanding and solidarity. And whereas in alignment with this global initiative, the city of Lakeville seeks to establish together in peace day as a local day of action and reflection, ensuring that all members of our community are respected and valued. And whereas the Lakeville Rotary Club is part of an international organization that values peace as a cornerstone of its mission, the installation of Rotary Peace Poles worldwide serves as a visible reminder of our shared hope for peace, bearing the message, may peace prevail on Earth in multiple languages and locations. And whereas the city of Lakeville embraces the sense of belonging that comes from openness to others and believes in fostering strong relationships by honoring the rich cultural, religious, and ethnic traditions that contribute to the strength and vibrancy of our community. And whereas peacebuilding is a continuous effort that requires collaboration among residents businesses faith organizations, schools, and civic groups reflecting our collective commitment to unity and harmony. And whereas celebrating together in peace day on May 17, 2025 provides an opportunity for the community to come together in a meaningful way, reinforcing Lakeville's dedication to being a welcoming and inclusive city. Now, therefore, the city of Lakeville and the city council does hereby proclaim that Saturday, May 17th, 2025 shall be observed as Together in Peace Day in the city of Lakeville. Proclaimed this fifth day of May, 2025. Signed, Mayor Luke Hellier. [11:47] Mayor Luke Hellier: Thank you, Council Member Lee. We'll look forward to see you guys on the 17th. Um, okay, moving on to the next item, which is a proclamation recognizing mental health awareness month. And I'll turn over to Council Member Bermel for that. [12:33] Councilmember John Bermel: City of Lakeville proclamation for mental health awareness month. Whereas May is recognized as mental health awareness month, a time to raise awareness about mental health issues, confront discrimination, and promote understanding and resources for individuals living with mental health conditions. And whereas mental health conditions are treatable and recovery is possible with access to appropriate care, support, and resources. And whereas 988 is a critical resource in our community to help people struggling with their mental health. And whereas mental health awareness encourages us to take care of our own mental health and to reach out to friends and family who may be struggling. And whereas we strive to create a culture of care that connects physical health with mental health and treats mental health care as a right. And whereas by highlighting the importance of mental health, we empower individuals to seek support, find hope, and create lasting change in their lives. And whereas we want people to know that you are not alone. That even through a challenging times, there is hope. Now, therefore, the Lakeville City Council does hereby proclaim that May shall be observed as mental health awareness month in the city of Lakeville. proclaimed this fifth day of May 2025 and signed by Mayor Luke Hellier. [13:47] Mayor Luke Hellier: Great. Thank you, Council Member Bermel. Appreciate that. Okay. Uh moving on to item C is our police department quarterly report and I'll turn it over to our chief Brad Paulson. [14:07] Police Chief Brad Paulson: Good evening. Good evening, mayor, members of the council. I just I would like to note that I had previously committed to the uh peace event on May 17th prior to the allure of of food that was mentioned here. So don't don't misperceive my intentions when I'm there uh on that date, but looking forward to to May 17th. Here tonight to present our quarter 1 report from covering the months of January to March of of this year. And as stated, the Lakeville Police Department exists to ensure an excellent quality of life in Lakeville by serving and protecting in a professional and innovative way. And I'm hopeful and confident you'll find uh plenty of examples of that as we uh move through the presentation tonight. Uh starting with some new faces in the police department. Uh in January, we hired Melissa Rupert as a police officer. She comes to us from the Washington County Sheriff's Office. She was working as a correctional officer there for a number of years. also a member of the United States Air Force Reserve and she is just winding down her her field training uh portion right now. In addition, uh Nick Navo formerly joined as a police officer in March. You may have seen Nick's picture up here before heard his name. He was one of or he was our first uh grant recipient on the ICO grant, the intensive comprehensive peace officer education and training grant. kind of a mouthful there, but again, that provides up to $50,000 reimbursement for an agency to uh employ this individual and pay for tuition at Hennepin County while they finish up schooling to become a police officer. So, he has a uh an education in criminal justice and uh homeland security, emergency management, as you can see there, uh but had some hurdles to to getting that kind of the final step to to being licensed. So, he is uh in our field training program now and doing well. a promotion. Uh in March, Tom Danielson uh was was officially promoted to sergeant. He's been with Lakeville PD for 14 years. Spent four years with the Prairie Island Tribal Police before that. Uh Tom has a number of those years as a K9 handler. We had Kilo in here uh back in March in recognition of of his service. Uh Tom's been a union steward for a number of years and as you can see in the bottom bullet there, he's trained at least to our count 25 officers as a field training officer. So, uh, if someone's going to make a stamp on an organization, that's a great way to do it. Uh, bringing in new new hires and getting them, uh, trained and on board in those first several months. So, he's, uh, had his hand in a lot of those. And as mentioned before, Kilo posing so nicely there for his retirement photo. Uh, serving nine years with Lakeville. Last official day was March 2nd. Uh, he will continue to live with his handler, Sergeant Danielson. Sergeant Danielson lives on a nice uh, property with a lot of room to run and Kilo's had plenty of time to do that and has enjoyed not going into work the next day. So, enjoying retirement. Circling back to our grant program. So, Nick Navo was our first. We have uh, two more going through the program right now. Uh, Josh Enavald and Megan Karp were hired and started school at Hennepin County Technical College the end of February. They will wrap up school at the end of July where they will jump into our field training program from from there. Uh Megan comes with a criminal justice degree from St. Cloud State, but have been working in the um uh retail and um hospitality industry prior to joining us. And Josh has a business management and administration degree from Minnesota State Mankato. So looking forward to getting those two through school and back on board or getting up on board with us in field training. Uh some of our community engagement outreach uh events in the first quarter of 2025 on the upper left there you see officer Samantha Hag for she uh was doing a presentation at a senior facility for some scam awareness and took some fellowship time at the end to to have some conversation and enjoy some pictures. The bottom left was a event kind of a spontaneous thing we did with our senior community at the Heritage Center where we delivered some roses around Valentine's Day and surprised a group with with that. Took some nice pictures there. In the upper right uh moving on to our younger generation middle school students uh that came to the police department on a tour as a part of the treats, trades, and tours uh program. It's a partnership between the Lakeville Chamber and community education where these middle school students move around to different um professions and vocations throughout the city to to learn a little bit more and maybe steer a a career interest. And then on the bottom right uh we staffed a booth at the home landscape and community show at Lakeville North High School back in March which was very well attended this year as you've probably heard. Uh many of you were there but our first center official groundbreaking was on March 17th. so excited uh to take that next step with our facility. A lot of police and fire and other city folks on hand at that event. It's a it's a little misleading. It's it was more of a demolition at the outset than a groundbreaking, but uh the building is now down and the ground has been broke. So, uh fun for our staff to see that progress getting made a little bit more tangibly now than than it was just in the design phase. Training and development in the first quarter. I won't read all these. I'm going to hit on just a few of the bullet points. Uh the phlebotomy I'll talk about on a specific arrest here in a couple slides. Our SWAT training, you'll see that listed uh nearly every month. Again, we're part of the South Metro Regional SWAT team. We have currently three operators. Uh we have a fourth one joining in the next couple of months and a negotiator that are on that team and they train uh have a standing monthly training date. Uh our field training officer school uh just like Sergeant Danielson, we have a lot of new uh people coming through the uh through the door to become police officers. So, we're always looking to train new officers in in becoming uh FTOs or field training officers specifically on nights. Um defensive tactics, inservice training. So, some of the skills that um are um that we don't utilize a lot for good reason, uh use of force, firearms, defensive tactics, but when you need them, you need to be spot on. Uh we've taken an approach to um take little snippets of time each month to work on those to kind of just knock the rust off to make sure we stay sharp. We obviously do full training days on all those throughout the year, but when we can't get everybody together for a full day, we've been breaking that down into smaller blocks just to keep those skills sharp. Excuse me. And on the top there, the storm defensive tactics, train the trainer. That's training our instructors to become uh instructors for the rest of our staff. So, getting a few of them certified to instruct the rest of us. Then on the bottom, one thing that sometimes gets overlooked a little bit, people don't know that we do, we have uh certified armorers for both our handguns and rifles. So they do um annual inspections but also uh zeroing in making sure those firearms uh stay certainly operational and zeroed in you know in squad cars getting carried around bounced around uh they need to be checked routinely and we have in-house staff that that is that are able to do that and uh we appreciate appreciate the work that they put into that. Highlighting three cases here and I think these are all a little bit unique that show different components of our police department kind of working together. Uh the top one there is a DWI arrest that I mentioned with a phlebotomy, the pretty standard traffic stop for an equipment violation. The driver was believed to be impaired uh possibly with a controlled substance. Uh the standardized field sobriety tests were failed. The driver was arrested. A search warrant was obtained to obtain that driver's blood. And our in-house phlebotomist, it's an officer that's trained in phlebotomy, the ability to draw blood pursuant to that search warrant. She was able to do that. the blood results get sent into the state lab for analysis and then those results come back uh down the road and it came back in this case positive for cannabis. But just a way to make things a little bit more efficient out there on the road um without that phlebotomist uh if if she's not working or not available that person has to be transported up to a hospital. Uh as you can imagine a lot of evenings, weekends, that's a busy place to be and so we can take that burden off medical services and do that work on our end and makes it faster all the way around. Uh the middle incident there is a theft that came in uh a pretty routine scenario but a little bit unique in some of the items but this came in from an out-of-state agency uh regarding a furniture store that made a delivery. Uh the person that they believed uh placed that order cancelled the order right after it was delivered said they never paid for it or never um made the order. Uh so investigation um led to the fact that these folks identity were stolen. their credit cards were used fraudulently. Uh we were able to obtain an address where the furniture was shipped to. Uh did a little work with our detective group, actually served a search warrant on the uh apartment complex and seized some furniture, which we don't do every day. Um but in that apartment was uh several other victims, names, identities, credit card numbers, social security numbers. So opened up a bigger case there. And so sometimes those smaller cases uh we can't always get to all of them, but when we can and and we have the nexus to do so, uh it can sometimes open up a little bit bigger um bigger investigations. So good work by our investigative staff on that one. And then the bottom one, my detective history, I get kind of excited about some of these, but I want to highlight this one because it really involves a lot of components of our police department, but the actual incident here occurred back in November of 2024. This was a burglary, a residential burglary where someone entered a home in town uh during the middle of the night. Uh people were home at the residents were home at the time. They stole vehicle keys stole a vehicle out of the garage. Uh the homeowners didn't notice this until morning. Obviously called 911 to report it. Our patrol officers did a a great job of identifying some tracks in the snow. Um our crime scene unit folks were out there doing some photographs. Our drone team was was tracking these tracks from a from a higher level. Uh they followed these tracks to another vehicle that had been dumped there a few blocks away that was reported stolen out of another community. Uh turns out that was stolen in a burglary probably hours before ours. Uh but then the investigation really kind of started from there and our detectives did a really nice job with our investigative—I'm sorry with our electronics crime unit um to locate the vehicle. Uh it was dumped the Lakeville stolen was dumped in another jurisdiction. Uh they did some computer analysis on the vehicle's computer. Uh figured out a phone that had been connected to that vehicle about the time of the burglary. uh identified a suspect, compared some of those suspect known photos to surveillance video of those credit cards, stolen credit cards being used in other jurisdictions and really put this whole case together through the use of search warrants, electronic crimes, and then good old-fashioned detective work. Uh and we now have two suspects in custody on first-degree burglary charges. So, uh really good work by our team um all the way around on that one. And what doesn't get often mentioned, but behind the scenes and after the fact is our records technicians putting all of this together to get ready for prosecution and charging, there's a lot of information and work that they do on the back end that is not seen by the public too often. Just getting into some of our statistics for quarter one, our case numbers. These are incident reports actually filed. We're down about 1500 in the quarter 1 of 2025 versus 2024. We don't go down in categories too often. Uh it's mental health awareness month as mentioned in the proclamation and this is a look at calls that go into Dakota 911 that get routed to our crisis response unit, our countywide unit. So these calls are specific to Lakeville on this chart in this slide. Quarter one we had 35 of those calls that came in. 31 of those were resolved through crisis without Lakeville PD involvement. So 89% we've been seeing about an 80% rate has been pretty normal across the county and that's really great to see. So, we're right on board with those numbers. Sometimes when you see a spike like you do in January, that can be one individual that's maybe struggling a little bit with multiple calls or an event, a triggering event that generates several calls. Calls for service overall in the parenthesis up above there, 14,200 in 2025 versus 13,500 a year ago. And again, we dial in a little bit more on the mental health related ones with our welfare checks. So overall uh going up, but good to see our welfare check and crisis mental health calls ticking down just a little bit year-over-year. And then when we look a little bit more at the traffic side of things, our traffic stop numbers were down just a little bit. Both property damage and personal injury crashes, those are all types of injuries are up a little bit. Uh wintertime, we can get some spikes with a weather event can really pile up unfortunately crashes in a hurry. A lot of those are property damage fortunately, but we do get the injury ones as a result of that as well. And then just a comparison with our Dakota 911 numbers to some of our neighboring agencies just a little bit below Eagan there above both Burnsville and Apple Valley. And some of our offenses that we report on quarterly here. Driving under the influence arrests were up significantly in quarter 1. I think that's a lot—I'm not saying there's more impaired drivers out there. I think it's just been a more proactive approach that we've been able to take in quarter one with some traffic enforcement details, things like that. Uh assaults are aggravated assaults up just a couple. Other assaults not involving weapons or serious injuries are down. Then I'll I'll just note on the weapons violations, those are are small numbers which are good, but those are um calls involving weapons that don't fit into any other category. So, it's a little bit misleading to think we only had one weapon related call in 2025 in the first quarter. Certainly more that had weapons involved, but that didn't fit into another crime category. And then finally, just some snapshots of our social media. On the left there is our citizens academy graduation. I think we had about 15 graduates back in March. Um so, a photograph of their group there. School resource officer appreciation day in the middle of February. My eyes won't let me see exactly which day, but I see February there. So, we appreciate their work in the schools. And then, happy Pi Day, March 14th. Some willing participants there to get their photo taken eating some pie. With that, I will stand for any questions. [28:25] Mayor Luke Hellier: Very good, Chief. Any questions, comments from council? Joshua? [28:25] Councilmember Joshua Lee: I just I don't want to take uh I don't want to waste an opportunity to publicly thank you and the department. I mean it the quarterly reports always uh showcase all the things that you're doing when I know that there's a a lot of work that's still not shown here. So um just sincere thanks to everybody. [28:58] Mayor Luke Hellier: Bermel. Councilmember John Bermel: Yeah, likewise. Um appreciate all your hard work. the DWI case with the phlebotomist officer is I think that highlights a couple things. um the innovation because without that officer with that training those can be long arrests and that shows wise use of uh of time and dollars plus uh it gives somebody an opportunity and I couldn't help but notice and I really appreciated that that all started with enforcement of an equipment violation and uh those are important and they keep our roads safe. So, I appreciate uh the officers out there um looking for for equipment violations and ways to keep our roads safe, and I would encourage them to keep doing that. [29:44] Police Chief Brad Paulson: We appreciate that. Thank you. Mayor Luke Hellier: Thank you, Chief. Appreciate it. Thank you. All right, we'll move on to our consent agenda. These are more routine items in front of the council. Is there anything you'd like to highlight, Mr. Miller? [30:01] City Administrator Justin Miller: Thank you, mayor. Two items tonight. Uh item 6F is a MOU or a memorandum of understanding. This is with the Teamsters, specifically our parks maintenance staff who will be doing a trial standby period this summer to help those after hours calls that come in. We saw uptick in that last year, especially with Antlers. So, we're excited to try that out for the summer. And item 6L is a resolution accepting a grant from the Lakeville Public Safety Foundation. This is a $4,000 grant and it's going toward the police department for a wellness initiative and we're thankful for them for that donation. [30:42] Mayor Luke Hellier: We are thankful. Very good. Uh, council, any items you want to pull for further discussion? If not, I'll take a motion to approve the consent agenda. Councilmember John Bermel: I move approval of the consent agenda. Mayor Luke Hellier: Is there a second? Councilmember Joshua Lee: Second. Mayor Luke Hellier: Okay. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say I. Council (unison): I. Mayor Luke Hellier: Opposed? Okay. Consent agenda passes. With that, we'll move on to 7, 8, 9. Unfinished and new business. Anything the council? No. Okay. Very good. Uh, with that, our next regular city council meeting is May 19th here at city hall and our work session is May 27th. With that, I'll take a motion to adjourn. [31:00] Councilmember Dan Wolter: I move to adjourn the meeting. Mayor Luke Hellier: Is there a second? Councilmember Michelle Volk: Second. Mayor Luke Hellier: All those in favor say I. Council (unison): I. Mayor Luke Hellier: All opposed? We're adjourned.