[Music] no I stole it Harper had I was just their age right look quick we ready I'll call the meeting to order at 5:15 take the role please counc member here here herec here may here can I get a motion to adopt the agenda please so moved so moved council member Cole second second council member Wong all those in favor say I I I thank you our topics thank you mayor uh we had two topics tonight first up is the Rams County 2024 mcnight Road Mill and overlay project we have engineer Morgan do here to discuss thank you Brian Mr Mayor members of the council uh this item is on your regular city council meeting agenda for tonight and so um the intent here from myself and in conversation ation with the city manager we just thought we'd maybe dedicate five or 10 minutes just for a quick overview um but ultimately we do have members of Ramsey County public work staff coming to the regular meeting to do um a little bit more in-depth presentation certainly answer questions of the city council that might have at that time direct from their standpoint um but in summary here uh as we just describe what's going on here the ultimate thing that the Rams that Rams county is going to be asking the city council for is for Action to make a determination on no parking along mcnight road so the impetus for this discussion is Ramsey County is planning overlay improvements from 11th Avenue all the way up to County Road D in this construction season so in 2024 they've been planning this for some time you may recall that the city of North St Paul initiated water main improvements uh last year that the intent of that was to fix some of our old aging water M before Ramsey County actually got to this point where uh they're going to be putting some invest investment of public dollars into the pavement surface on mcnight road and mcnight road is a Ramsey County uh roadway so they're they they own the road they maintain the road however the City by ordinance does have control over parking uh even on County Roads and so that's why they're coming to the city council with um uh with some questions to consider here um as they started looking at the replacement of the pavement that's certainly an opportunity whether it's a city project or a county project to look at different things with restriping the road reconfiguring the road and currently mcnight Road between 11th Avenue and um about 17th Avenue uh approximately is a four lane uh divided in some sections and undivided in other sections now Ramsey County has had on a handful of projects over the years some success in converting some of those four-lane roads to a third three-lane configuration it's called a four to three lane conversion which is um uh it's something that from an engineering standpoint or a road authority standpoint is considered um when you have the right mixture of um turning traffic uh levels and also traffic volumes in General on the road um they have seen some success in terms of looking at the data before and after they've do done the conversion on some of their projects from four-lane to three lane um less accidents in some cases uh less um congestion I guess delays in certain situations um and they feel that it's a more efficient Ro uh I guess use of the asphalt pavement also allows some potential opportunities for multimodal uh improvements things like including shoulders uh where there were not shoulders before which provides some safety benefits in some situ situations dedicated bike lanes for uh other uses besides just cars within the roadway so they took it upon themselves their staff their engineering staff did evaluate uh different things with respect to what they could do uh and they've come up with a couple different alternatives to discuss with the city council and the information is in your packet so I don't want to go into a deep dive here but generally what they're proposing to do between uh basically for the whole Corridor that they're going to be doing an overlay project from 11th Avenue all the way up past the border with Maplewood into Maplewood up to County Road D is to um affect that three lane conversion so it' be instead of four lanes in some sections or in other sections two lanes with shoulders it would be two lanes with a shared Center left turn lane so what that does is if somebody's turning left um people can go around them they don't have to hold up traffic necessarily but then also there's this there's enough Road width there without widening the road to be able to provide some shoulder treatments the city of Maplewood uh has stated that um they're in support and they in up and down Mabel wood they don't have any um existing parking to deal with but so they have supported Ramsey County's wishes to potentially put in a bike lane so north of Beam Avenue which is the border between Maplewood on this project there will be dedicated bike Lanes uh as per maplewoods wishes at least that's my understanding and talking with their folks and then what we have south of Beam Avenue is an interesting situation where a short piece between Mohawk Road um and 17th Avenue um is actually that there's Residential Properties there that have existed there since the 1960s that front on mcnight road which is fairly uncommon usually on some of these busier County Roads or collector roads they might be sidey yards and not necessarily front yards with driveways for folks but it does happen in some situations and they have historically since uh the approximately 1965 they have had on street parking in front of their homes now uh upon City staff my encouragement of Ramsey County staff uh we thought it was important that they hold a public meeting they have an open house they invite residents from the area they get feedback did go through that process I did attend the meeting um I did hear very loud and clear from the residents that have lived there and there's one or two people that have actually lived there since 1965 which was the last time the county did improvements on that roadway and uh it was communicated to me that it was a very big deal for those residents to fight for that parking at that time the city council did consider a request just like we're going to consider at the regular meeting here um and uh and the parking was retained at that time 1965 long time ago right so hearing that I think the county did their due diligence in providing two different options for the city of North St Paul to consider so one of them is dedicated bike Lanes up and down all the way from 11th Avenue to the end of the project um the other one kind of honors this uh historical Legacy of on street parking between Mohawk and 17th Avenue and repurposes that shoulder to to a multi-use shoulder so it can be used by bikes it can also uh be maintained as for on street parking for that short two block area there um and it also maintains some consistency with their intent to provide aikable shoulder so it's in some areas and this is not uncommon throughout Ramsey County it also is in North St Paul in 2016 15 or 16 they overlaid uh 7th Avenue West of mcnight Road same thing they came to address the city Council the city council at that time said that they would like to maintain on street parking and so they still striped it it's still a bikable shoulder but it still maintains on street parking so similar situation here two options again um they did discuss that publicly the information in your regular meeting packet has copies of comment cards folks that live both on mcnight road and also just in the neighborhood that were interested in the project um there's a lot of support for the project project certainly the pavement has kind of lived its life and people would like to see the road uh improved uh General support for the idea of four to three lane conversion um but I thought it would be a good just kind of precursor to just kind of on a high level lay out those two options for you all answer any questions that I can answer ahead of time uh and not take too much time uh from the chief in terms of his item which is probably much more important than this one so with that I'll stand for any questions the council might have that uh again kind of as a early kind of first look at this the two options what the county might be doing as an end item here in terms of the action during the regular meeting there's two different resolutions already prepared either way whichever way the city council wants to go with this parking whether it's dedicated bike Lanes or whether it's the multi-use shoulder and so that's the action item during the regular meeting uh for this time at this time during the workshop it's simply discussion only so um if there's any questions I'd be happy to answer those at this time any questions anyone yeah I have a question so um you discussed that there was a large um segment that was forward facing um do you know what the distance is um roughly from uh Mohawk to I think it's shaie Drive um it's without measuring it it's going to be approximately 1,000 F feet it's going to be between 8900 and 12200 feet so it's going to be about that but it's about a two block stretch and so thinking about parking spaces what would that equate to you um now you're really going to put me on the spot from a math stand point so it's not it's not 100% because there are some LAN shifts and developments there I guess so you can't park all if you live there you can't park all the way to the curb right now um uh a parking stall is approximately 20 feet um the lot widths that are there are about I think uh 60 feet wide so I think you know in not including the driveway right I think that on street parking per household is going to be between one and two parking stalls uh for those homes that front in front of there um and there's approximately 30 homes 30 to 35 homes are these all single family homes uh to my knowledge yes they all are um some may be rentals I don't have the data on that uh it was discussed at the open house there is one group home that operates um and there was some discussion amongst the neighbors uh they all are in support of the operation of the group home they're good neighbors um but there are uh cars on a daily basis one or two or three cars that Park on that group home and that group home is one of the one of the Residential Properties that fronts on mcnight so there was some concern by the uh neighbors I did there wasn't a representative from the group home there that I met but there was some concern in terms of if the parking is taken away how would they be able to continue their operations right there may not be enough driveway length or width for more than one or two cars and at times it was reported to me that there might be more than than that on a a regular basis for that operation of the group home on projects like this um when they're being vetted are they ran past the police department and fire department to see if they have any recommendations one way or the other I can't say if they contacted the police department I'm guessing not uh there was that open house but I don't know if you guys got a specific specific invitation um not that I recall on this specific item we do know that Maplewood fire uses 17th north um on mcnight has access to the northern part of Maplewood they come down from they come down seven County Road SE 17th and turn north up there so which currently is one lane each Direction with parking right I you know I can't speak from an emergency services perspective but the concept or idea of having a shared Center left turn lane to eliminate holdups behind someone that might be turning left especially in those sections of the road that are currently just two lanes I mean that that would provide uh more opportunity I guess for emergency response without having to you know jump the curb or something if there is some situation that's being um that's blocking both lanes both oncoming traffic and you know maybe queued up traffic that is in the direction of travel for emergency services well I also down when you go on the other side of town south going you know from South Avenue by the the holiday going you know South onic night they're at three now where they have the and that's I think worked out really well I like the idea of having the the third in the middle because people get locked and then they try pulling out in front of each other so safety wise um I can you know that's that's a a good deal I think for us it's just the parking now that I think three lanes would help the the cause for flow and they did I just touched on it briefly and maybe the Ramsey County staff can give more specific examples but uh their first four to three lane conversion was maybe about four or five years ago and they were a little concerned if you know if the data would really support it and they have been very pleased with the outcome of it in terms of traffic operations and um accident data I guess that they've been collecting uh from their standpoint not local police but from their standpoint we are at 15 minutes so I I don't want to take up any more of the chief's time but um uh certainly again there's no need for Action at this time just uh kind of a high level uh primer for you folks before the regular uh meeting agenda item where there would be resolutions to consider for the on street parking for either either of the two scenarios and Ramsey County is perfectly fine with either one they're not pushing one over the other they wanted to create some flexibility for local uh consideration I guess from the city standpoint knowing that this was a kind of a unique situation on a county road to take into consideration so as a city engineer do you have any as far as you know concerns as you know having that shared with parking and biking and everything else is there anything that you could add to it uh from my standpoint and I did uh mention this in my memo I mean my recommendation is to maintain the parking um I do think that there is the ability within a multi-use shoulder um and also given the fact that one of the data points that the county has provided is uh parking counts so it's fairly lightly parked through that area that's a handful of cars a day um it's it's not unlike for example 7th Avenue West of mcnight Road in North St Paul which is on Ramsey County's uh bike map bike facility map um I'm not aware of any issues or problems that have happened there with bikers uh versus you know the occasional park car so I think weighing all of the factors and considering all of the interests I think it's a reasonable recommendation uh to consider maintaining the parking and so that's that's where I stand uh also having talked to several residents out there um and knowing that there is some system continuity it's only a short piece so you know moving North if you're a bicyclist South uh you know other areas you know there is certainly the opportunity to provide that dedicated bike lane where it where it can be where it it fits and where it's not a significant change from a parking restriction standpoint uh as it's been sitting for the last 60 years approximately okay thank you all right next topic Item B consider approving joint poers agreement and authorize entering into a partnership with the state of Minnesota BCA violent crime reduction unit you guys will be voting on that in the council meeting um have two gentlemen from BCA we'll turn it over to Chief B Roth to start us off thank you uh good evening Mr Mayor and members of the council uh very glad to be here tonight to discuss this significant and collaborative opportunity that we that will absolutely enhance Public Safety in North St Paul and throughout Minnesota and we're very fortunate to have been selected to participate in this uh just a brief background on how we got to be in this position to be able to engage in this opportunity violent crime in Minnesota especially within the seven County Metro area has increased in recent years aggravated assault robbery rape murder all increased from 2020 to 2021 in 2018 and 2019 combined there was 24777 violent crimes reported in Minnesota fast forward to 2021 and 2022 combined there was 33,700 violent crimes reported in Minnesota so comparing the those two sets of of years this was an increase of almost 9,000 violent crimes there 36.227684 experienced unfortunately to expand on this a little bit uh in January of this year we had three stabbing victims from domestic incidents one victim brought to near death in December of 23 our officers arrested a man for pointing a gun and threatening to kill several people come to find out this gun had an auto Seer and did not have a serial number in June of 23 we had a homicide where we recovered approximately 20 firearms and a Firearms manufacturing operation this past Friday a judge issued guilty verdicts on all charges that we brought against a person responsible for killing Shaina Daniels in North St Paul on August 25th 2022 in November of 22 we had two people stabbed numerous times where one unfortunately died and a third person was shot and killed fall of 21 our officers had to fight to get a loaded gun from a student in North High School we had community members somehow dodged being struck by seven 17 rounds shot at them for trying to keep their vehicle from being broken into in June of 2021 person was shot and paralyzed in an apartment building in North St Paul we're finding meth fentanyl firearms and vehicles and on people throughout North St Paul and we've also assisted a lot of other agencies who have came to town uh with search warrants actively looking for dangerous and and violent criminals in in the recent months and years so in response to these growing violent crime Trends in 2023 the Minnesota Legislature approved funding for a violent crime reduction support initiative within the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal apprehension and the Minnesota Department of Public Safety to make an information driven collaborative team effort to stop violence and improve Public Safety in our communities and I'm very grateful to have here with us today two very highly regarded leaders in law enforcement with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal apprehension Deputy superintendent Scott Mueller and special agent in charge Jake May Deputy superintendent Mueller heads the bca's Investigative Services which includes predatory crimes narcotics homicide use of deadly force conflict investigations as well as the Minnesota Fusion Center the financial crimes task force and internet crimes against children Task Force Special Agent charge May has worked in the special investigations unit and the bca's Emergency Response Team he's also worked as a team leader in The Drug Enforcement Administration Minneapolis recently special agent charge May was tasked with initiating an operating a unit which has helped to arrest over 1,00 violent criminals in Twin Cities area and he will now lead the violent crime reduction unit so I will turn it over to superintendent Mueller and special agent in charge May who will further discuss this new effort to reduce violent crime welcome mayor council members uh Mr Mr frandle and chief I appreciate you having us here tonight um I have just a simple goal of of giving you information um about our unit what we're looking to do and kind of where that spawned from uh a year to a year and a half ago to where we are today if you give me just a quick second to get this up and going hopefully this is uh coming across for you what you're looking at here is a focused enforcement detail and I'm kind of starting halfway through my presentation just to go back to the beginning this right here is uh what we're looking to do really across the state of Minnesota but very specifically within the 7 County Metro area um a focus enforcement detail is very specifically um not just a saturation detail uh but but very focused on specific people we're looking for or specific crimes that we're looking for um over the last uh year and a half um we all know that Minneapolis has been in kind of a rough way uh when it comes to responding to Crime I think we can all agree on that the BCA was asked to come in and assist them with their violent crime um we sent over 10% of the bca's investigative staff to Minneapolis with a simple goal of just disrupting violent crime I actually sat down with this this unit and uh uh Express to them under no circumstances are you going to go after narcotics I want you to go after shootings I want you to go after homicides and I want you to go after guns um it was about 6 months later that uh the group sat me down and said uh sorry boss there is literally no way we can go after any one of those three without a direct correlation to Fentanyl and Other Drugs that uh that you're seeing both in North St Paul and across the state um the pictures that I'm showing here are in no means trophy photographs by by any means but just simply a a very quick snapshot of the stuff that we're seeing on a daily basis and I'll give you some of the numbers that uh uh that we've seen over the last year as well uh um like I said excuse me one second can I please can we get the screen up here so we can see I'm sorry to interrupt you but it's hard to got a glare off of the lights thank you sorry about that sure not a problem um a good majority of the narcotics that we're seeing are the same thing that we're seeing across the state um fentanyl being by far the biggest um virtually every person that we are arresting uh related to a shooting a homicide or some sort of gun charge um is carrying fentanyl with them um and an amount of of distribution levels for the uh last year and a half we've had just our agency we have also had the uh city of Fridley uh about six months into this operation approach us saying we would like to put a person on this unit as well um this uh this was just a BCA unit to start with um okay um and uh we took this person from Fridley on when we initially sat down with the chief of Fridley um he approached us wanting to to uh um start this partnership we started talking about what are the individual benefits of just Fridley since we're working metrowide within the 7 count metro area by and large although we do travel to different parts of Minnesota depending on where the crime and the and the uh guns and drugs are moving um but by and large like I said it's within that seven County Metro Area um what he quickly learned is is the one person that they put on the unit it was a force multiplier by a dozen people that they had there in other words two weeks later they had a driveby shooting in Fridley uh and it was simply one phone call to the person that they had assigned to this team that person actually wasn't even with the team they were out of town at the time but they called back to the team we had a dozen agents within that city um and I think it was within about uh 48 hours that the uh person that did the shooting was apprehended um so not only just a force multiplier but it brings with it the rest of what this violent crime mask um was all about in 2023 when we originally went to the legislature we looked at kind of a three-pronged approach um one being information we have have to have better information in law enforcement to be able to go after the people that are truly committing these crimes whether it's individuals or organizations um we part of our our legislative request is is just that we are um looking at information um everything from incarceration in uh information to uh information for um people that have recently been arrested that uh have previous convictions elsewhere and specifically are committing crimes right now um how do those tie together well in a couple of different ways um which includes the SE second section of our legislative requests which is uh our laboratory request so how do you tie somebody that that does a shooting in North St Paul to somebody that does a shooting in Minneapolis to somebody that does a shooting in another part of the state of Minnesota uh when you don't have a gun uh well the first step is to collect cartridge casings at a scene process those cartridge casings through our our nbin system at the BCA along with fingerprints and and DNA as well uh if you're not familiar with an ibid system um that's a national integrated ballistics information Network basically it's a a a database of cartridge cases and marks specifically on cartridge cases that correlate to guns across the country therefore when you do find a gun G now you can start tying that gun to different shootings um different crimes across the really across the country um as soon as you start putting that information along with ER trce in other words tracing back where the gun was bought and sold from you start coming up and developing suspects or Persons of Interest um moving on from that is uh like I I started with is our enforcement team so working with our our laboratory our information group that's coming up with the people that are doing these shootings now we task our enforcement group with going out and finding them um how do we do that well through uh a lot of different different areas I'm not going to get into very specific strategies that we have just kind of overarching strategies um we're doing proactive drug investigations um as long as they have a homicide shooting or gun Nexus to them um we are uh looking at AO theft conspiracies not just simply Auto thefts I think we can Chase auto thefts all day long with three times the amount of people um in the metro area right now but we're looking at groups of people that are stealing dozens and dozens of cars there's a Ramsey County team and a Minneapolis team that are both actively working outo thefts this team is to supplement some of the work that they're doing when it comes to large conspiracy type groups um reactive shooting investigations whether you're talking about um just your your driveby shooting where nobody was hit all the way up to a homicide and everything in between um we are not going to specifically peel off cases from agencies but we're going to work in conjunction with those agencies in other words uh the homicide that occurred here uh several week or attempted homicide that occurred here several weeks ago this would be u a team that would come in and supplement both investigations in North St Paul and uh BCA homicide that would be working side by side together what does this team look like um we're going to have a sack uh sack May that's here with me today has been tasked with leading this group um he has a a a long history of leading uh U both violent crime and narcotics groups in the state of Minnesota we have two asacks um that'll be tasked with kind of East and West Metro although they'll all be housed together uh in one location um seven agents on one team another seven agents on the other team so the BCA we are going to put in 14 agents uh into this group we have 12 individual agencies that are uh looking to put a task force member on this team along with that because we know that that in an enforcement group cops can't do everything um we have civilian support staff that are literally embedded into this group as well both criminal intelligence analysts to focus the cases in on very specific organizations and individuals and then we also have Prime victim ad Advocates uh that we are in the process of hiring that will be embedded into the group as well to be able to get services to the people that we need to get services to um for the cases that we're working as well um just uh some of the uh real highlevel stuff that uh that we do to uh either develop uh uh Persons of Interest suspects um or how we work through cases um the BCA as uh the chief touched on has a variety of other resources at its disposal uh a financial crimes task force a human trafficking task force a Narcotics task force a homicide unit a financial or a predatory crimes unit a force investigative unit we have a lot of different resources just within investigation that will be supplementing this team as well in other words if this team is in uh working in say Oakdale for example and they arrest an individual for uh uh uh buying and selling firearms they realize that that person is Al also buying and selling individuals in other words human trafficking um we have a team that's going to come in and marry up with that violent crime team to work those cases as well um as far as uh uh some of the technology that we have obviously that technology at the BCA will support this team as well uh everything from uh social media and cell phone exploitation um to other things this right here uh is is the slide that I'm going to end on and kind of open it up for questions and specifically talk about either where the the uh um this unit is going to be located how are they going to get their cases I know you have a lot of questions similar to those um this right here this is 12 people in 13 months I appreciate the time like I said I know you'll have a bunch of questions I tried to address some some I'd like uh uh to elicit from you uh and I'll start it off for you uh the location we have a are working with the city of Maplewood to take over uh what of the city- owned buildings uh in Maplewood um for this violent crime enforcement unit thank you very much any questions thank you for your presentation um I have a question is it uh North Maple North Maple Wood or South Maplewood for the location yeah South Maplewood thank you it seems that you also have um a proactive and a reactive kind of approach um with the amount of crime how does that break down in terms of of um percentage of time invested in proactive versus reactive or retive really both um I one of my expectations is um the task force members on the team not the BC agents but the task force members on the team um that is really uh the information that's going to feed a lot of the team in other words uh the chief calls and says uh to either their person they have on the task force or the supervisors of the task force here's what we had happen in in North St Paul last night we need help with X or this just happened five minutes ago we need help with why um so this would be local agencies feeding the task force um cases this task force is going to be large enough to be able to do its own proactive work as well um how that fluctuates it really depends I anticipate at the beginning of it probably a lot more proactive work and then having it even out as that team gets comfortable and those cities get comfortable feeding cases to this group as well um this is this is a group uh much like the rest of our groups at the BCA this is a partnership group this isn't the the BCA coming in and and taking a case and walking away with it this is this is really coming alongside either the city or the county uh that is going to have somebody on this task force as well there are cities and counties we know whether it's within the S County Metro area or across Minnesota that uh don't have the uh um the breath to be able to put somebody on this team um we're not going to overlook those jurisdictions as well uh I have uh in the last two weeks had several people uh on this group uh up in Red Lake helping them with a couple of driveby shootings uh if you don't know there is a kind of a direct pipeline of criminal activity between the metro area here to other parts of Minnesota so we do help them out from time to time this is going to be a Statewide team uh having said that we know just by the population and the crime data that's out there the vast majority of that is here within that s County Metro Area thank you um thank you very much for your presentation I really appreciate all that you do um am I correct in that you would have to get involvement from other departments if this goes across state lines uh yes and no um we have about um three4 to half of this team that will be federally deputized as well um we already have uh the BC agents that will be on this team that will be federally deputized and we'll be probably moving down the road of that with our uh or I should say for our task force members as well um that gives us a little bit more um breath um both in surrounding states and across the country um yeah I guess one other thing that I that I should uh touch base on too is just how the BCA is set up um we have 13 field offices and Regional Offices across the state of Minnesota from Roso down to the Iowa border and kind of everywhere in between one of the the nice things about the BCA creating a task force like this is we are already set up across Minnesota to be able to reach out um and have other agents in other areas do things for whether it's the human trafficking task force or this team itself uh in other words if somebody needs to be interviewed in duth rather than sending three or four people up to duth the these uh people on this task force and agents can pick up the phone call her Toof field office and say we need somebody interviewed and uh saves a lot of travel time and and things like that thank you very much appreciate oh yeah just kind of you know uh just wondering why North St Paul that's a good question I would ask the same um wonderful question question here's uh here's what I would tell you um I uh I started my law enforcement career in the city of Whitebear Lake uh for the first 10 years of my life um this is a partnership agency meaning the city of North St Paul I worked a lot of nights uh in partnership with this city um we looked for partners across uh that seven count metro area that the BCA has historically partnered with and have had great relationships and good outcomes from those Partnerships having said that moving on to just the crime data we looked at crime data per capita as well so when you look at very specific cities um there are cities that uh uh that have a really high crime uh per capita and then violent crime per capita and then you also have cities that maybe have a little bit less than that but are what I consider uh pass through cities to some degree uh White Bear Lake is sometimes considered a pass through City in other words we didn't have a tremendous amount of drug Manu ufacturing happening in White Bear but there was a tremendous amount of drugs being transported through white bear whether it's on 35 whether it's on 694 whether it's on Whitebear Avenue or the like North St Paul just strategically located as a througho between Wisconsin and the metro area along with a couple of cities along 94 is a direct route thank you I was just curious how would this this came together now has it just been an increase in the violent crime recently that we've seen or how did you guys come to this point to having this come together sure good question um so last year um when we sent a good portion of our uh uh agents over to the City of Minneapolis we obviously learned real quick like we're not just here to help the City of Minneapolis like um crimes transient in Minnesota right it travels from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and a shooting that occurs in Minneapolis maybe the people live in Maplewood or Oakdale or Woodbury or wherever that is um this uh this group had such big success in that area uh meaning the uh hanapin County and Ramsey County areas that uh um we uh we had uh huge support from the governor's office this was a legislative request for us last year um part of that legislative request was for this specific task force knowing that if we replicate and multiply what we did last year um these numbers that you see here are just going to go up exponentially uh across Minnesota um and taking that amount of uh Firearms making that amount of arrests um t uh taking that amount of drugs off the street um just simply saves lives um that amount of fentanyl pills alone uh that could be 144,00 overdoses in Minnesota um that were saved just by taking those off the street now uh those of us in the law enforcement World know sometimes uh narcotics uh or the the uh um narcotics cases are sometimes never ending like you could continue to work those and uh the suppliers will continue to supply um that's why we go after uh things in in uh uh along with that whether it's guns homicide shootings like I talked about before um having said that that is a large amount of of drugs uh taken off the street by 12 people in about 13 months um uh having said that uh when this went through the legislative process they asked a lot of those questions like how are you going to find people that uh that you're going to go after in other words um what we don't want is somebody walking down the street uh with a marijuana joint and now you have a task force after this person um I'm not worried about those people those people are not the type of people that are are doing driveby shootings in our communities right now uh we have plenty of other um people and uh organizations to go after um for that um part of that is getting that information our criminal intelligence analysts our Fusion Center and then also the uh intelligence that we're getting out of our laboratory meaning with our nbin system with DNA uh working with our federal Partners is how we're going to focus in on what groups or individuals to go after um looking at that approach I think is why the legislature um liked it um part of that is the accountability of it in other words the BCA is accountable to the legislature for this group uh not the task force members um part of the way we set up and structured this unit is uh uh and you've seen from other task forces is uh um we have we have the BCA running this task force um part of that is policy and procedures that go along with it um not that we always do things the best in the world because we don't we make mistakes like everybody else but I think we have a pretty good track record on why we do certain things and how we do them um and then policies to back those up as well um one of the the small things and I don't mean to get into the Weeds on on a lot of this for you I know you have you have other things to make decisions on um but it's body cameras we're strong Believers in body cameras the BC is actually going to issue every single person on this unit a body camera regardless of if they have a body camera from their own agency um policies we're huge on policies uh we do things a very very safe way um not that I want to jinx anything um but I can talk about our uh use of force stats at the BCA for about the last 10 years we've had about three use of force incidences uh where we've used any force on somebody over the last 10 years 10 years um we uh we catch people and apprehend people uh on a daily basis uh we do search warrants um by the Dozen sometimes uh week by week we do them in a very safe and effective manner um we're more than willing sometimes to let uh let people go just to catch them again another day as long as it's uh safe for the community and safe for the people that are working there um I have a question for um Chief baben Roth um that requires one of our officers to um kind of leave our area um how do you see um the process of hiring when there is a shortage yeah no that's a great question and uh Stark reality for for every law enforcement agency in the State uh thankfully we've had a a posting out for a while so we do have a pool of applicants there right now um so we would uh we would be able to hire one of them and our posting is is constantly open um so we're not um shutting down any potential future applicant that we might be able to to hire if the situation presents itself so we are in a pretty good place we're actually full to Staffing right now uh for the this moment in time uh fully funded to our our current compliment of 20 thanks to your support to get us the second investigator for uh 2024 and we have all 20 officers right now so we're in a pretty good place thank you okay uh thank you to the BCA for coming out here I also think this is a fantastic opportunity for career development and um building skill sets so thank you for the presentation thank you all right thanks everybody appreciate it nothing further so moved move council member Cole second second council member Norby all those in favor say I I I thank you we got uh 28 minutes