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05/04/2009 - 29234CITY COUNCIL MEETING CITY OF FRIDLEY MAY 4, 2009 The City Council meeting for the City of Fridley was called to order by Mayor Lund at 7:30 p.m. ROLL CALL: MEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Lund Councilmember-at-Large Barnette Councilmember Saefke Councilmember Varichak Councilmember Bolkcom OTHERS PRESENT: William Burns, City Manager Fritz Knaak, City Attorney James Kosluchar, Public Works Director Don Abbott, Public Safety Director PROCLAMATIONS: National Police Week May 10-16, 2009 Peace Officers Memorial Day. May 15, 2009 Public Works Week May 18-24, 1009 PRESENTATION: Recreation Summer ROCKS Program and SNC Summer Day Nature Camps APPROVAL OF PROPOSED CONSENT AGENDA: APPROVAL OF MINUTES: City Council Meeting of April 13, 2009 APPROVED. NEW BUSINESS: 1. Receive the Minutes from the Planning Commission Meeting of April 1, 2009. RECEIVED. FRIDLEY CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF MAY 4, 2009 PAGE 2 2. Claims (141514-141593). APPROVED. 3. Licenses APPROVED THE LICENSES AS SUBMITTED AND AS ON FILE. APPROVAL OF PROPOSED CONSENT AGENDA: MOTION by Councilmember Barnette to approve the proposed consent agenda. Seconded by Councilmember Varichak. UPON A VOICE VOTE, ALL VOTING AYE, MAYOR LUND DECLARED THE MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY. ADOPTION OF THE AGENDA: MOTION by Councilmember Bolkcom to approve the agenda as presented. Seconded by Councilmember Saefke. UPON A VOICE VOTE, ALL VOTING AYE, MAYOR LUND DECLARED THE MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY. OPEN FORUM: No one from the audience spoke. OLD BUSINESS: 4. Second Reading of an Ordinance Amending Chapter 506 of the Fridley City Code Pertaining to Vehicle Parking (Text Amendment, TA #09-01, by the City of Fridley); and Adopt Official Title and Summary Ordinance. William Burns, City Manager, stated this legislation makes it unlawful to leave a truck having a license gross vehicle weight of over 12,000 pounds, manufactured home, park trailer, travel trailer, trailer, or motor home whether attended or unattended on City streets in any zoning district unless its owners/users are loading or unloading. Motor homes and travel trailers may remain parked on a public street for loading and unloading purposes no more than two non- consecutive 24-hour time periods in a seven-day time period. The motivation behind these changes is to prevent City streets from being used for large vehicle storage. Such usage narrows FRIDLEY CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF MAY 4, 2009 PAGE 3 the width of the City streets, creates pedestrian and motor vehicle operator site distance problems, and in general inhibits the safe and free flow of traffic on Fridley streets. Dr. Burns stated the first reading of the ordinance was approved at Council's April 27 meeting. During the discussion at that meeting, Mayor Lund suggested, and Council concurred, that the ordinance needed to be amended in a manner that allowed motor homes and travel trailers to load and unload but in no more than two non-consecutive 24-hour periods. Said loading and unloading periods are to occur no more frequently than once every seven days. Staff recommends Council's approval of the second reading of this ordinance and approval of the summary ordinance. Mayor Lund referred to discussion in the past involving a Fridley resident bringing up concerns in particular about Euclid v. State of Ohio. There was an appeal and it was found unconstitutional because of purely aesthetic reasons regarding RV's. He asked if there is sufficient distinction here to defend what we are doing. Fritz Knaak, City Attorney, replied he is certainly familiar with the cases that were cited. He has some discussion with the staff. Here the purpose is not aesthetic, and that is fundamentally important. The purpose here is public safety. Given that fact he does not think there is any question this would be upheld in any court if it were to be challenged. Mayor Lund stated he did not have any other concerns or issues with it. He thinks it is appropriate. Councilmember Varichak asked Mayor Lund whether he liked the way it was worded to handle the 24-hours. Mayor Lund replied he does. He thinks it gives some reasonable restraints or time limits. People have to load and unload those large vehicles for vacations, and he wants to promote that. However, people have to be considerate of others, too, and parking is an issue for our Police Department and there have been a number of complaints. Councilmember Saefke stated just to make it clear for the record, the reason why that wording is in there is because when they were discussing it before, they were talking about people taking a long weekend vacation, for example, in less than a seven-day period. The original wording had 24 hours within a seven-day period which would then put them in violation if they left for a trip, for instance, on a Saturday morning and had their vehicle out on Friday night for 24 hours while getting the refrigerator, etc., going and then came back on the following Tuesday. In order to unload it, etc. it gives them time to do that with the new wording. Councilmember Bolkcom asked whether this is easier to enforce. Don Abbott, Director of Public Safety, replied, it does. By incorporating the 24-hour language, it makes it clear to the Police Department and to the residents that you do not have to be physically in the process of carrying bags or bundles out to the RV but, if you have it home for loading or unloading, you can park it for up to 24-hours at a time for two periods in a week It FRIDLEY CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF MAY 4, 2009 PAGE 4 will require some documentation on the Police Department's part to issue a citation. He does not expect a lot of citations to be issued though for this. Typically we handle these with education and a warning, and it is resolved. Councilmember Bolkcom asked Attorney Knaak if it would allow someone to have a visitor who had an RV and park it in the street. Attorney Knaak replied, as a practical matter as he reads the ordinance, it would, yes. MOTION by Councilmember Bolkcom waive the reading of the ordinance and adopt Ordinance No. 1257 on second reading. Seconded by Councilmember Saefke. UPON A VOICE VOTE, ALL VOTING AYE, MAYOR LUND DECLARED THE MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY. MOTION by Councilmember Bolkcom to adopt the Official Title and Summary Ordinance and order publication. Seconded by Councilmember Saefke. Councilmember Bolkcom asked when the ordinance would go into effect. Attorney Knaak replied, 60 days after publication. UPON A VOICE VOTE, ALL VOTING AYE, MAYOR LUND DECLARED THE MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY. NEW BUSINESS: 5. Approve Memorandum of Understanding for Recovery Act Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) Program Award between the City of Fridley and the County of Anoka. Don Abbott, Public Safety Director, stated this is the 2009 Edward R. Burns Memorial JAG Grant or Justice Assistance Grant. It does include funds from the stimulus funding recovery act. Edward R. Burns was a New York police officer who was killed in the line of duty on February 26, 1988. Officer Burns was guarding the home of a witness in a drug case at the time of his death. He was shot by four gang members while sitting in a squad car on the street outside that witness's home. The killing of this police officer was ordered by a jailed drug king pin who ordered his gang to just shoot a police officer, and it just so happened that Officer Burns was the officer they targeted that night. The JAG grant was formerly known as the Local Law Enforcement Block Grant (LLEBG). Fridley has received LLEBG funds in prior years. If he remembers correctly, we have not had one for five years. We used to receive somewhere in the area of $20,000 to $21,000 every year. It was replaced by the JAG grant in 2004. At that time Anoka County applied for the grant on behalf of the entire county and used the proceeds toward their crime lab. It is non-competitive which means we do not have to put in a grant application and compete with other jurisdictions. This amount is just identified as being for Fridley and as part of a larger pot of grant funding for Anoka County. FRIDLEY CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF MAY 4, 2009 PAGE 5 Chief Abbott stated allocations are determined by a formula based upon population and Part 1 crimes. Fridley's portion of the entire amount for Anoka County is $78,707. Funds are to be used for public safety, criminal justice related efforts, and it can be used over four years after the date of application. They had introduced a disparate designation. Counties where any local jurisdiction receives 150 percent more than the county it is in, by the formula, or the total of all JAG funds in the county that go to the cities exceeds 400 percent of the County's allocation, are considered disparate. Anoka County falls into that latter category where the cities together are eligible for more than four times what the county is allocated. In this case, in a disparate county such as Anoka County, it requires that all jurisdictions in that county must agree on a distribution plan for the JAG fund. That requires a memorandum of understanding by each and every city, and in our case the County as well. The County itself is eligible for $38,000. Fridley is eligible for $78,707. Chief Abbott stated all involved cities in Anoka County have met with law enforcement representatives and the County Attorney. Both the cities and the County agreed to utilize the federal distribution schedule. It was agreed that Anoka County should be the fiscal agent and that the County Sheriff's Office would create and manage the grant application. As is the case with most federally funded-grants, JAG provides for a 10 percent administrative cost to go to the fiscal agent. In our case this will go to the County. Chief Abbott stated the grant application is due May 18, 2009. The application requires signed memorandums of understanding from all agencies covered by the grant. We have 12 municipalities plus the County for this grant. The grant application includes utilization plans from all jurisdictions. Fridley's plan was circulated to Council as an information item in their April 17 packet. It was required by the grant to provide Council with a 30-day advance opportunity to review the material. Chief Abbott stated our tentative plan is to use JAG funds for three purposes. One would be to obtain digital video cameras and systems for five marked squad cars. We have had VHS-based systems in our squads for the last several years. Using a state grant last year we converted the first seven squad cars to the new digital format. This allows us to convert the last five. The second would be to provide start-up funding for two canine units. This would be to purchase the dogs, obtain training, and the required equipment. The third would be to provide $10,000 in funding for local efforts to combat auto theft. Chief Abbott stated these purposes and amounts should be considered tentative at this point subject to modification and/or final approval. Our JAG may be amended and re-tasked to other issues during the four-year life cycle of the grant. For instance, six months from now, if a new crime problem were to confront the City, we could file an amendment and re-task those funds to another purpose. The possibility of future JAG grants, also with a four-year life cycle that run concurrently with this one, there is no guaranty of this grant funding year to year. However, as in years past, it is possible that ne�t year there could be another JAG grant and they just run concurrently. The way this works is you can have three or four of these open and running at any given time. It makes kind of a record keeping challenge for us, but we have done it with the local law enforcement block grant in the past. FRIDLEY CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF MAY 4, 2009 PAGE 6 Chief Abbott stated staff recommends that the City approve and execute the memorandum of understanding so that the County may meet the May 18 application deadline. Councilmember Saefke asked how the canine unit would operate. Chief Abbott replied the scheduling of two canine officers would allow us to schedule one canine every day of the year. If we operated independently, just our Police Department and our canines, we would most likely schedule those both on the 3 p.m. to 3 a.m. shift so that every day of the year during that time a canine would be scheduled. If the police officer took some vacation time there would be an opening in that schedule. The Police Department has worked on coordinating the schedules of canine officers from throughout the County. It has approached the other departments and the County that have canine officers and units available regarding this. In that case we would defer to or coordinate our scheduling with a countywide scheduling plan. The idea of that plan would be to maximize the probability of a canine being scheduled 24 hours a day every day of the year somewhere in Anoka County which would provide us with a canine response of typically within 20 minutes of a request. Councilmember Bolkcom asked what the County did for $7,800. Chief Abbott replied they file the grant application and coordinate the application-related materials and the memorandum of understandings from a total of 13 agencies. There are quarterly reports that are due every year that the grant is open for the ne� four years. They have to report the spending of the grant by each and every one of the 13 agencies on a quarterly basis to the federal government. There will be amendments to this grant as it goes forward. Finally, there is the distribution of funds. There are two ways that the fund distribution would occur. One way, as is in our case, is to make a purchase and then request reimbursement from the County. What the County prefers, and he does not believe we have any objection to that, would be for us to identify a purchase and then direct that invoice from that vendor to the County; and the County would pay it directly. Chief Abbott stated at the end of the four years they have to close out the grant. They have to provide a written evaluation of how the grant funds were used and what benefits were realized by each of those communities to the federal government. So the total that the County retains then is about $47,000 but, over four years, it is just under $12,000 a year. Having administered the LLEBG just for the City of Fridley for $21,000 every year, he thinks the County is going to earn every penny of that $11,100 a year. Councilmember Saefke said to clarify for the public and Council, we are not talking about hiring two new officers for the canine unit. We are going to use the officers that we have. What we are talking about is actually purchasing and getting the dogs, training them, and perhaps buy one new car. Chief Abbott replied that is correct. We are not proposing adding to our staffing of officers at all. We would take existing officers with an interest and aptitude to become a canine officer and send them to the training with their new partner. We would retrofit existing patrol vehicles with equipment required for a canine unit. We are not planning on purchasing any new vehicles or FRIDLEY CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF MAY 4, 2009 PAGE 7 hiring of any additional officers. It is purely the training, the dog itself, and related equipment. An example is a cage that goes into the squad car that has a remote-controlled release so if the officer is out of the car and gets into trouble, they can hit a button that they carry on their person. It will open that cage and allow the canine out to come to their aid. That would be the most expensive piece of equipment that would be required. Councilmember Saefke stated what we are talking about is spending Federal funds as opposed to City funds for the canine units. Chief Abbott replied, correct. The bulk of the expense is in the start-up and acquisition period. An opportunity has presented itself that will allow us to move in that direction. Councilmember Varichak stated she went to the police academy last year with officers. Every week there was new things that came to light when she was taking the class that she had no concept that the officers do. The night that they had the canine unit come, she was so impressed with that. We do need to have that in Fridley. She will totally support that in any way, shape, or form. It is a nice advantage and a nice addition to the Police force. MOTION by Commissioner Saefke to approve the Memorandum of Understanding for Recovery Act Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) Program Award between the City of Fridley and the County of Anoka. Seconded by Commissioner Bolkcom. UPON A VOICE VOTE, ALL VOTING AYE, MAYOR LUND DECLARED THE MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY. 6. Informal Status Reports Councilmember Bolkcom mentioned there was a block captains meeting a week ago. There was an unbelievable turnout, but we are still looking for more block captains. Contact the Police Department if you are interested. Councilmember Bolkcom invited anyone interested to help paint Banfill-Locke Arts building on Saturday and Sunday. Councilmember Varichak stated we had paper shredding this past weekend. We had the Springbrook Nature Center fundraiser where there was a good turnout. Also, we had the Stargazers event. Councilmember Varichak stated this weekend Columbia Heights High School is presenting the Wizard of Oz. Councilmember Barnette stated last week we had a presentation by the potential developers of the Columbia Arena site. There was an informal neighborhood meeting with about 50 neighbors from both sides of the highway. The developers will be making a presentation at the Planning Commission meeting this week. We would like to have as many citizens there to listen to the development and give reactions. FRIDLEY CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF MAY 4, 2009 PAGE 8 Chief Abbott stated our GIF vendor has completed grading and installing on the City's website. It is a rather dynamic crime mapping utility. If people want to go to our home page, it is highlighted under "Popular Pages," click on "Crime Statistics," down toward the bottom of that page, it talks about crime mapping. Right now we are mapping as currently as February and we are adding a month at a time. It will never be real time, but will be about a month behind. We are looking at two or three years right now so people can compare. Councilmember Bolkcom stated if was the program where people could go online and do police reports. Chief Abbott replied the ability to actually file and create a police report on-line is going to be coming in the very near future but it is not live yet. Councilmember Bolkcom asked when it would live. Chief Abbott replied, his staff is telling him two weeks. It is new to Minnesota and it is very new to us, so it is taking awhile to get it fine-tuned and exactly the way we want it. ADJOURN. MOTION by Councilmember Barnette, seconded by Councilmember Varichak, to adjourn. UPON A VOICE VOTE, ALL VOTING AYE, MAYOR LUND DECLARED THE MEETING ADJOURNED AT 8:30 P.M. Respectfully submitted by, Denise M. Johnson Scott J. Lund Recording Secretary Mayor