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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCity Council - 01/28/2002 - Workshop APPROVED MINUTES EDEN PRAIRIE CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP MONDAY,JANUARY 28,2002 6:30 PM, CITY CENTER Heritage Room II 8080 Mitchell Road CITY COUNCIL: Mayor Nancy Tyra-Lukens, Councilmembers Sherry Butcher, Ron Case, and Jan Mosman CITY STAFF: City Manager Carl Jullie, Public Safety Director Jim Clark, Public Works Services Director Eugene Dietz, Parks & Recreation Services Director Bob Lambert, Community Development and Financial Services Director Don Uram, Director of Emergency Preparedness Molly Koivumaki, City Attorney Ric Rosow, and Council Recorder Jan Nelson Curielli I. CALL MEETING TO ORDER Mayor Tyra-Lukens called the meeting to order at 6:30 p.m. Councilmember Case arrived late. H. APPROVAL OF AGENDA MOTION: Mosman moved, seconded by Butcher, to approve the agenda as published. Motion carried 4-0. III. DEBRIEF OF ATLANTA NLC CONFERENCE Koivumaki said the conference focused on different parts of domestic preparedness. The piece she reported on was the Transportation Safety Act. There will be a new federal branch of law enforcement related to Transportation Safety Administration. If it goes as Norman Mineta expects, it will be very big. It will have a local impact because it deals directly with transportation issues including air transportation, highways, and pipeline safety. Butcher said the new Transportation Safety Administration is huge because the agency itself will be so large. She was not sure what that means for us, but the notion behind it is that federal agents will be placed locally. We might have federal agents located in City Hall or somewhere in a surrounding community. Koivumaki thought it would be more of a sharing of resources with the federal agencies. She thought another impact could be the cost for implementing the training and changing the way we conduct law enforcement in the community. Uram asked if this legislation has already passed. Butcher replied it has passed, and it will take 365 days to get it up and running. Norman M neta spoke at the conference and talked about what it would look like. Butcher thought CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP AU UT'ES January 2S,2002 Page 2 it was very ambiguous and very large. It impacts so many avenues, but they don't talk about the details of how it would work. They did say the federal employees would work directly with the local law enforcement. Mosman said they also commented that the office in Washington, D.C., will not micromanage. Tyra-Lukens asked whether anyone asked the question if this was overkill. She thought it seems like a huge agency to deal with this. She asked if it encompasses everything for which we need security. Koivumaki replied that transportation encompasses a lot. They are focusing on airport security to begin with. She said the President of the American Bar Association expressed concerns about how personal freedom might be adversely affected with the search and seizure laws and eavesdropping surveillance measures. Butcher thought the Bar Association President's comments were very interesting in part because they were his personal perspectives. Uram asked if there was any discussion about what exactly is a local threat versus the national level. Since there is a cost associated with this, he asked if there is something we need to be doing right now. Koivumaki said she got the sense we had taken a major step forward before September 1 lth with our planning and understanding of our vulnerable areas and our vulnerable populations. Uram asked what our responsibility as a city is to the metropolitan region, for instance, is there a plan where we could send a certain number of people to Minneapolis to help there. Clark responded our first responsibility is to the city, but if we can supply resources to the region then we will do it. We get calls every day on our mutual aid plan, but this is a broader scale. We have had discussions with Bloomington that we might help them to patrol the west side of Bloomington while they are busy at the Mall. We are operating on a case-by-case basis, and the plans are fairly general. He said we have a pretty good relationship with most of the cities. Bloomington is one of the regional bomb squads that have responsibility throughout the state. We would call them for assistance, and they would not charge us for the service. Tyra-Lukens asked if they talked about how they are going to enroll the programs. She asked if there are opportunities to get demonstration grants to deal with some of the funding issues. Butcher thought the funding issue is huge. Our Congressional representatives are trying to get funding for our state,but she didn't know how far they have gotten. Koivumala said there is a S2.5 million grant from the federal government to the state for domestic preparedness, and that will filter down to us. The grant is for personnel protective gear and detection equipment, but does not pay for maintenance. She said we have to be CITE'COLTI\CIL WORKSHOP NHNCTTES January 2S,2002 Page 3 careful not to purchase anything that will cost a lot in the long term. We will get some grant money xvorking through the Hennepin County emergency preparedness to purchase equipment we can share with surrounding cities. Butcher said this is a big issue for the League of Minnesota Cities' insurance trust. They are looking at how that fits in. Councilmember Case arrived at 6:45 p.m. Clark said they had a meeting about a month ago to discuss grant money available for equipment. The same type of grant was available a year or two ago to buy the equipment, but there are a lot of issues involved in deciding if you even want it. Some of the equipment requires batteries, and there are big maintenance issues. Minneapolis and Hennepin County took advantage of it at the time, but no one else did. At the recent meeting he sensed no one wants it now, either. Clark said one of the things Minneapolis and the health community did was to buy a portable trailer for decontamination that can be moved where people would show up. They also will invest in hospitals because biohazard victims make their way there and then contaminate the hospital facility. He said there was a lot of debate about spending the money, and they felt each city should have six suits. He thought parts of the suits are probably a wise decision to buy because they have some practical day-to-day use. However, some masks have to be fitted and tested. Koivumaki said we would be getting eight breathing apparatuses that do not have to be fit tested. She thought the medical community is the biggest target. Clark said they would also buy upgraded equipment in for police cars. Every officer has a respirator that is supposed to filter out biohazards. The SWAT team budgeted to upgrade all their gas masks to have the biohazard filters in them. We did upgrade their masks and intend to provide the SWAT team with extra training so they can respond to those types of occurrences. He thought such items are probably wise upgrades, and we should probably have the Minneapolis Fire Department maintain some of these items. Tyra-Lukens thought it seems like an area for collaboration with other cities. Uram said he heard a need for additional training or specialized training during the discussion. He asked if the Public Safety building could be used for a joint effort. Clark responded that Koivumaki's group is involved in working on joint efforts involving specialized training as well as maintenance of the equipment and on-going training. Butcher asked if there is coordination and communication about who does what and who has what equipment. Clark replied there is a resource book in the mutual aid plan, and we all offer something different. Tyra-Lukens asked if there was anything else to discuss. i CITY COUNCIL WORKSHOP AIIi UTES January 2S,2002 Page 4 Butcher said there is a new Partnership for Homeland Security. She provided information to be included as an attachment to the Minutes of the meeting. (Attachment A) Mosman said the three who attended the conference talked about some ideas to get the information out about emergency preparedness and preventing and controlling crime. While we do have a plan, not enough people know about it. There are some missing links to making a plan work well, whether it is an individual-scale problem or a large-scale emergency. Residents are often complacent and feel well taken care of by their City; but they may panic in an emergency. Mosman said the three of them thought the idea of town meetings would be a way to disseminate information as well as entertain and get people together. Presentations could be taped for cable TV, attended personally, put on the new website or read about in the local papers. They thought the fire stations or other public buildings would make good town meeting places. The thought we would need varied subjects since people are concerned about different things. There should be short, simple messages given by good speakers and we should provide information to take home. The meetings could be marketed through the media and by such things as giving students school credit for attending with a parent. The Council should attend the meetings, and the staff should organize and direct them. Mosman said there are concerns at four levels—personal and family safety, neighborhood safety, community policing and emergencies beyond the City level. IV. OTHER TOPICS V. ADJOURNMENT MOTION: Mosman moved, seconded by Butcher, to adjourn the meeting. Motion carried 4-0.Mayor Tyra-Lukens adjourned the meeting at 6:58 PM.