07/09/2000 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Regular Council Meeting 7-9-01 Page 6 the question he asks of everyone: should we ask some of the other Chiefs to come and address this body. He doesn't want to put people on the spot, but if we get the input from a few people, professionally trained who deal with this and present it, at least they present their basis. If nothing else, you'd get that firsthand. That is something that the Mayors of the SPAN group are able to do when we attend those meetings. We roundtable and report back to our respective communities and it comes down to what I have to say and what Chief Stevens has to say. He wants to make sure that given the fact that we are participating in a number of communities in a joined effort that any concern we have, any hesitance, any reluctance to go along is defined well enough so that we feel comfortable one way or another. The first time we talked about it he had a perception that everyone was reasonably comfortable but he thinks after Mrs. Peirce spoke, it gave everyone pause. If we are going to bring closure, that we feel we have had a good presentation. Dr. Parker asked if all communities would have the same guidelines for how this would be used; would there be different guidelines in the situation of high school or elementary school situation versus a Target-type of store situation or a Park situation. That is the difficulty with perceiving the need and the justification because when you present it before the public and even before us, those answers kind of come to the forefront and when Council President Marquardt mentioned a safe operating procedure-type manual, that I think we'd want to know and we would want to respond to our constitugnts. It was pretty moving what she had to say. He still doesn't have a grasp on where it is used, how it is used, what it is used [for], who decides. Is it used the same way in similar circumstances in different places or are there different protocols for a High School etc. Council President Marquardt asked if that was giving some guidance as to questions. Chief Stevens said he believes this body could be enlightened a little bit about the functions of the SPAN unit in general and the S.W.A.T. Team in particular. He is not so sure we want to post that in a public forum. Mayor Rinker said he will try to frame some of these in writing and he thinks it is appropriate it come from him on behalf of the community, and he will circulate it to Council. He will ask for some kind of feedback--if they will tweak the letter, specify things differently--he will try to get that letter out and get feedback in advance of the August meeting. Chief Stevens thinks part of the complication is that we are suggesting this vehicle serve a multi- task role instead of just transporting a group of personnel from Point A to Point B. He can come up with probably 20 different scenarios of "what if' situations that he could give them a good idea of how our policy dictates that the vehicle will be used. Mayor Rinker said he would welcome that; he thinks that would be appropriate. Dr. Parker said it doesn't have to be you, per se, it is something that needs to come out of SPAN or is a combined effort.