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Minutes of the Regular Meeting of Council <br />Monday, December 21.2020 <br />Page 4 <br />As Mayor Bodnar mentioned, I would like to wish a Happy Holidays to everyone. Happy New <br />Year. Although we have the vaccine here, we still want to make sure that we are practicing social <br />distancing in doing all we can to help the coronavirus slow down. Again, Happy Holidays to all. <br />Open Portion — For Public Comment (5 -minute limit imposed by Chair) <br />Mrs. Betsa stated, there were no public comments received to be read into the record this evening, <br />Council President. <br />Department Head Reports: <br />Ronald Wynne (Finance) — I will save my comments this evening to items as they appear on the <br />agenda. <br />Katie Weber (Law) — We do not have an updated report this evening but are here for comments <br />as items come up on the agenda. <br />Chief Matias (Police) — Thank you Council President. It's been several months since I had the <br />opportunity to address Council. If you will indulge me for a few moments, I just want to give a <br />little update on the Police Department. <br />I am happy to announce that the Mayfield Village Police Department is now certified by the Ohio <br />Collaborative. The Ohio Collaborative is a 12 -person panel of law enforcement experts and <br />community leaders from throughout the State of Ohio. The Collaborative was formed in 2015 to <br />establish policy standards that could help guide law enforcement agencies in Ohio. The four <br />groups associated with the Collaborative certification each required compliance with a specific list <br />of policies. Chief Edelman began the process by receiving certification in the first two groups and <br />just effective a few weeks ago, we are now certified in all four groups. This required implementing <br />new policies including bias -free policing, investigation of employee misconduct and the updating <br />of policies including use of force where we now ban chokeholds and require officers to intervene <br />if they observe a violation of a policy. I do want to thank Mr. Jim Budzik from the Law Director's <br />office. He gave me quite a bit of help with the policy formulation. It was a lot of work. <br />In addition to the Collaborative, we have been taking advantage of all of the available virtual <br />training. Classroom and in-person training was cancelled for most of 2020, but our officers did <br />virtually complete training on topics such as use of force, de-escalation, ethics and duty to <br />intervene. In 2021, the Attorney General has not required any continuing education, but we will <br />continue to seek out all training opportunities that are useful and relevant. We are going to work <br />hard on that in 2021. <br />Also, 2020 has been a very long and challenging year for all of us. Our officers have been out <br />there performing their jobs with pride and professionalism. During 2020, officers administered <br />Narcan twice and with the help of the Mayfield Village Fire Department saved the lives of two <br />people who had overdosed on drugs. In June, if you remember, we had a rash of vandalism in <br />