05/15/2001 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 5/15/2001 in support. A resident who is a crossing guard commented that this program is a good one, and she has noted a beneficial result on the street. Another resident got up and commented in the past year police have been parking very close to the intersection near where he lives, a major intersection right off Dover Center Road. He pulled up to the officer and said, "Officer could you back up, so that I could get up to the stop sign safely?" The officer said, "I'm 30 feet away from it." This gentleman felt he wasn't. Canterbury Road was discussed. A resident got up and mentioned that out of the 33,040 tickets that he understood were written in Rocky River Municipal Court in the past year, 15,000 were from the City of North Olmsted. One resident asked if perhaps the extended overtime that some of the officers are working has made them more nervous. She commented that she herself is more nervous as a driver even though she has never had a ticket and has not had a ticket on this program A resident commented that ignorance of the law is no excuse. Other residents got up and commented that there was a cost for the city because insurance costs go up for people who receive tickets. The question was brought up again about the potential for additional or too much overtime perhaps making the officers irritable and unpersonable. Comment was made by a resident who has a student going to the Safe Driving School, that the student was asked what was going on in the City of North Olmsted, why are there so many tickets? The verbatim minutes of this committee meeting will be transcribed and distributed to City Council, the Mayor and the Safety Director along with a request to the administration to take the comments into account when considering any adjustments to the STOP program President Saringer noted that she wished Mr. O'Grady had included in his report the arrest made on Friday which demonstrated a positive side of the STOP program Mr. O'Grady said her point was very well taken and noted that the Safety Director had related that a STOP officer on duty on I-480 pulled over car for excessive speed. He found out that the car was a rental and it was not signed out to the driver who was from the greater Cleveland area, nor was it signed out to the passenger who was from the Chicago area. Additional investigation resulted in the arrest of these individuals on drug trafficking. There was approximately a quarter of a million dollars worth of cocaine in the trunk. (Later in the meeting, Mr. Miller noted that the street value of the drugs was actually $1,200,000.) Mrs. Kasler commented on the Public Safety Committee report: With regard to Ordinance 2001-55, she did not state that the ordinance was a convenience to the residents. Regarding the meeting to review the STOP program, as a member of the committee, she attended reluctantly because she felt it was both premature and inappropriate that Council participate in a review. The ordinance prescribes that after 12 months the program will be reviewed by the Safety Director and the Chief of Police. Mr. O'Grady frequently accuses other people on Council of overstepping our bounds and interfering with administrative duties. This was a blatant example of doing just that. The ordinance prescribes for the administration to attend to the review of the ordinance, and it should be further noted that there is a reason why the ordinance review was not assigned to this Council. The ordinance review was assigned to the Safety Director and the Police Chief to perform that review to avoid such politicizing of an issue such as the STOP program The purposes of the ordinance were discussed