03/21/2006 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 3/21/2006 Mr. Lambert said it is too early to prejudge the administration. He noted the city is borrowing a lot of money and he hasn't seen any new money coming in to the community-new buildings, new businesses, new ventures. Regarding the Fire Dept., issues were discussed about going to court, which is a venue of last resort. It shows that they failed to manage the situation within the house. That necessarily isn't the mayor's fault. Just saying, there are signs out there that there aze things not getting done. Councilman Gareau, commented with respect to the STOP program. As originally enacted, it is his recollection that there was a considerable amount of discretion vested within the administrative branch of government on how that program would proceed-up to and including whether or not the program would even continue. The Mayor's comments suggested it was the fault of the legislature. The legislature created it, but the mayor at the time signed onto that legislation. Whether or not that program continues at this point is not a question that resides with this particulaz legislature, it's one that resides with the administrative branch. Mayor O'Grady said Councilman Gazeau's comments aze very well taken. It is important to note this is not the fault of the police officers. When he criticized City Council, he was a member of City Council. Council creates the program legislatively and Council could have done away with it legislatively. However, Councilman Gareau is absolutely correct. His predecessor supported the STOP program. When he saw the direction the STOP program went, saw assurances that were made to him as a legislator in 1999 that it would be restricted to I-480, did not happen, he raised the issue with the mayor. The mayor wanted to continue it. As mayor, he could have come in and made changes in the program immediately. He did not. As mayor, working with the Safety Director and Police Chief, he instituted changes over the past 12 months. Most recently, changes were made which will bring it to restrictions he thought were proper when on City Council. Mr. Gazeau is absolutely correct. It is his authority now, and he is using it. He hopes it remains something that is useful to our community. If not, he will cancel it. Councilman Barker commented, as Councilman of Wazd II regarding the issues on Claque and Esther, he is very thankful for the STOP program. Without STOP, we wouldn't have the enforcement in that area of people who are running stop signs or speeding down Esther in a congested area. We have a patrol officer at the ramp of 480 and have a STOP officer working Esther and Claque. The STOP officer moves to Coe and Grace where we're picking up more congestion in Mr. Orlowski's Wazd because of the Claque Road project. He is thankful for the STOP program and doesn't have a problem with people getting tickets who are breaking the law. Mayor O'Grady said Mr. Bazker made good points. The adjustments to STOP restricted the detail to I-480 and restricted each officer to 6 hours of overtime on STOP per week. We had excessive usage of STOP overtime in the past by individual officers. The Police Chief said he needed to have flexibility, and that made sense. Claque Road is a great example of why that made sense. However, he would disagree that we wouldn't have enforcement if STOP wasn't there. STOP has been in place since 2000. Before then, we had road construction, we had speeders and had traffic details to cover it. It can be covered by police officers. The Chief of Police does have discretion to use STOP as needed. 12