HomeMy WebLinkAbout6.27.17_CEC_Agenda_webFalcon Heights- Community Engagement Commission
June 27, 2017
7:00 pm
Agenda
1. Call to Order
2. Approval of May 15, 2017 Minutes
3. Task Force Inclusion Recommendations
4. Events
5. Meeting Schedule and Adjourn
Falcon Heights- Community Engagement Commission
May 15, 2017
7:00 pm
Minutes
1. Call to Order: 7:00 pm
2. Approval of April 17, 2017 Minutes Approved
3. Event Details
Check in about outreach efforts.
Chat about calls to apartment managers/emails and update the list to reflect
work done.
Discuss tasks for day of event/set up: supervise bounce house, oversee kids
activities, oversee information table, check in on food table/refreshments.
Divide up list to call neighborhood liaisons.
4. Meeting Schedule and Adjourn: 7:25 pm
_____________________________
Shirley Reider, Commission Chair
Dated this 15th day of May, 2017
__________________________________
Katie Thrasher, Staff Liaison
The City of Falcon Heights Inclusion and
Policing Task Force
Overview of Recommendations
Prepared for Community Conversation 5
June 19, 2017
DRAFT
Background and Overview of the Process
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The Falcon Heights Task Force on Inclusion and Policing was charged by the City Council to
articulate community values, identify community needs, and recommend programming and
policies to be an inclusive and welcoming place for residents and guests of Falcon Heights.
The Task Force is comprised of 11 committed individuals with diverse experiences and
perspectives. Since December, they have meet for 13 regular task force meetings. To develop
a set of recommendations on policing and second set of recommendations on inclusion, the
task force deliberated thoughtfully, engaged extensively with the interested public through four
community conversations (involving 142 individuals), consulted with subject matter experts in
four priority areas (policing, police-community relationships, citizen oversight boards, and joint
powers authorities), and had individual dialogues with other residents and guests of Falcon
Heights.
The policing recommendations lay out a set of goals for policy implementation and change
relating to restoring mutual safety and trust for community members and police. The final
version of the policing recommendations was adopted by the City Council on May 24, 2017.
The inclusion recommendations provide a Statement of Community Values, and a series of
recommendations on building a more inclusive Falcon Heights. The foundation of all of the
recommendations is that fundamental issues of inclusion and exclusion have left many people
feeling that they do not fully belong in our community. As we, as a community, pursue specific
implementation actions, we need to sustain an all-encompassing commitment to fight racism
and other kinds of discrimination and exclusion. We need to do relational, financial, legal, and
occupational development work to address inequity and build trust so that everyone is included
in our community. The final version of the inclusion recommendations was adopted by the City
Council on June 14, 2017. At this time, the Council also unanimously agreed to seek grants and
allocate funds in upcoming city budgets to dedicate skilled staff attention to sustaining this work.
In conjunction with the Task Force meetings, more than 140 people have participated in a series
of Community Conversations. The dialogue and feedback has been used to develop and shape
the recommendations. Full summaries of each community conversation can be found on City’s
website, www.falconheights.org.
• Conversation 1 - February 16, 2017: Conversations focused on personal and community
values.
• Conversation 2 - March 2, 2017: Participants helped develop options for how the City can live
out the Community’s values in its activities, policies, and policing policies and practices.
• Conversation 3 - April 3, 2017: Participants reviewed and provided feedback on draft policing
recommendations.
• Conversation 4 - May 1, 2017: Participants shared their thoughts on what is needed for
transformational change to begin and each made a personal commitment.
• Conversation 5 - June 19, 2017: This conversation will focus on commemoration of the work
accomplished and move towards next steps for the community.
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Table of Contents
Overview and Background..............................................................................2
Statement of Community Values.....................................................................4
Summary of Inclusion Recommendations.......................................................6
Complete Inclusion Recommendations...........................................................8
Summary of Policing Recommendations........................................................11
Complete Policing Recommendations............................................................13
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Statement of Community Values
Leadership. We aspire to become known for our leadership in creating
community relationships of mutual respect and welcome, for equity in service
to the community, and for working to recognize and heal historic patterns of
disparity and exclusion.
Trust, transparency, and accountability. We believe that mutual well-
being is created through mutual trust. We value relationships of mutual respect,
learning, and honesty in communication among community members and city
government. We value transparency, communication, and respecting diverse
perspectives in governance.
Equity, justice, and anti-discrimination. We value protecting and treating
all residents and visitors equally and fairly under the law. We value equity in the
provision of public services and in the city’s response to concerns. We recognize
the persistent work we must do, individually and collectively, to reject and
remedy prejudice, bias, and discrimination within individuals, the community,
and in our government and policing.
Welcome and inclusion. We value diversity, welcoming all people with
respect and dignity, and creating authentic relationships that honor our shared
humanity despite our differences. We aspire to harmonize the needs of all while
understanding varied individual needs, across generations, across racial or ethnic
or religious groups, and across other aspects of our rich identities. We recognize
the need to work together to heal and overcome divisions in our community.
We commit to work continuously to forge strong relationships and to be a place
where everyone is recognized and welcomed as part of our community.
Awareness. We value seeking diverse perspectives, listening with an open
mind, and taking time to learn from others. We commit to recognizing and
working to address our individual and collective biases.
Courageous Action. We value taking individual and collective responsibility
to uphold these values, including having the courage to name and confront
problems and to pursue solutions and healing when these values are not
upheld. We recognize that everyone has the responsibility for being engaged
and challenge others when we see or hear hurtful actions or comments.
Safety. We value safety, including protecting residents and guests from personal
harm and protecting groups from prejudice, discrimination, and hostility. Respect
for life and minimizing harm to all are our highest priorities in public safety and
policing. We believe that mutual safety is built through mutual trust.
We assert and uphold these values for our community, including residents and guests, in our
relationships with one another and in city government services, leadership, and policies.
Adopted by City Council with Inclusion Recommendations.
Inclusion Recommendations
Created by the Task Force with Community Input
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Adopted unanimously by City Council on June 14, 2017
Summary of Inclusion Recommendations
Recommendation: Invest significantly to address persistent sources of
disparities and exclusion.
Address the sources of exclusion. The context and premise of these recommendations
is that fundamental issues of inclusion and exclusion have left many people feeling
that they do not fully belong in our community. As we pursue specific implementation
actions, we need to sustain an all-encompassing commitment to fight racism and other
kinds of discrimination and exclusion. The following implementation suggestions are
starting points for comprehensive work that needs to be done to build relationships
across difference, to build trust in the community among those who have felt left out,
and to work on building the financial, legal, and occupational resources of excluded
groups.
Below is the high level summary of the recommendations. Full details are
provided in the following pages.
Overarching Value for All Inclusion Recommendations
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Recommendation: Promote reconciliation, healing, and inclusion through
connecting Falcon Heights with community partners doing excellent work in
these areas.
Recommendation: Sustain City commitment through: creating a Truth,
Racial Reconciliation, and Healing Committee of some kind; dedicating
substantial City staff time to this work; and re-framing existing City resources
to bring attention to equity.
Recommendation: Support and sponsor events within the community to
foster inclusion.
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Process for Implementation of these Recommendations
Create two special resources to mobilize implementation and accountability of these
recommendations. Specifically, the Task Force strongly recommends that the City Council make a
commitment to create and sustain these two structures, for at least 3-5 years. It is critical that the
city make this commitment now to sustain the work over this period, to make sure that this work
lifts off and is sustained.
1) Create a dedicated Truth, Racial Reconciliation, and Healing Committee of some kind to
have responsibility for sustaining attention and accountability for these recommendations.
2) Dedicate city staff time (through reassigning existing staff time or expanding capacity
through consulting or new staffing) to forge partnerships, find grants, and recruit and
support volunteers to accomplish all of these efforts. [Note: On June 14, 2017, City Council
unanimously decided to seek grant funds and opportunities in the 2017 and 2018 city
budgets to expand staff capacity for this work.]
Across all of the full inclusions recommendations, these principles should be
applied:
Make continuous efforts. Inclusion is never done. We need to be continually attentive to
how accessible and inclusive we, as a city, are being, and keep recommitting ourselves to
improvement.
Use what we have. Whenever possible, we recommend integrating these ideas into structures
that are already in place. For example, we recommend enhancing the welcome packet for new
residents to include resources for building connections across differences.
Invest resources. In some cases, we are simply recommending that successful, existing programs
and systems be sustained or re-framed. In other cases, we recommend new investments
to leverage new opportunities. For example, the city could amplify the work of community
organizations and volunteers by enhancing the city website, providing training or other support
for community volunteers, or writing grants to expand partnerships with community institutions
that have skill and passion for this work.
Provide a variety of options and avenues for people to get involved. Inclusion means providing
variety in the types of activities to appeal to different people’s styles, skills, and availability.
Varying the times and locations, providing childcare, and minimizing cost will make opportunities
more accessible.
Inclusion is community-based work. City government and leaders have a key role to play, but the
City is not the only source of leadership and action for community healing and reconciliation. We
recognize and value the work of other community organizations and volunteers, and ask that the
City Council commit city staff effort (through a reassignment or an expansion of staffing capacity)
to build its own capacity to participate and to support these efforts.
Complete Inclusion Recommendations
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• Provide workshops to support people to build their knowledge and resources for legal, financial, and
occupational opportunities and rights. This is an important step to address inequity.
• Build up career pathways program for low-income or minority youth. Other communities have had success
with a variety of models for summer employment, internships, apprenticeship, and small enterprise
development programs through partnerships among local high schools, businesses, business associations,
and city government.
• Invest in continuously sustaining and expanding affordable housing options.
Recommendation: Invest significantly to address persistent sources of disparities and exclusion.
For example:
• Partner with the Science Museum of Minnesota, to expand Falcon Heights participation in their
programming on race and our shared humanity.
• Work with the Minnesota Historical Society, Ramsey County Recorder’s Office and Registrar of Titles Office,
or The Historyapolis Project at Augsburg College to support documentation and research to make visible
historic policies and patterns, such as redlining and racially restrictive property covenants, that continue to
shape our community.
• Partner with Ramsey County Libraries to launch a “book of the year” or ongoing book clubs for people
interested in expanding their knowledge of diverse cultures and history.
• Recognize and promote the potential of local businesses to support this work. For example, encourage
residents to hold community gatherings in their spaces, advertise that guests driving through the city can
provide feedback on the community by stopping in local businesses, or involve local employers in youth
development programs.
• Expand partnerships with the University of Minnesota to bring more attention specifically to these areas
of work. The Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, the Art of Hosting community of practice, and The
Center for integrative Leadership have already supported this work, but there are many other options for
partnership.
• Work with foundations that are committed to improving diversity and inclusion, restorative justice,
police-community relationships, or related issues, to secure funding or direct technical assistance for
the programming, training, or events listed here. The Task Force’s research suggests that the Wilder
Foundation, Bush Foundation, Kellogg Foundation, JAMS Foundation and the St. Paul or Minneapolis
Foundations may be interested. The National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice has
resources and toolkits.
Recommendation: Promote reconciliation, healing, and inclusion through connecting Falcon Heights with community partners doing excellent work in these areas.
• Work with existing organizations to provide support and training on how to build relationships across
differences. Living Room Conversations provides tools and resources to allow people to connect and hear
different perspectives in small group conversations. There are a number of training programs operating
nationwide that have resources, including: Hope in the Cities; Sustained Dialogue; Alaska Native Dialogues
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• Use the city website and newsletter to emphasize the importance of this work and make
it accessible. On the city website, ensure that information about our values, resources
for community work on inclusion, and opportunities to participate are accessible, timely,
and easy to find. Expand the newsletter to consistently include highlights on diversity and
inclusion and push people to new opportunities and resources on the website.
• Expand the city’s information packets for block parties to include resources on how to build
relationships across differences, from having courageous conversations to knowing where
to turn for help with neighbor disputes.
• Use the newsletter and website to support the related work that other community groups
are doing, for example to promote events in the schools.
• Use the neighborhood welcome packet to emphasize that all are welcome, and provide
resources to new community members. Find a way to partner with landlords so they have
the most up to date packets to share with new tenants.
• Sustain and expand city trainings on implicit bias and de-escalation. We suggest that
these be open not only to city staff, but sometimes also to residents and others who are
interested. Other communities have very successfully strengthened their commitments and
capacities by having diverse groups of people go through the training together. This could
be an exciting programming opportunity to explore with foundations.
Recommendation: Build commitment and capacity through re-framing existing
City resources.
• Continue to host the events currently in place (ice cream socials, block parties), but enhance
them by having special activities, resource people, or information to engage people in building
relationships across difference.
• Keep the community conversations going, to intentionally bring people together but also
allowing for organic relationship building. Foundation support may be available to support
this.
• Host book and/or movie clubs and discussions relevant to racial inequity and inclusion topics.
• Connect events with the work the Community Engagement Commission is already doing.
Recommendation Support and sponsor events within the community to foster inclusion.
Policing Recommendations
Adopted by the City Council on May 24, 2017
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Summary of Policing Recommendations
Below is the high level summary of the recommendations. Full details are
provided in the following pages.
Recommendation: Police-Community Relationships
• Mutual Safety is built through Mutual Trust.
• Ownership. Falcon Heights needs to have appropriate authority with the police
department serving our community, beyond annual reporting.
• Community engagement.
• Creation of a Community-Police Work Group for trend monitoring, relationship building,
and problem solving.
Recommendation: Training and Capacity
• Mental health care for people in crisis and officers, for mutual safety and well-being.
• Training, with a focus on de-escalation, cultural competency, and explicit and implicit
bias.
• Hiring and workforce development to emphasize community relationship-building.
Recommendation: Data and Transparency
• Data collection, sharing, and monitoring to detect and respond to trends.
• Public Feedback: surveys, multiple feedback channels, and information/feedback cards.
• Prompt, thorough, and open communication in case of serious incidents.
Recommendation: Priorities for Policing Activity
Respect for all is the foundation for policing in our community. The highest priorities for
policing activity are:
• Emergency response.
• Cultural competence and community engagement.
• Informative policing.
• In traffic policing, prioritization of serious moving violations.
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Adopted Guiding Principles for Implementing Policing
Recommendations
The following policing recommendations set forth goals and frameworks for strengthening the realization of
community values for public safety and policing. We preface them with a few caveats about what they do
not include:
• We recognize that some of the following practices are already common practice in some police
departments, while others are quite new. Collectively, we believe these practices are good foundations for
ongoing, continual improvement in policing.
• Our charge includes making recommendations on inclusion more broadly, as well as on policing specifically.
In about a month, the Task Force will convey its recommendations for additional work on transforming
our community to continually combat stereotyping and prejudice and advance mutually respectful
relationships and inclusion of all.
• We recognize that there is much work to be done to spell out the operational details for implementing
these policing recommendations. In some cases, we are able to convey some more detailed
implementation suggestions based upon the input of our expert panels and our review of the literature,
although generally such work probably exceeds our domain of expertise and our compressed timeframe
as a Task Force comprised of community volunteers. Furthermore, the police department serving Falcon
Heights should be involved in sorting out the finer aspects of implementation. Clearly, however, the
Task Force is invested in the accomplishment of these goals, and we ask the City Council to commit to
implementation. Specifically, we suggest the City promptly enter into an agreement with subject matter
experts in equity, policing, and public policy to work with the City Council and police department to
develop a 2-year work plan and a 5-year strategy to implement these recommendations.
Culture and Values
Anti-discrimination culture. Everyone – residents, city government leaders, police officers, and others - need
to actively acknowledge the long history and current reality of racism and other forms of discrimination in our
country. In City Council meetings, community conversations, and our Task Force meetings, many people have
spoken to their lived experience of stereotyping and bias, yet privilege allows some people to even deny that
stereotyping and bias exist and are problems. The Task Force was charged to look at policing. We recognize
that policing reform is needed in our country. However, we emphasize also the need for work throughout the
community to recognize and address inequity, injustice, and discrimination.
Respect for Life. Respect for life and minimizing harm to all are our highest priorities in public safety and
policing. The mutual safety and well-being of the public and police officers are essential.
Community Values. Our community, including our public safety officers, should uphold and advance all of our
community values. A statement of these values should be included in any contract for police services.
Anti-profiling. Policing patterns that are in effect profiling are contrary to our community values and damage
community-police trust and the protection of everyone’s well-being. We strongly affirm the obligation to
treat all people fairly and equally under the law, without discrimination on the basis of race, color, creed,
religion, national origin, gender, marital status, familial status, disability, public assistance status, age, or sexual
orientation.
Adopted Guiding Principles for Implementing Policing
Recommendations
Adopted Complete Policing Recommendations
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Mutual Safety through Mutual Trust. We care about mutual safety of community members and
officers, and feel this is enhanced through mutual trust. We want to know our officers, to have
them know and be attached to our community, and for community members to feel protected by
police and officers to feel that our community is a desirable and safe duty location. Falcon Heights
should continue to have law enforcement officers who work routinely in Falcon Heights and get to
know our community. The city’s website could include a link to photos and short introductions to
officers working in Falcon Heights, to help residents and visitors become familiar with the officers
serving our community.
Ownership. Falcon Heights needs to have appropriate authority with the police department serving
our community, beyond annual reporting. This is a foundation for realizing all of the implementation
recommendations we are making, particularly when it comes to building strong community-police
relationships and trust, living our community values, and training. It is also an essential foundation
to ensure that city leaders may respond in a timely and effective fashion if there is a serious (acute
or persistent) concern about a public safety issue or policing performance.
Community engagement. We recommend several actions to build mutual trust and appreciation
and to reduce separation between “the community” and “the police” and to break down “us vs.
them” boundaries. Police supervisors’ and officers’ duties should include participating regularly in
community conversations involving the interested public and police and other community events.
We recommend that the city and police department regularly participate in workshops (with the
public or with culturally competent liaisons who will work directly with diverse communities)
to explain what people’s civil rights are, in the event that they should have an interaction with
police. This is a relationship-building opportunity to build trust through positive interactions
and very visibly demonstrating the police department’s commitment to civil rights. Similarly, we
recommend that there be community-led and community-oriented trainings, for police officers
and any interested member of the public, to familiarize officers with the challenges that residents
and visitors face when it comes to public safety or policing. (Please refer to the full set of training
recommendations, below.)
Community-Police Work Group. The City will promptly enter into an agreement with subject matter
experts in equity, policing, and public policy to guide us on how best to bring these functions into
effect. This is a structure, independent of the police department, to enable ongoing communication
and relationship-building, timely response to emerging problems in public safety and policing,
and advocacy for changes in policies and resources to advance continual improvements in public
safety and policing. It is not a structure for performing investigations of complaints about police
misconduct. While a majority of members should be from the community, we strongly encourage
the involvement of a senior member of the police department and preferably at least one other
police officer in every meeting, to facilitate mutual learning from one another’s knowledge and
experiences about the contexts of crime and policing, to build relationships and trust, and to have
shared ground for working together on culture change to improve mutual safety and trust.
Recommendation: Police-Community Relationships
The three purposes of the Community-Police Work Group are:
• To serve as a channel for community members to give positive or negative feedback or register
complaints on police conduct. As an entity independent of the police department, this committee
provides an alternative option for anyone who would prefer not to present their feedback directly
to the police department. In addition, this provides a forum for conveying concerns that may not
reach the threshold for a full investigation by the internal affairs unit of the police department, yet
nonetheless deserve attention. This function of the Commission allows those issues to become
visible and get attention. If the Commission detects a pattern in these reports, it should offer
recommendations to respond to the problem.
• To support public safety by monitoring trends in public safety and policing. At least quarterly, the
committee should receive and review the department’s aggregate data on crime, enforcement
activities, complaints, and critical incident reports. This provides a mechanism for timely detection
of emerging trends regarding public safety, biases or other problems in enforcement, and other
issues. If issues are found, the Community-Police Commission might respond by continuing to
monitor or by recommending to the City Council that they negotiate with the police department to
make changes – for example, in programs, training, staffing, equipment, or budgets – to improve
public safety and policing.
• To safeguard the procedural integrity of the police department’s internal affairs process for
investigating and resolving complaints. We believe that it is in everyone’s interest to have an
investigation system that is trusted for investigating complaints in a timely and procedurally fair way;
this is essential to trust in the police department and to the safety of the community and officers.
At least quarterly, the committee should receive a report on all police conduct investigations, at a
level of detail to protect confidential information and yet permit monitoring of the completeness
and timeliness of police conduct investigations and yet with sufficient transparency to reveal any
persistent pattern of complaints about particular types or locations of policing activity or officers. At
least annually, the Community-Police Commission should make a written report to the City Council
and police department about whether programs and resources for training and the complaint
handling procedure should be sustained or changed.
The Commission needs to have teeth to accomplish any of these goals. The reviews it makes of
complaints, trends, and the procedural integrity of the police department must be consequential for
the Commission to have legitimacy and trust. That means that any recommendations that come of
these reviews should need to be acted on with fidelity to the purposes they are meant to accomplish.
It is hoped that direct communication between the civilian members and police department
representatives would proactively and easily resolve any issues. However, the Commission might
sometimes also report concerns or make recommendations – for example, for changes in community
programs, training, staffing, equipment, or budgets – to City Council, in its capacity as a steward for the
wellbeing of community members and employees (or contracted employees), authorizer of the policing
contract, and decision-maker about policies and budgets. We request that the City Council support
well substantiated recommendations made by the Commission. If the City Council subsequently acts
on the Commission recommendations by making a request to the police department, and the police
department does not respond by implementing the request or by explaining its inability to do so, the
police department should be considered to be out of compliance with its contract with the City of
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Mental health for mutual safety and well-being. The city could arrange to have, on call at all times,
professionals with extensive training in social work or mental health to provide timely support for de-
escalation of policing situations, support for the mental health of police officers, and mental health
assistance to community members interacting with the police.
Training. Officers should have regular, high-quality training to build their capacity for de-escalation
of themselves and others and for recognizing and preventing all bias (including implicit and explicit
bias). As mentioned above, community-led and community-oriented training about the challenges that
community members face in public safety and policing is a key component of strengthening community-
police relationships generally, as well as for building police officers’ skills for community engagement.
The content of these workshops might include, for example, training on bias, matters relating to race,
community-led guidance about cultural norms for interacting respectfully with diverse groups in Falcon
Heights, or the historic origins of some persistent prejudices or disparities. We strongly suggest that
these forms of capacity building should receive attention on a par with the more conventional forms of
required training for law enforcement officers (e.g., on use of force or procedures for emergency vehicle
operations). Training for what is sometimes called a “warrior” mindset does not serve our community
values and the mutual safety and trust of the public and officers.
Hiring and workforce. The police department should continually strive to have a diverse workforce,
preferably one that reflects the diversity of residents and visitors in Falcon Heights.
Recommendation: Training and Capacity
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Data collection. The police department should collect comprehensive data on all police interactions and
crime. Emerging research on best practices for building police-community trust suggest it is especially
beneficial to collect these types of data: basic demographic information; the public safety concern,
location, and context; the incident outcome (e.g., information given, warning issued, citation); and
whether the suspect(s) had weapons. Summary reports should be made monthly to the City Council and
published on the City’s website in as much detail as possible without violating privacy.
Public Feedback. The City of Falcon Heights should gather public feedback on policing through at least
three mechanisms:
• In every interaction, police officers should give the person with whom they are interacting a card that
identifies the officer by name and provides a phone number and website to submit feedback (positive
or negative), questions, suggestions, or complaints. Assuming the Community-Police Commission
is instituted, it should be listed as an option, independent of the police department, to provide
feedback.
• On an annual basis, the city should conduct a survey of households to solicit feedback on policing.
• At least semi-annually, the City Council, police department, and public should hold community
conversations to enable continued communication about community values, public safety issues, and
positive or negative feedback on policing.
Serious incidents. To build community trust, if serious incidents occur (e.g., public safety emergency,
officer-involved shooting, or a serious allegation of police misconduct), the police department and City of
Falcon Heights should communicate as promptly, thoroughly, and openly as possible.
Recommendation: Data and Transparency
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Respect for all is the foundation for policing in our community. The highest priorities for policing
activity are:
• Emergency response to 911 calls and violent crimes are the highest priorities.
• Community policing. Officers need to get to know people. Some steps to engage with people in
non-enforcement activities include getting out of their cars, participating in community events,
etc.
• Cultural competence and community engagement. In an effort to build relationships, training
for cultural competency must be linked with positive cultural and community engagement to
build relationships.
• Informative policing. In enforcement-related interactions, officers should promptly inform
the individuals(s) involved about why they are being stopped (e.g., to explain that they were
observed running a stop sign). This should improve compliance with laws, the safety of the
public and officers, and community-police trust.
• Traffic policing. Dangerous moving violations are high priority. Policing for other motor
vehicle violations is a lower priority, and the policy for these could be to issue a warning.
We recommend the City explore opportunities to proactively intervene in downward cycles
associated with fines for minor violations. For example, the City might consider investing in
a program -- like the Lights on! program found in several Twin Cities communities – which
provides drivers with financial assistance to take care of minor problems with vehicle
equipment compliance.
Property crimes, although they are one of the most commonplace crimes in Falcon Heights, were
not mentioned as a priority during community conversations. We do not assume that it is a low
priority; possibly people did not mention it because they take this kind of policing for granted.
This reinforces the value of our recommendations about data reporting and public safety trend
monitoring to communicate and respond to public safety concerns and policing activities.
Recommendation: Priorities for Policing Activity
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Ultimately the City Council has authority and responsibility for keeping a contract with SAPD
or moving to some other arrangement. In early April 2017, the City Council instructed the city
administrator to begin a Request for Interest from other potential providers. As of June 14, 2017
the City Council is actively exploring options for a partnership with the Ramsey County Sheriff’s
Office.
Many comments had been shared at the community conversations preceding the council
decisions. Those comments were to the effect that increasing and ensuring ownership that the
police department respects community values are more important than the specific structure of
the arrangement.
When participants in the community conversations were asked to express and explain their
preferences for different organizational arrangements for policing, the option of issuing a new
Request for Proposals to contract a police department received much greater support than any
other option. Two other options - renegotiating with SAPD (which received some support, while
some people completely opposed it) or constituting a shared police department through a joint
powers agreement – were less well supported. There was very little support for creating a police
department just for Falcon Heights.
On the basis of our consultations with subject matter experts and the literature on
organizational options for policing, we recommend constructing the contract to:
• Articulate community values as the foundation for public safety and policing.
• Emphasize mutual safety through mutual trust. Build structure and routines for regular
communication, mutually responsive consultation and problem-solving, and ongoing
relationship-building between the community, city leadership, and police department.
• Affirm the importance of ongoing, high-quality training – specifically including the forms
of training on implicit bias, de-escalation, and community-oriented training on community
experiences and to build cultural competence – and provide resources for this.
• Ensure mechanisms for data collection and sharing, accountability, and compliance.
• Provide clear and compelling consequences for non-compliance with the contract, which
Recommendation: Ownership