HomeMy WebLinkAboutCCWkspMin 5-3-171 | P a g e
Falcon Heights City Council Workshop
City Hall
2077 W Larpenteur Ave.
6:30 P.M.
MINUTES
Wednesday, May 3, 2017
1) Review and Discuss Task Force Recommendations Regarding Policing
Call to Order: 6:38pm
Presentation from Melanie Leehy, Task Force Co-Chair.
Reading of Letter to Council and Recommendations from the Task Force:
Kathy Quick, one of the Task Force Facilitators, spoke on the process of coming to these
recommendations: 12 meetings (3-4 hours long), mutually respectful conversations, community
conversations, and collaborations with the Conflict Resolution Center. They gathered feedback
and walked through several rounds of edits and revisions. They worked to understand areas of
disagreement. They also identified areas where they felt they did not have enough information.
They set up panels with subject matter experts to gain some more knowledge. They worked
through several drafts. They did not come to complete unity on all areas, but they were able to
find consensus in what .they are recommending.
The subject of policing issues cannot be void of the bigger issue and foundation of racial equity,
diversity, and inclusion. This meeting is specific to policing issues and the recommendations that
are being brought forward. They realize that this is a work in progress, and the recommendations
are not all or nothing. Council Members can make modifications where they see fit. The Task
Force wants to know what will be accepted of the recommendations, and what changes Council
anticipates making.
Council Member Brown Thunder agrees with the majority of the recommendations that are being
made, but he would also like to have further discussions with subject matter experts to gain even
more insight.
Council Member Harris fully agrees with the Ownership piece of the recommendations. She
believes that we are more vulnerable than we thought we would be. We are now to the point of
seeking a new police department and we are walking a fine line with what those contenders have
the capacity to implement into a contract
Council Member Fischer agrees with the majority of the recommendations, but he realizes it will
take a lot of work to operationalize these details. He wants to know what those next steps would
2 | P a g e
be to carry these forward. He noted that there is a Community Engagement Commission that
celebrates diversity and a Human Rights Day event. What more can we be doing?
There will be a report with more practical steps and suggestions of how these recommendations
can be applied. These were gathered by the Task Force volunteers and through the Community
Conversations. In the past, the Human Rights Commission included children in contests to write
a human rights essay. We can seek to involve not only children in these discussions, but parents
and families.
“Respect for Life” can be considered as recommendations for de-escalation training. The
wording can allude to portraying political beliefs on death penalty and abortion, which is not the
intention. This document is meant to address strategy and underlying themes. There will be more
operational details to follow. Statements have been made that it boils down to “treat others how
you want to be treated.”
Community-Police Commission:
In regards to ownership under the Police –Community Relationship aspect, how can the city
implement having significant authority with the police department? The current contract does not
allow for that, and there needs to be change. Engagement can involve connecting with the
broader community and communities that surround us. The community engagement component
recommended by the Task Force is more to recommend that the contracted police department
hosts community-led and community-oriented trainings. It is recommended that they would also
host workshops, specific to human rights and what residents rights are if they should encounter a
situation involving police. Some of these concepts are already happening but this is an
opportunity to make it stronger and be innovative. These interactions can also be mutual
trainings with people groups and police officers.
One theme that came out in the months of work is that this has to be sustainable, with an attempt
to not create additional overhead. Council Member Harris believes a Community-Police
Commission will be a big hurdle to having any police department be interested. She also believes
that this would be difficult to staff. Council Member Brown Thunder would like to review other
cities who have implemented Community-Police Commissions. How would this be different than
going directly to the police department? The purpose of this would be to review patterns,
whether positive or negative. How would we appoint the right people to this type of commission
without creating an anti-police group specifically looking for complaints or things that went
wrong. If there were negative patterns, this is something that should be reviewed by the City
Council.
One of the intentions of the Community-Police Commission would be to review when
complaints are received and if they are tended to in a timely manner. This would be an
improvement on the current model, which is waiting to hear about complaints that do not happen
often.
3 | P a g e
Duluth is currently piloting a program with Social Workers to help assist in situations of crisis,
whether involving mental health issues or chemical dependency issues. St. Anthony is looking
into implementing another layer with Police Officers to have a chaplain on duty. There are two
aspects to de-escalation, whether de-escalating the situation or having the police officers apply
those techniques and skills to their own de-escalation.
Data and Transparency:
The current data cannot tangibly be extrapolated. There have been inquiries about obtaining new
software but that is upwards of 1.5 million dollars. There are some new steps that have been put
into place to allow for transparency in stops. This was recently put into action with the press
release about the stop off Hamline.
Priorities for Policing Activity:
It is good to have a layout of the priorities in which police activity should be conducted, but there
are some opinions from Council that there shouldn’t be stipulations on when to give a warning.
Police should have the expertise to know when something may escalate to no longer warrant a
warning. Something to consider would be having a focus on policing in the neighborhoods
versus on the county and state roads.
We do not want to be known as a community that really hones in on low-level crimes. A police
officer can find probable cause at any time to pull someone over, but we want to instill the values
of what is a priority and how police activity should be handled. Our choice for a police
department isn’t perfection versus St. Anthony. We should keep our options open.
There is a recommendation to speak to subject matter experts and to vet out a work plan as soon
as possible. The Council will decide what is feasible to implement and how practical steps are to
begin taking. Council will make a statement on what they can move forward on, what they are in
favor of but need to wait to implement based on what police department is contracted, and what
they will either need more information on or they are not in favor of.
Adjourn: 9:07pm
________________________
Peter Lindstrom, Mayor
Dated this 3nd day of May, 2017
__________________________________
Sack Thongvanh, City Administrator