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HomeMy WebLinkAbout11-2-22 WorkshopCITY OF FALCON HEIGHTS City Council Workshop City Hall 2077 West Larpenteur Avenue AGENDA November 2, 2022 6:30 P.M. A. CALL TO ORDER: 6:45 p.m. B. ROLL CALL: GUSTAFSON___X_ LEEHY_X__ MEYER __X_ WEHYEE_X__ VACANT___ STAFF PRESENT: LINEHAN__X__ SORENSEN_X___ C. POLICY ITEMS: 1. City Council Vacancy Mayor Gustafson states it is in the best interest to appoint someone to the council. We have the option not appoint someone if the candidates are determined not to be qualified. We have three people that have applied for the open council seat. We have the questions the City Council asked in 2018. At one of our official Council meetings, we can vote for someone or interview them. If we interview them, we should ask them all the same questions. We can do the questions in a public workshop setting, or we could do it at the council meeting and hold a vote at that Council Meeting or hold the vote at another meeting. Council Member Leehy says the biggest difference is whether we want to vote on the same or different days. Council Member Wehyee says we should vote the same day because it is fresh in our minds. Council Member Leehy says if we decide to do a workshop, we can have Jack tabulate who we voted for. Mayor Gustafson states let's have all three of them come and talk to us. Council Member Leehy says we can rank the candidates while they are being interviewed. Jack Linehan, the City Administrator, says you can do one of two things – whether the council goes into a workshop and discuss who you want, or you could do an official vote. You could have the whole meeting as a workshop and recommend someone. It cannot be a closed session; it has to either be a workshop or a city council meeting. Council Member Meyer says it is only three candidates, and it should be pretty simple and then make the recommendation and formalize it. Council Member Leehy says what if tomorrow we send our rankings just based on the applications and then do the interview process. Mayor Gustafson says we need a question here has any experience in city government? I would like to hear from them all. It would be good to have the interviews be part of a transparent meeting while we are recording as a city council meeting. Doing it like an LMV candidate forum at a regular city council meeting as a presentation is interesting. Linehan says the Council can't close the meeting for deliberation. The Council can go to a workshop and ask the candidates to leave for deliberation, but they would not be required to leave. The workshop would be for deliberation then the next Council meeting would be the oath of office. Council Member Wehyee says there could be an oath of office on December 14th. Linehan says by tomorrow, everyone will share their pre-rankings with me. Council Member Wehyee states what if you unanimously consent? Do we still through the process? At this time, the City Council submitted their ranking of the applications confidentially to Administrator Linehan. Linehan tabulated the results. Linehan stated four first places for Candidate 1, and it was split between Candidate 2 and Candidate 3 for second place. The City Council decided that since Candidate 1 already had a unanimous vote that they are going to forgo the interview due to already having a consensus on a candidate. Mayor Gustafson says I did my ranking based upon who I thought would be able to hit the ground running. The Council discussed the next steps and provided direction for Mayor Gustafson to contact Candidates 2 and 3 to thank them for applying and to consider continued involvement in the City, whether on commission or running for council. Linehan says next Wednesday will be the oath of office for Candidate 1, James Wassenburg, and his resignation for his Planning Commission seat. 2. Law Enforcement Services Mayor Gustafson states it is the same as our previous contracts with the Ramsey County Sheriff's office. In the meantime, we are continuing the same service for 2023. It is a good contract. The Council agrees that the contract can be placed on the November 9th consent agenda. Linehan says Matt Bostrom came in last week. November 28th through December 1st is when he will be back in Minnesota for community focus groups. Linehan then shared the community Council Member Meyer says we should put more demographic questions on the citizen focus group application. Linehan says Bostrom will call two Council Members at a time and then talk to the residents on the focus group separately when exploring what the community wants for its policing needs. On the topic of policing, Council Member Leehy states there was a shooting reported by the Citizen app on Friday at Cleveland and Larpenteur. How can we get information out to the residents because of the time lag from the sheriff's office? Linehan says I reached out to the sheriff's office and that this is the first they have heard of it because it was not in their jurisdiction—it happened further east near Maplewood. Multiple residents have stated they heard gunshots, so it is possible a separate incident of gunfire or fireworks occurred and it was never reported to police. Mayor Gustafson states that residents can go onto the crime to talk about the community crime map at communitycrimemap.com. This website is updated once to a few times a day. If a resident wants to know more information regarding an incident they can call the Ramsey County non-emergency line and ask for more information on that incident. Council Member Leehy says we need to have a statement of the process for citizens saying that if a situation warrants an alert, the community will be alerted. D. ADJOURNMENT: 8:40 p.m. DISCLAIMER: City Council Workshops are held monthly as an opportunity for Council Members to discuss policy topics in greater detail prior to a formal meeting where a public hearing may be held and/or action may be taken. Members of the public that would like to make a comment or ask questions about an item on the agenda for an upcoming workshop should send them to mail@falconheights.org prior to the meeting. Alternatively, time is regularly allotted for public comment during Regular City Council Meetings (typically 2nd and 4th Wednesdays) during the Community Forum. Dated this 9th day of November, 2022 ____________________________ __________________________ Jack Linehan, City Administrator Randall C. Gustafson, Mayor