09-27-2010 Council Minutes (2) - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Search

CITY COUNCIL WORK SESSION September 27, 2010 APPROVED 1 CITY OF LINO LAKES 2 MINUTES 3 4 DATE : September 27,2010 5 TIME STARTED : 5:30 p.m. 6 TIME ENDED : 6:25 p.m. 7 MEMBERS PRESENT : Councilmember Gallup,O'Donnell, 8 Rafferty,and Mayor Reinert 9 MEMBERS ABSENT : Roeser 10 11 12 Staff members present: City Administrator Jeff Karlson; Community Development 13 Director Michael Grochala; Director of Administration Dan Tesch; City Engineer Jim 14 Studenski; City Planner Jeff Smyser; Police Chief Kent Strege; Police Community 15 Resources Coordinator Karen Anderson; City Clerk Julie Bartell. 16 17 Chief of Police Replacement Process—Administrator Karlson noted the three issues 18 included in his report: the request to promote two Community Service Officers (CSO)to 19 patrol officer position; the process for replacing the Chief of Police; and a grant award 20 that includes funding to increase the hours of the Community Resources Coordinator 21 position. 22 23 The Mayor suggested it would be beneficial to consider all the decisions within the scope L 24 of the whole budget picture for 2011, including open positions in the police department 25 and labor negotiations. 26 27 Administration Director Tesch reviewed the status of labor contract discussions, noting 28 that the city will be meeting with labor negotiators in the next week or two; he has tried to 29 keep them up to date with a mid-year meeting on the city's financial picture. 30 31 Interim Police Chief Strege reported that the department is running four short in patrol 32 positions (three vacant positions and one impending military deployment). They are 33 covering the shortage by temporarily moving some personnel around and also through use 34 of overtime. It is causing some shortage in the availability of officers for necessary 35 training. For the coming year, he feels they need to fill at least two of the officer 36 positions to allow them to get up to speed. He added that it takes at least four months of 37 training to bring a new officer to patrol status. The deployment position needs to remain 38 open for the individual's return from service. The fourth open officer position could be 39 filled by bringing back the officer currently assigned to the Violent Offender Task Force 40 to work patrol. 41 42 The Mayor noted that special assignment of officers is a positive practice and good for 43 the city but it may not be possible during difficult economic times. He discussed also the 44 number of officers assigned as school resource officers and he heard from the chief that 45 the city provides one officer to the middle school (paid for by the school district during 1