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CITY COUNCIL MARCH 25, 1996 <br />The Police Department continues to strive to meet its goals and objectives as outlined in <br />the Mission and Value Statements. While calls for service increased approximately 21% <br />over the previous year, the Police Department continues to energize community support <br />and cooperation from the residents, City Staff and Council Members. <br />Council Member Lyden thanked Chief Pecchia and said he is proud of the Chief and the <br />Police Department. He said he is impressed by the Mission Statement and the Value <br />Statement and noted that they were very well done. Council Member Lyden said that he <br />hoped that the public knows that these statements are more than works on a piece of <br />paper. <br />Council Member Bergeson asked Chief Pecchia about the chart on assaults. Chief <br />Pecchia explained that the Police Department is involved with the Violence Prevention <br />Coalition that was started in the Centennial community. Starting in 1996, the Police <br />Department will specifically target assaults that occur in the community. Because the <br />Police Department plans to be intimately involved in the Coalition, the plan was to start <br />with a baseline to see if what the Coalition does has any impact on the assaults that will <br />be recorded in the City. <br />Council Member Bergeson noted that the City is no longer involved in the Anoka County <br />transport system and asked if there was any discussion regarding what will be done in the <br />future. Chief Pecchia explained that none of the cities are participating in that program. <br />Anoka County was providing the vehicle and they decided that they could not afford to <br />put all the miles on their vehicle. The City has reserve officers that are trained in <br />transport and the plan is to use reserve officers on weekend evenings to transport persons <br />who need to be transported to jail. Chief Pecchia felt the County transport program would <br />be reactivated in the late spring or early summer. <br />Council Member Kuether noted that personal injury accidents have increased a lot. Chief <br />Pecchia explained that these are car related accidents and the Police Department sees this <br />area as a challenge for 1996. Although there is a significant increase in the number of <br />traffic tags written in 1995, the Police Department is looking at the locations where most <br />of the accidents are occurring and trying to determine some traffic enforcement strategy <br />and some education strategy to see if this number can impacted. <br />Council Member Kuether noted that there is a substantial decrease in weapons violations. <br />Chief Pecchia explained that there are several reasons for this decrease including the <br />introduction of a better system of classifying incidents. The new Hunting Ordinance has <br />also impacted this statistic. He explained that there was great community involvement in <br />rewriting the ordinance and there has been great community cooperation in enforcing the <br />ordinance. There were significantly fewer call regarding weapons violations. Council <br />Member Kuether noted that snowmobile thefts increased significantly. Chief Pecchia <br />explained that the northern part of Anoka County was seriously affected by a band of <br />young thieves who have stolen more than one hundred snowmobiles from Lino Lakes and <br />northern suburbs Even a Police Department employee was a victim of these thieves. <br />PAGE 3 <br />