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Cases opened: Cases come to their office when people plead not guilty after arraignment session. Clerk of <br />courts photocopy and send them to their office. He open files, date, and time of court appearance. The <br />other way files are opened, the Sheriff will send them to court on gross misdemeanors violations because <br />they prepare the formal complaint. He does not control the number of cases that are originated. Cases are <br />direct correlation with number of officers, numbers of tags, and numbers of prosecutions. Sees a direct <br />correlation between the severity of the crime and the amount of prosecution time between people who are <br />represented by public offenders and prosecution time. <br />Conclusion: We do a good job on prosecutions. Has lots of experience on prosecutions and not changed <br />the cost of service. What has changed is the amount of service required... more prosecutions, more <br />complicated kinds of cases, more gross misdemeanors. <br />Last three years can't do anything different than the way their office is doing now. ($43,000. $44,000. <br />$45,000.) As far as going out for bids, it's real easy for someone to come in here, do their homework, and <br />look at the stuff we provide the City. We give more detail to this City than most cities would ever get on <br />prosecutions, what, time, rate, who. Can conclude we spend $44,900 and this is how we spent it. They can <br />say we can do it for $38,000 or $40,000. Anybody can come in and underbid. Filla wants to continue to <br />work with the City and is certainly willing to make accommodations the City chooses to make. <br />Sgt. Jay Kimble, Washington County Sheriff s Dept, was filling in for Captain Johnson: The officers <br />assigned to the Lake Elmo contract are all young officers. You will find that with the exuberance of youth, <br />law enforcement officers tend to write more traffic citations the first five years of their employment than <br />they will write during the balance of their career. With more experience level, less citations are written. It <br />is not for the officers to evaluate what the Court decides. The officer's job is the enforcement. <br />Capt. Johnson reported there is cooperation, finds our prosecuting attorney, ready, willing, and able, <br />diligent in his pursuit. No complaint or concern by the County. The reputation of Lake Elmo's prosecuting <br />attorney is that he is pretty tough. From a cop side, we like that. If your prosecutor dismisses or continues <br />speeding tickets, the sheriff's dept has no opinion on that in the act of enforcement. Our objective is to <br />change the driving behavior of the public. The Sheriff's Dept. supports the prosecutor's view on what is <br />taken to trial. <br />Vehicle Forfeiture: the County built a building to tow these vehicles. It is not cost effective for the time the <br />dept. spends on vehicle forfeiture for what the dept gets out of it. The objective is to get drunks off streets <br />if you follow the law. <br />Council member Dunn: These increased costs are what residents have to pay. Lake Elmo doesn't grow <br />without cost associated. The placement of a speed trailer has a positive effect. Sgt. Kimble responded <br />Lake Elmo is not any different than other cities. Attorney Filla explained you are a rural community so you <br />have the same range of crime as other suburban communities. Don't have much commercial area so would <br />not have theft. Fines distribution: Pay third to state, county, city. Officers hear speeding concerns by <br />Council at meetings and go out and write tickets. <br />Attorney Filla indicated in the agreement whatever City generates the ticket; the City gets the funds <br />regardless of who is the prosecutor. Most of the prosecution costs are not court appearance related, but <br />are preparation related. <br />Council member Armstrong asked if you could see reductions? Attorney Filla stated the number of <br />prosecution cases peaked in 1995 and has been on the decline since then and so has the correlation for cases <br />and costs. Sgt. Kimble: Tickets are written for 10miles and over speedlimit otherwise 5 miles gets a <br />warning. Lake Elmo does not get people in court because they are upset on they way they are treated. <br />Lake Elmo is on the cutting edge on effort for keeping costs down, cost versus results. <br />The Council asked that this issue be added to the March 8°i Council agenda <br />