Agenda Packets - 2010/09/07 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Item No: 4 Meeting Date: Sept 7, 2010 Type of Business: Work Session City of Mounds View Staff Report To: Honorable Mayor and City Council From: James Ericson, City Administrator Item Title/Subject: Review recreational Fire Regulations Introduction: At the last work session on August 2, the Council held a spirited discussion regarding recreational fires and the impacts of such fires on neighboring property owners. The Spring Lake Park – Blaine – Mounds View Fire Department regulations were reviewed as were policies and regulations from many other cities. The primary issue with the present recreational fire regulations relates to enforcement. The secondary issue is the impact of one neighbor’s recreational fire upon another neighbor. Discussion: For the most part, the Council and those residents who expressed concern about such fires acknowledge that greater enforcement is needed to dissuade residents from violating the regulations. Deputy Chief Kinney along with Fire Chief Zikmund also acknowledge issues at the dispatch level, but for the most part the police department typically responds to such complaints, although the response time will vary depending upon other calls or activity. Rarely do residents or responsible parties receive a citation for violating the recreation fire guidelines, primarily because such guidelines are not articulated in City Code. When a citation is issued, often this is generated through the Code Enforcement officer after receiving an incident report from the police department. More likely, the responding police officer or fire department duty chief will order the fire be extinguished. While the Council feels that for the most part the fire regs as approved by the fire chief are adequate regarding recreational fires, some tweaking could be in order. One potential revision discussed included the frequency, hours or duration a fire could be maintained. The difficulty with such provisions would be documentation and enforcement. Who on city staff would be tracking how many fires a resident has per week, and for how long? Such requirements would be impractical. Other potential tweaks would include articulating a specific wind threshold rather than prohibiting fires on windy days (what constitutes windy?), instituting a minimum set back from a property line and limiting the height of a fire. (Fire Chief Zikmund is supportive of including a specific wind threshold and height limitation.) As to the enforcement aspect, I spoke with prosecuting attorney Tom Hughes, who recommends that the recreation fire regulations be incorporated into City Code so that the police department could issue misdemeanor citations for violations. A municipal administrative offense citation could also be issued, with escalating fines for repeat offenses, similar to repeat nuisance code violations. (First violation, $150 fine; second violation, $300 fine; and a third violation within a 12 month period, $450 fine.)