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City Council Regular Meeting Minutes March 25, 2008 Page 5 2 1. Police 3 4 Police Chief Ohl presented the St. Anthony Police Department 2007 Annual Report. He stated 5 there has been a lot of change in 50 years. He has been at the Police Department for 24 years and 6 believes he has a good perspective of what has worked, what has not worked, and what has 7 changed. The goals and connection to the community and citizens has stayed the same 8 throughout the 50 years. He thanked the Council and Mayor for the support and stated the 9 officers definitely feel whether the Council is supportive of their efforts and it has a lot to do 10 with their work on the street. 11 12 Councilmember Roth commented with 2008 possibly being a tough economic year one could 13 make an assumption that theft may be going up. He asked if there is anything they can do as a 14 City, as citizens, or that the Police Department can do to try to prevent that. 15 16 Police Chief Ohl replied economics and demographics have a lot to do with crime rates. One 17 thing to continue doing is to maintain the relationship with their citizens. The citizens are their 18 eyes and ears out there. As they go forward in 2008 they need to keep driving home how 19 important it is for residents to call the police when they see something. 20 21 Councihnember Roth asked if there are correlations that can be made of trends they could head 22 off by considering the data relating to police service in Falcon Heights and Lauderdale. 23 24 Police Chief Ohl replied it is easier to see trends in larger areas; however Falcon Heights and 25 Lauderdale have small populations and it is difficult to determine trends from the data on those 26 cities. The cities of Falcon Heights, Lauderdale and St. Anthony are all quite different, but value 27 the same things in their law enforcement agencies. There is some perspective available that could 28 be used regarding things that were successful in Falcon Heights or Lauderdale, and vice versa. 29 30 Mayor Faust pointed out in 2006 when Silver Lake Village kicked off there seemed to be a lot of 31 Part II crimes. He inquired if the reason these crimes have gone down is because the Police 32 Department is being more aggressive there and because the businesses are more cognizant of 33 what is going on. 34 35 Police Chief Ohl replied crimes that are reported by the businesses have a lot to do with the 36 statistics, for example whether the businesses decide to stop reporting a certain type of employee 37 theft. The business community has a big impact on Part I and Part II offenses. Even when Silver 38 Lake Village was being constructed the theft of things such as construction equipment was 39 noteworthy. He would like to say the trend is that they are showing people what type of law 40 enforcement agency they have in St. Anthony Village, and what they are willing to run down. 41 This will have a long -term effect on Part I and Part H offenses. 42 43 Mayor Faust noted calls for service increased in 2007 from 6,465 to 6,966. He asked if this 44 increase has a negative impact on the ability of officers to respond or if an additional 500 calls 45 for service could be handled without problems. 46