I see Mayor Rossbach has been busy on his blog this weekend, serving up Maplewood news. Check out his posts on skywarn spotter training, the Extreme Green Makeover, and the impending demise of NEST (North East Suburban Transit).

Labels: environment, public safety

Posted by John Nephew at 3/07/2010 09:09:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

This is a somewhat belated update on the progress of the bonding bill, but Minnesota's House of Representatives passed the bonding bill on Monday, after the Senate did last week. In both chambers it had bipartisan support (though Republicans who supported it are apparently coming under attack from their own party). The bill now goes to conference committee to iron out differences between the two versions. Last I heard, the East Metro Regional Fire Training Facility was included in both versions, so it should make it out of conference. Whether it will survive the threatened vetoes from the governor, line item or otherwise, remains to be seen ...

Labels: finance, media, public safety

Posted by John Nephew at 2/18/2010 07:59:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

This month's Your Police Report, a cable TV program produced by the Maplewood Police Department, includes an interview with Maplewood's new mayor, Will Rossbach. This program is in the schedule of broadcasts on the city's cable channel 16 (for example, at 3:00 PM on Monday, Feb. 8th, if you want to program your DVR). You can also view the current episode of Your Police Report on the GTN website.

Labels: media, public safety

Posted by John Nephew at 2/08/2010 08:25:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

We received some good news from the legislature late this past week: The bonding bills in both the House and Senate include the East Metro Fire Training Facility with the full $3 million requested by the city and our partners (which would be matched by $3 million in local contributions). I'm told that the Senate will be voting on the bonding bill this coming week, and the House the week after.

Unfortunately, the facility is not included in the governor's bill, which as the media has widely reported is considerably smaller than what the legislature proposes. I hope that Governor Pawlenty will recognize the importance of this proposed facility, and its value in terms of shared services, increasing government efficiency, as well as improving public safety.

Labels: public safety

Posted by John Nephew at 2/07/2010 08:53:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

Remember all the controversy about wood smoke? Remember how, right before the election, a few pamphleteers and cable access TV shows purported to have uncovered a secret agenda on the part of mayoral candidate Will Rossbach to ban recreational fires, fireplaces, wood stoves, etc.?

Last night we passed the second reading of the amended recreational fire ordinance. It becomes law as soon as it's published in the official newspaper. Contrary to all the election-season bleatings of Maplewood's conspiracy mongers, we didn't ban wood fires. In fact, most members of the city council told you all along, if you asked, that no ban was ever being considered.

But from the outset of the wood smoke task force, some people (including certain now-former councilmembers) have worked hard to fan the flames of fear with rumors that a ban on wood burning was imminent. Denials could only be seen as proof of the sinister scheme underway, to their way of thinking.

Now that the ordinance has actually passed (and there is no ban, in case that was unclear), the naked dishonesty and cynicism of these conspiracy mongers should be plain to all.

What we actually did do:

• Changed the ordinance to conform to state law (which supercedes our ordinances anyway) where they were in conflict. Examples: Our old ordinance permitted coal as fuel for recreational fires, which Minnesota law prohibits; our ordinance allowed fires 20 feet from a structure, while the state requires a minimum of 25.
• Extended the permitted hours for recreational fires, formerly from 2 PM to 11 PM, now from 10 AM to 11 PM.
• Added a "good neighbor" clause that states "Recreational fires should not be lit or maintained if the smoke therefrom unreasonably causes discomfort or a negative impact to neighboring properties."
• Added a wind restriction to allow recreational fires only when the wind is less than 15 mph.
  

And after all that controversy and character bashing, after turning a minor ordinance update into a political football, how many of those "concerned" people actually showed up last night to comment on the final passage of the ordinance? Zero.

Labels: council politics, environment, public safety

Posted by John Nephew at 1/26/2010 05:01:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

According to a message from Police Chief Thomalla to the city council, 2009 was a year of improvement in the fight against crime in Maplewood. He wrote:

Preliminary numbers indicate reported crime was down significantly in 2009 after it had spiked in many areas in 2008. In 2009 we saw a slight increase in Robberies and Theft from vehicles, but all other of the major crimes dropped. There was a 21% reduction in Assaults, a 24% reduction in Burglaries, An 18% reduction in Thefts, a 12% reduction in Auto Thefts and 9% reduction in Damage to Property.

Labels: public safety

Posted by John Nephew at 1/11/2010 09:25:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

At the Tuesday, November 17, Planning Commission meeting, Maplewood Fire Chief Steve Lukin gave an informational presentation about the planned East Metro Regional Fire Training Facility.



As I wrote earlier this week, we're hoping that the state 2010 bonding bill will include this important project.

Labels: public safety, video

Posted by John Nephew at 11/19/2009 08:21:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

Yesterday the Minnesota Senate bonding committee visited the planned site of the East Metro Fire Training Facility. Last Tuesday, Nov. 10th, there was a similar visit from the House bonding committee. Fire departments from as close as Oakdale and North Saint Paul and as far away as Marine on St. Croix, as well as representatives of Century College (which has a firefighter training program), were on hand to show their support. The bonding request is for $3 million, which would be matched by $3 million in local contributions. Besides providing much-needed public safety training facilities, the plan also helps the environment as it involves remediation of contamination on the site (funded through an expected grant from Ramsey County's clean-up fund), improved and expanded wetland buffers, and more. A joint powers agreement is being developed for the operation and maintenance of the facility.

Here was the scene as I drove in at around 9:30 AM. Even more fire trucks from more departments continued to arrive, up until the scheduled 10:00 arrival of the state senators.


Councilmember and Maplewood pay-per-call firefighter Erik Hjelle took several buckets of state elected officials up for a bird's-eye view of the site.


Before the senators moved on to the next stop on their itinerary, everyone gathered for a group photo.

Labels: photos, public safety

Posted by John Nephew at 11/17/2009 03:15:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

This week's Maplewood Review includes an article with the headline "Council member calls for maintaining police and firefighter levels."

On September 14th, the city council debated the maximum property tax levy for 2010. One option was a zero levy increase. Each department laid out the implications of that budget scenario, given the loss of more than half a million dollars in Market Value Homestead Credit from the state. For the police department, which uses a very large percentage of our property taxes and spends most of their budget on payroll, the impact included not hiring two new officers to fill vacancies created by recent retirements.

Even knowing the impact that a zero levy increase would have, Erik Hjelle and Diana Longrie proposed going even further in the revenue cuts, by offering a motion to cut more than $1/2 million more from the property tax levy. Had their motion passed, the city would need to consider a lot more than just leaving two officer positions vacant in order to balance the budget.

Two weeks after voting with Mayor Longrie against the funding needed to maintain Maplewood police and fire (and other property-tax-funded city services -- if you like having your streets plowed in the winter, for example), Erik brought forward his motion "that the city council support not cutting any police officer or fire staffing levels in the 2010 budget."

This was my response to his original motion:



In the end, we agreed on language to say that it is a priority of the council not to make cuts to police and fire, something that all five of us agreed on. It remains to be seen whether the whole council will step forward and take responsibility for paying for it as well when the final levy decision comes before us. In the meantime, Councilmember Hjelle and Mayor Longrie seem determined to have their cake and eat it too, taking symbolic votes in support of public safety while voting against the taxes that pay for them.

Labels: council politics, finance, media, public safety, video

Posted by John Nephew at 10/16/2009 01:07:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

This week's Maplewood Review contains a couple articles about recent city council discussions.

"Maplewood working with metro cities on H1N1 plan" reports on the presentation from Fire Chief Steve Lukin about city contingency plans for pandemic flu, and how the city and the metro would deal with things like a large percentage of city personnel being away from work due to illness.

"Maplewood proceeding with wetland ordinance update" reports on the discussion at our September 28th meeting about the latest drafts of the wetlands ordinance, and the effort to come up with a final draft that will address numerous resident concerns.

Labels: environment, media, public safety

Posted by John Nephew at 10/10/2009 11:07:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

At the Monday, September 14, city council meeting, a resident spoke in visitor presentations to describe his recent encounters with city council candidate Dave Hafner (and a resulting 911 call) and express his concerns about candidate conduct and ethics.

Hafner received, coincidentally, 911 votes in the primary and will be one of four city council candidates appearing on November's general election ballot.

Labels: campaign 2009, Dave Hafner, public safety, video

Posted by John Nephew at 9/17/2009 11:32:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

A couple of months ago, a resident wrote to ask me about the problem of panhandling in Maplewood. It's something I often see en route to city hall, at the intersection of White Bear and Highway 36, and I agree that it's a nuisance.

I shared the resident's concerns with our police chief. However, the First Amendment protects the right of people to stand at a corner with a sign, whether it contains a political slogan or declares "Family in Crisis" or "Will Work for Food." As Chief Thomalla explained by e-mail:

I wish there was more we could do about these folks. We have spoken with the City Attorney on several occasions and have been told there is a court case out of Mpls. where it was determined these folks can stand on the corner with their signs and if we attempt to stop this, we are violating their first amendment rights. Of course that doesn’t mean they can violate state traffic laws and when they step off the curb, they can be cited for obstructing traffic. As with many things, it is difficult to catch them doing this as they don’t do it when there is a squad car around. From time to time, we have issued citations for this.

We are aware they have “shifts” because we have been called in the past when they get into a dispute as to whose turn it is to work the corner. We will continue to do what we can. Please encourage those you know not to “feed” their habit. If the money were to dry up, they would move on. Unfortunately in this case, the people in Maplewood are too generous.

There may be a couple lessons in here, not only about the First Amendment protecting speech that may annoy or offend us. The other lesson would be about whether we want to "feed the habit" -- providing the feedback that actively rewards, enables and encourages nuisance behavior, whether that behavior is panhandling at street corners, distributing anonymous and misleading flyers, or using public comment in city meetings as a way to promote their cable access TV shows and websites. I think our current mayor has indeed been too "generous" in this last regard, especially.

Labels: public safety

Posted by John Nephew at 8/18/2009 08:52:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

One of the items on Monday's agenda is approval of an electric GEM car for the police volunteers, to be used in patrolling city parks and trails. From what I've heard, this is a welcome response to legitimate resident concerns about safety in the wake of incidents around Lake Phalen and Beaver Lake. I saw the car myself at one of the National Night Out parties I visited, and heard positive comments there and from other residents.

The original price was under $10,000, which would not require City Council approval; but with a delivery fee added to the final bill, it wound up at $10,149. Hence it appears on Monday's consent agenda.

In a number of recent e-mails copied to the rest of the council, Councilmember Hjelle has gone on the attack against this public safety initiative. I'm not entirely sure if he's more wound up by the fact that it's electric car (and thus might be seen as environmentally friendly -- Hjelle has a tag on the bottom of his e-mails that reads "Please Print this E-mail, help save jobs," to mock people who have tags asking people to avoid unnecessary printing so as to save the environment), or if he's worried that it might divert money from his fire department. Either way, it sounds like he will pull it from the consent agenda so that he can vote against it.

Labels: parks, public safety

Posted by John Nephew at 8/08/2009 09:58:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

Today's Pioneer Press features an article about a report on the consolidated Ramsey County dispatch system. It's interesting to read in light of some of the issues and challenges we've heard about in Maplewood with respect to the centralized dispatching system.

Labels: media, public safety

Posted by John Nephew at 4/21/2009 10:42:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

In recent months, when driving in St. Paul I've noticed police cars with the old-fashioned black and white design becoming more prevalent. It turns out this is a trend across the metro, and Maplewood is joining it.

Starting in January, residents will begin to see Maplewood squad cars with a new look out on patrol:


The fleet will change over gradually over the next three years, as new vehicles replace old.

Labels: public safety

Posted by John Nephew at 12/24/2008 09:28:00 AM | Permalink | Comments

Each month the Maplewood Police Department produces a show for the government cable access TV channel, called "Your Police Report." I don't know if it has been available in this format before, but at least with this month's episode you can download it from GTN's website as a QuickTime movie and watch it on your computer.

P.S. Yes, that story I linked to yesterday was an April Fools spoof.

Labels: media, public safety

Posted by John Nephew at 4/02/2008 02:45:00 PM | Permalink | Comments