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Public Safety Committee Minutes 2007 08-22-07 Page 1 of 10 [APPROVED 10/16/07 UNITED CITY OF YORKVILLE PUBLIC SAFETY MEETING Wednesday, August 22, 2007, 6:00 p.m. City Conference Room In Attendance: Chairwoman Rose Spears Alderwoman Robyn Sutcliff Alderman Wally Werderich Other City Officials in Attendance: Police Chief Harold Martin Interim City Administrator Bart Olson Lt. Don Schwartzkopf Executive Assistant Molly Batterson Lt. Rich Hart Deputy Clerk Lisa Pickering Guests: Tony Scott, Kendall County Record (arrived at 6:45 p.m) The meeting was called to order at 6:00 p.m. by Chairwoman Rose Spears. Presentation: None Minutes for Approval/Correction: Minutes from July 13, 2006 and July 17, 2007 were approved as presented. New Business: (The committee moved forward to Item#3 &#4). 3. PS 2007-23 Committee Liaisons Appointments Chairwoman Spears said that Alderman Munns had requested to be appointed liaison to the School District. Chairwoman Spears would like to appoint him because on his committee he gave up everything. He wanted a couple of things and he wasn't able to do that. He has asked for the school district for a couple of years and wasn't able to do that. Alderwoman Sutcliff thought you only appointed outside your committee if no one within the committee wanted it. Chairwoman Spears said that another committee appointed a liaison outside of their committee. AldermanWerderich said that Alderwoman Sutcliff would also like to be appointed to the School District. Chairwoman Spears asked if Alderwoman Sutcliff would like to be appointed to KenCom or the Fire District instead. It was discussed that to be appointed to KenCom, the Mayor has to send in an official letter recommending the liaison and it has to go to the county board and they have to approve the liaison. It was asked if there were any other positions. Page 2 of 10 Chairwoman Spears said that she had been the liaison for Human Resource Commission for ten years and she thought that she would keep that. Chairwoman Spears suggested that Alderwoman Sutcliff could still go to the school meetings as a backup, because if someone can't make it, then it would be good to have someone representing the city. Alderwoman Sutcliff said that she would be the liaison for KenCom if that's what they want her to do. 4. PS 2007-24 LETN Subscription Request Chief Martin stated that the LETN subscription is supposed to be a total of$3240.00 for the first year. After the first year it goes to $55.00 peruser per year. This is a form of continual education. Lt. Schwartzkopf explained that every day has a different topic that is discussed such as suicide prevention for example. The next day will be something different. It's called Roll Call. It's a fifteen minute tape that the officers come in and watch. There are 800 different training sessions that the officers can use. There are tests that the officers can take on the computer and if they pass, they get a certificate that goes in their training file. It works through a computer and satellite system. Chief Martin stated that the nice thing about this is that it's an in-house training tool. As they hire more officers it becomes more cost effective. It helps them manage the training. It was verified that there is money in the budget. Consensus was to approve purchase. There was no further discussion. (return to regular order of agenda) New Business: 1. PS 2007-21 Police Reports for July 2007 Chairwoman Spears relayed to Molly Batterson that she liked the way the police reports were set up. They are very easy to read. Alderman Werderich asked what suspicious circumstances were? Batterson responded that it could be something like someone calling and reporting that a car drove by and took pictures of their house. The reason might be that the person had applied for a home equity line of credit and the appraiser drove by and took a picture of the house. They are things that the police department is pretty sure are not crimes, however someone called and they need to document it. Page 3 of 10 Alderman Werderich asked if the school resource officer was a new position. Chief Martin responded that we have had a school resource officer since 1992 or 1994, probably 14 or 15 years. Chairwoman Spears pointed out that the letters were very great. Alderwoman Sutcliff agreed. Chief Martin pointed out the letter from Mrs. Willson appreciating the police department's response in regards to the Fox and Mill Street speed limit. Alderman Werderich complimented the police on their good customer service in dealing with complaints. Alderman Werderich asked about the overtime manhours utilization report. What do the heading details mean? Ms. Batterson responded that details are any assigned paid security detail that the police department goes to including Hometown Festival and the schools. A good majority of these paid details are billed back to the businesses. The Chief stated that they run very stringent when it comes to overtime. The total listed is the total hours of overtime for the entire department. They rarely have more than 50-60 hours of overtime in a pay period. The twelve hour shifts are working very well. The overtime includes court also. Chairwoman Spears suggested that the alderman could check the bill list and the payroll from the other city departments and compare. Chairwoman Spears asked if anyone had any questions about the Monthly Mileage Report. Alderman Werderich asked if the DARE car had been sold. Ms. Batterson responded that Friday would be the bid opening. She said that it had been discussed that they were going to remove the DARE logo before it was sold so that the DARE logo could not be altered in a negative manner. Chairwoman Spears brought up the letter in the packet about the cadet completing his criminal justice associates degree and asked Chief Martin to clarify the situation. Chief Martin stated that he has three positions open for part-time police officers. He would like to put the cadet in as a part-time officer at$15.31 per hour. Once a CSO job description is completed and approved, then the cadet could switch over. Currently, if the cadet was moved into a part-time slot, he would be working 30-35 hours per week. He would not be eligible for benefits as a part-time officer. Alderman Werderich is in agreement to keep the cadet around. Chief Martin stated that he is the first cadet to go through our program and he has helped us out a lot. Applications are coming out September 1 and the cadet will be applying. Chief Martins hopes to get him through the process so that they can hire him. The cadet would be a great asset to the department. Lt. Schwartzkopf mentioned that the cadet has turned down other jobs. Chairwoman Spears asked when Officer Groesch and Officer Stroup would be sworn-in as Sergeants. They will be sworn in on the September 25th City Council meeting. This is an informational item only. Page 4 of 10 2. PS 2007-22 December Public Safety Meeting Date- FYI Chairwoman Spears mentioned that the December Public Safety meeting date has been changed due to the holidays. The December Public Safety meeting has been moved to December 11, 2007. This is an informational item only. 5. PS 2007-25 Engine Braking Prohibited—Sign Request for the Area of Route 47/Cannonball Trail Chief Martin said that he received an email on this. This is a request in reference to the engine braking prohibited signs. These signs are provided and installed by IDOT because it is a state highway. We would have to request that IDOT do this and make those areas engine braking prohibited areas. Alderwoman Spears asked if we had done this recently. Bart Olson responded that we have had two different situations dealing with this. The city attorney looked at this and said that we have legal authority to do this. Chief Martin pointed out that this is a state highway. IDOT has to put up the signs and this gives us the authority to then enforce this. As far as the city is concerned, we do not control the state highways. Bart is going to check with Eric and Joe to see how we notify IDOT and request that the signs be posted. It was discussed that the area in question was the residential area by Route 47 and Cannonball Trail. Chairwoman Spears asked about having the signs also posted by Bristol Bay. Chief Martin verified that the police will enforce the signs once they are up. Consensus was to move forward with asking IDOT to post signs. Bart Olson will let Eric Dhuse and Joe Wywrot know so they can contact IDOT. 6 PS 2007-26 Off Street Parking Ordinance Alderman Leslie requested that this item be put on the agenda for discussion again. Alderwoman Sutcliff emailed a question about the parking ban, ice cream trucks, and the political signs that afternoon to the Ward 3 residents on her email list. She passed out copies of the responses that she had received. Most of the responses that she received indicated that the residents that responded were not in favor of a parking ban. Alderwoman Sutcliff asked for more details about the parking ban since she and Alderman Werderich were not on the city council the last time this issue was discussed. The Chief responded that people were pretty much 50/50 for and against the issue depending on how you read the questions. Spears said that there were problems with the survey when it was mailed out—that the questions were a little unclear. One survey only was mailed to each house. People complained that only one driver from each house got to fill out the survey. Page 5 of 10 Chairwoman Spears said that the next step was that council was going to have each alderman check their wards. She feels that the collector streets should not have overnight parking or parking on the street itself. Her recommendation was to bring it to each ward and look at the streets on a ward by ward basis. Chief Martin thinks that maybe this would be a good thing to look at during a ward meeting. The Chief pointed out the potential problems when you select certain streets. The police department was in favor of the ban for a number of different reasons, such as burglery to vehicles, burglery to homes, or criminal damage to property. The Chief stated that very rarely does someone who is planning on doing damage park in the victim's driveway. They usually park on the street. A parking ban also helps with the postal delivery, street cleaning, and snowplowing because the cars are automatically off the street. Chairwoman Spears mentioned that this originally came to council from the people in the John Street area. They brought it to the city because they were having a lot of problems. Alderman Werderich said that they have a couple of options—the first is an all out ban. Chief Martin said that the police were in favor of the all out ban because it was fair to everybody. The second option is a parking ban on arterial, major collector and collector streets. Chief Martin said that the other option would be certain streets in each of the wards other than those listed above. Alderman Werderich asked how they would designate those. He thought that maybe they should have a ward meeting. It would be an opportunity to give people a chance to have input. Chief Martin said that Lt. Hart would let the Aldermen know which streets cause public safety issues. There was some discussion on the possibility of putting the parking ban to a referendum question. The drawback to this is that you are allowed one question only. The question would be— do you want a parking ban—yes or no. A referendum would allow the citizens to decide. Chairwoman Spears mentioned that the problem that she forsees with that are that there are some streets right now that there should be no parking whatsoever. One of those streets is Countyside Parkway because that has become a bypass. There is a house that always has a vehicle parked on the street. This forces people to move back and forth. She thinks there are a lot more streets like that throughout the city. Alderwoman Sutcliff brought up Somonauk and Route 47. Somonauk is listed as a local residential, however, there is so much traffic on Somonauk. That particular intersection is a major throughfare for the schools in addition to Route 47. According to Bart Olson, the definition of minor collectors and major collectors are set by our zoning ordinance. It depends on the street width, the pavement makeup, the area that it's in, and the traffic counts. Page 6 of 10 Alderwoman Sutcliff said that originally Spring Street was built as the collector and that's where the stoplight was supposed to go. Then something happened with Parkview and the stoplight ended up at Somonauk instead of Spring. Somonauk was not built to handle all of the traffic. Everyone uses Somonauk Street because the stoplight is there. There shouldn't even be a stoplight there according to the original plan. She feels that there should be no parking for three blocks on Somonauk. Bart Olson suggested that each one of the alderman contact the other alderman in their ward to hold a ward meeting. Consensus for this item to come back to the October Public Safety meeting. 7 PS 200 7-2 7 Smoking Ban in City Vehicles and Buildings Chairwoman Spears contacted Bart about this and he was already researching this. Chief Martin stated that the police department has always had a ban on any kind of tobacco products in city vehicles. It is also in the employee manual. According to Bart and Molly we have to post a few more signs and move the smoking receptacles to be in compliance with the Smoke Free Illinois Act which will take effect January 1, 2008. This is an informational item only. 8. PS 2007-28 Ice Cream Vendors/Soliciting Ordinance This item was brought up by Alderman Leslie. Alderwoman Sutcliff has information on this from the email survey that she sent out. She received 5 responses that said we should have ice cream vendors and 5 responses that said we shouldn't. Chairwoman Spears brought up an incident that took place in Sugar Grove with an ice cream vendor. If the vendors are a problem, she thinks that we don't need these ice cream vendors in our community. Chief Martin said it's entirely up to the City Council. We have one vendor who has been in our town for approximately 11 years and we have not had any problems with him except for his truck looking seedy. One of the reasons for a complete ban is to keep kids out of the streets. Alderman Werderich asked how many complaints have we received about the ice cream trucks. According to Molly Batterson, we've gotten a few anonymous phone calls complaining about the condition of the trucks and that we should make them buy new trucks. Lt. Schwartzkopf said that some of the different towns go from banning them completely to having an ID card for the vendors. Molly stated that the police department does background checks currently on the vendors. Page 7 of 10 It was asked how many different vendors were selling ice cream currently. Alderwoman Sutcliff said that she had comments that refer to two different people. She received a complaint about one of the vendors not giving kids their change. The police have not received any formal complaints about stealing money from children. It was discussed that possibly we could issue a formal permit to registered ice cream vendors, such as a large colored ice cream cone decal with the year printed on it, so that the public would know that they are buying from a registered ice cream vendor. This would be a way to let the public know that the police have done a background check on the vendor. Another possibility would be to also issue a photo ID to the vendors. Alderwoman Sutcliff suggested that we should educate the public about this. Possible ways to let people know were ward meetings, neighborhood watch newsletters and the city newletter. We need to let people know that if they have a problem with a vendor, they should call the police so they can look into it. Consensus for staff to look into a permitting process which would include a permit for the vehicle and ID tags for the vendor to wear. Consensus for this to come back to the Public Safety Committee in January 2008. 9. PS 2007-29 Request for Patio License A request was received for a patio license for Sawmill Pizza which will be reopening. Bart Olson mentioned that currently, the city code does not allow for any more patio licenses to be issued without council's approval. If council would like to, they can choose to amend the code and approve the patio license. There was some discussion regarding opening up the patio liquor license category to allow for more patio licenses to be issued without having to go to council for approval on each one. Chairwoman Spears questioned the amount of work that was being added to staff by having to get council approval for each patio license. Lisa Pickering responded that it was up to council if they want to have discretion to approve what is coming to town. Currently the city code does not have very many limitations and if the category is open, then people can come in with anything and apply. If the category is closed, then it would give council added discretion over what they choose to approve. Alderman Werderich agreed that council discretion would be a good thing, however, he doesn't want to put additional burden on staff. Bart responded that the amount of additional work was minimal as long as they have a process established. Ms. Pickering also responded that as long as staff has direction from council, they are able to inform the applicants in a timely manner. In this instance, Sawmill was informed when they picked up their liquor application that the patio license category was closed and would have to be approved by city council. As a result they submitted their application in a timely manner to allow for council approval. Page 8of10 Consensus to recommend to amend the city code to allow for 4 total patio licenses. This item will move to Committee of the Whole and City Council meetings on September 11, 2007. Old Business: 1. PS 2007-17 Request to Limit the Number of Package Liquor Licenses The question is whether they want to change the city code to limit the number of package liquor licenses to the number currently approved. Currently the package license category is unlimited. We have 11 total package licenses issued. The committee is in favor of limiting the number of licenses available to be the same as the number approved. Consensus to recommend to amend the city code to limit the number of package liquor licenses. This item will move to the Committee of the Whole and City Council meetings on September 11, 2007. 2. PS 2007-16 Request to Amend Liquor License Ordinance Regarding Patio Licenses Bart Olson said that the patio license issue has been an ongoing discussion. The most recent discussion was at the Committee of the Whole meeting last Tuesday. The desire of the Committee of the Whole was to eliminate the height requirements for patio licenses. This is okay by building code, except in cases where the building code requires a guard fence. An example would be an instance where the deck is off the ground. In that case the fence would have to be 42" high to meet our code. This would be governed under the building code when they come into to apply for the deck permit. The city attorney provided two draft ordinances. The first is more restrictive and requires the applicants to submit a site plan detailing where the location of each item in the patio area. The second is not very restrictive. Chairwoman Spears felt that the first ordinance was too restrictive and would allow the city too much control over what could be considered interior decorating decisions. It was mentioned that the intent was probably not to micromanage, more to prevent someone coming in with plastic lawn furniture. Bart mentioned that in asking for details of what the patio area will look like would help the liquor commissioner make a well educated decision. For purposes of amending the city code, it's to the benefit of the applicant to submit as much information as they can. Consensus to send both versions of the ordinance to Committee of the Whole and City Council meetings on August 28, 2007. Page 9 of 10 3. PS 2007-19 Public Display of Signs Discussion Bart Olson said that staff is looking for more direction from committee. What direction does the committee want to take with this? Chairwoman Spears said that she brought this up because she got a lot of comments from residents about people displaying signs in medians. This is illegal for people to display signs in the right-of-way on state property. After the elections, not all of the signs were picked up. Chairwoman Spears recommended that the Clerk's Office hand out a packet on sign ordinances when people are running for office during election season. The packet could list guidelines such as where signs can be located, where they can't be located, and when they should be removed. We could also ask for a contact name and phone number so that we can contact someone if there is a problem with one of the signs. They would like to see a recommendation that the signs need to be taken down 24 hours after the end of the election. Consensus for this to come back to the Public Safety Committee in September. Additional Business: Alderwoman Sutcliff responded that she spoke to some residents and they were concerned about speeding issues on Somonauk Street with school starting. She was wondering if a speed sign could be placed at the corner of Somonauk and Freemont or else Somonauk and Liberty. Chief Martin said that Lt. Schwartkopf would make the arrangements. ----------------------------------- Alderman Werderich received a phone call from a resident who had concerns about the speed sensor sign downtown. Chief Martin said the battery had gone bad. The sign has been fixed and is now working correctly. ----------------------------------- Alderman Werderich brought up the committee appointments again. He said that Alderman Munns wanted the school district, however, since Alderman Munns already is the YEDC liaison, Alderman Werderich feels that Alderwoman Sutcliff should be able to be the school board liaison, since she is not a liaison for anything else. Alderwoman Sutcliff asked if the liaison issue is a vote or an appointment. Chairwoman Spears responded that it is an appointment by the Chairman of the Committee. Bart Olson said that the governing ordinance just says that the committee is supposed to decide liaisons. How the committee chooses is up to the committee. It was found that there was not clear direction in the governing ordinance as to how liaisons are going to be picked. Chairwoman Spears suggested that they forward committee liaisons to Committee of the Whole and have all of the council involved in the discussion of how to select liaisons. ------------------------------------ Page 10 of 10 Chairwoman Spears asked the status of the Mayor's letter regarding Cannonball Trail and John Street intersection. She is wondering if the letter has been sent to Sheriff Randall yet. Bart will follow up. ------------------------------------ Chairwoman Spears mentioned that she received a call from Joe. There is a camper parked near the North Shell in the old movie theatre parking lot at Countyside Center. It was discussed that this is private property, so it would be a zoning issue. -------------------------------------- Alderwoman Sutcliff asked why a couple of stop signs were taken down in the Somonauk Street area and replaced with yield signs. Chief Martin explained that they did a traffic survey and found that they had too many signs and some of them had to be pulled out. The police have to follow the IDOT standards, which is a requirement by law. --------------------------------------- Chairwoman Spears asked when the new sign is going to be put up at the Countryside Parkway intersection. Bart Olson responded that the signs are $1100 41200 each. Bart will follow up on this. --------------------------------------- The meeting was adjourned at 7:59pm. Minutes respectfully submitted by Lisa Pickering, Deputy Clerk