Public Safety Minutes 2005 04-14-05 Page 1 of 5
APPROVED 6/9/05
UNITED CITY OF YORKVILLE
PUBLIC SAFETY COMMITTEE MEETING
Thursday,April 14,2005
6:30 PM
City Conference Room
City Staff Present:
Chairman, Alderman Kot Police Chief Harold Martin
Mayor Art Prochaska(out at 7:00pm) Alderwoman Ohare
Alderwoman Spears (out at 7:00pm) Sgt. Terry Klingel
Guests signed in:
Robert J. Fisher-resident Karen Fisher-resident
Carol Foster-resident
The meeting was called to order at 6:30 pm by Chairman Alderman Kot. Due to another
City meeting being scheduled for that evening,the agenda was discussed out of order to
allow those guests present a chance to speak before part of the Committee had to leave to
attend the other meeting.
6. Request for Contingency Funds for Part-time Line Item- $5,000: Chief Martin
has requested to supplement the department's Salaries Part-Time Line Item with
$5,000.00 from Contingency funds. He has been using more Part-Time Officer
Hours for the following reasons:
• Assist in the directing of traffic before and after school.
• Directing traffic for various functions at the schools
• Filling in for injured and/or sick Officers.
• Filling in for Officers in training.
• Beefing up Friday and Saturday evening shifts.
The Committee members okayed this to happen due to them being 2 weeks away
from the end of the fiscal year. Chief Martin does not see these funds being needed
with such a short period of time,but wanted it okayed if the funds were needed.
7. Part-time Officer: Chief Martin has requested permission to hire one more Part-
time Officer for the Department. This would help offset the hiring of the four new
officers for Fiscal Year 2005/2006. He is not asking for any more funds in the Part-
time Line Item due to him being able to fit this position in without any more costs.
He is currently looking at an individual who is a recent retiree of the Village of
Bourbonnais with 23 years on the police department. He retired at the rank of
Sergeant. Chief Martin feels he would be a good asset due to the following:
• He is a nationally known trainer in the area of firearms.
• He is on staff as an Adjunct Faculty member at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign Police Training Institute.
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• Wants the late shift,which is a hard position to fill.
• With the experience he has, the Yorkville Department could train in house
with Firearms.
The Committee discussed these benefits with Chief Martin and all present felt this
Officer would be a benefit to the Police Department in Yorkville. Chief Martins
request was approved.
11. Sidewalk Map: Sgt. Terry Klingel stated to the Committee that he has put together a
map of the City showing where there are current sidewalks, where repairs are needed
and where sidewalks are needed altogether. The Committee stated they appreciated
the work he put into putting this map together. The Committee Members stated
where they each felt needed prioritizing throughout the City. They discussed these
different ideas and decided to have the Grant Writer look into funding for the
sidewalks for funding and to have a memo sent out for all the Alderman of the City
look this map over and check their wards to prioritize needed areas for work to be
done first. This will go onto the Public Works for them to evaluate existing sidewalk
conditions. This will go on to COW as FYI.
4. Parking—One Street/Overnight: Alderman Kot approached the Committee with
some sample ordinances that other Communities have in effect regarding one side of
street parking and/or overnight parking. There have been some concerns from
residents regarding parking on two sides of the streets near parks, commercial
vehicles parked on the road and overnight parking in general.
Robert and Karen Fisher and Carol Foster, all from Fox Hill subdivision came to the
meeting to speak regarding their concerns on this issue. They are concerned with the
huge commercial vehicles on their subdivision roadways overnight and for a couple
of days at a time. They do not care for the way it looks and is bad on the roadways.
They discussed their concerns in detail with the Committee present.
Chief Martin stated to the Committee that there are currently no restrictions on the
City's books regarding these issues except the weight restriction on trucks in the
spring. Alderman Kot stated that it sounds to him that there are two main concerns
from the residents here tonight. One concern being adopting an ordinance prohibiting
large commercial vehicles on the residential roadways and another prohibiting
overnight parking in residential areas. The Committee discussed the idea of these two
ordinances being created. They felt they do not want the working residents to not be
able to bring there work vehicles home, so they would rather see smaller commercial
vehicles being parked in the driveways or garages overnight.
The Committee will have the City attorney look into creating restrictions by class of
the commercial vehicles on the roadways as well as restricting the overnight parking
of any vehicles. They also felt it was a safety issue having parking on two sides of
the streets next to the parks. These three ideas of new ordinances will come back to a
future Public Safety meeting after being looked into further.
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1. Approval/Correction of Minutes: February 10,2005 and March 10,2005: The
Committee found that the minutes from the February 10, 2005 to be approved with
corrections and the minutes from March 10, 2005 to approve as written. This minute
taker will have those corrections made and forwarded on.
2. Police Reports—February and March 2005: Chief Martin spoke briefly over the
contents of the reports before the Committee. Alderman Kot questioned how many
total P/T Officers the department did have. Chief Martin stated that there is 6 total
P/T Officers with the addition requested earlier tonight. Alderwoman Ohare pointed
out that on the Yorkville Police Department 2005 Truck Enforcement Summary
pages 2 & 3 had the same running total. Chief Martin will have that corrected on
page 3 for the correct running total there. With no further questions,the police
reports for these two months will move forward to COW.
3. Business Registration/Alarm Response: Chief Martin stated to the Committee
that they are still responding to a great many of the Commercial and Residential
alarms going off and are false alarms. He has brought forward ordinances from other
Communities showing the fees they have their residents pay for responding to
continuous false alarms. Chief Martin is proposing that the City of Yorkville adopt
an ordinance having residents pay$25.00 for the 3'd false alarm response and after
per year and commercial pay$50.00 for the 3'd false alarm response and after. He
feels having them pay will create more of an incentive for the owners to correct the
problem.
As far as the school false alarms that the department is responding to,the Chief would
still like to sit and discuss with the School Board on how and when to charge fees.
They all felt it is justified to handle the schools differently from the residential and
commercial false calls with so many more people using the facilities.
Chief Martin will have his staff track alarm work load and hopes to see a decrease
with any new ordinances to be going into effect. He will have this ordinance drawn
up and brought back to a future Public Safety meeting.
5. Railroad Crossing Update: The Committee at this point is still waiting to hear back
from Eric Dhuse, Public Works Director,regarding their request for him to check to
see that all crossings have been checked for proper condition and to ensure that they
meet all ordinances and line of sight requirements. They discussed that the signs for
heading north on State Street are hidden and faded. Alderman Kot stressed that he
feels this issue needs to continue to be looked into in the future after he is gone. This
will come back to Public Safety Committee.
8. FY 05/06 Budget Discussion: This item is from the previous meeting and there is no
further discussion needed. At this point Alderman Kot stated that he would like to
see this Committee continue getting the Cadet Program up and running within the
next 5-6 months. Chief Martin stated that if the funds are found they could definitely
get the program running that quickly. Chief Martin will also get a specific job
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description ready to go for this to happen. Alderwoman Ohare stated she is not in
favor of having any Cadets doing work where their safety would be put in danger.
All of the Committee agreed that there would definitely be restrictions made keeping
their safety in mind.
9. Weather Warning Siren Update/Map: Chief Martin stated to the Committee that
they have been waiting for a week or so for the CAD system to get up and running to
get the map for this Committee. MPI is getting ready to install their two weather
warning sirens. They are looking to put another on the South end in the Windett
Ridge area or more southeast. When the pump station on Bruell is finished,they will
have power there to get one running there as well. The Committee discussed that the
City does have coverage everywhere,but they are looking to have them louder so
more people will have a clear hearing of the sirens in time if there is an emergency.
Chief Martin will stay on top of this and get them all up and running as soon as
possible. Alderwoman Ohare asked that there be an article put in the paper to remind
the residents what these sirens mean.
10. Backgrounds on Employees: Chief Martin stated to the Committee that he would
like to see all employees have an extensive background check done before they are
hired to protect the City and the Department. The Committee agreed this would be
beneficial to the City for liability reasons. The Chief will have this drawn up and
bring back to this Committee and then on to Admin Committee as well.
12.Liquor Control Amendments: This item will be brought back to the next Public
Safety meeting when there is a full Committee for further discussion since all present
just received the new information.
13. Staffing levels: Chief Martin has put together information he obtained from the
government web site on sworn officers per one thousand inhabitants. The numbers
are from 2002 which is the most updated data available. In the United States,
suburban counties had a rate of 2.7 officers per one thousand; rural counties had a 2.5
rate of officers per one thousand, and looking specifically at the Midwest he has
found a rate of 2.2 officers per thousand was noted. He has brought this information
forward to help in justify to the public the need to continue to keep hiring officers at
the rate the department currently is looking to do. He went on to state that three
Universities could research this more for the City for a charge of$35,000 to $50,000,
which the City would have to pay for. Alderman Kot suggested that it be put into
policy to keep the department hiring to keep the City at a rate of 2.5 officers per
thousand. Chief Martin will bring this back to the next Public Safety meeting with
that drawn up in policy.
14.Additional Business:
• Alderwoman Ohare asked if anything had been done to getting a fire lane
marked. Chief Martin stated Bill Dettmer was still working on that and he
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apologized for not checking on that item lately. She stressed the
importance to have that marked, especially in bad weather.
• It was brought up that there is a street light out on the corner of John and
Evergreen. Chief Martin will look into getting this fixed.
• Alderman Kot stated that at a previous City Council meeting it was
brought up by one of the other Alderman the issue of school safety. He
would like this issue to be continued to be updated on and asked that the
Chief continue in the good training for rapid response and know the layout
of the schools. The department will continue this training and always
lookout for the safety of the children at school and out.
• Alderman Kot brought up the issue of physical fitness testing being looked
into for the officers on the department to keep them at their best. He
would like this issue to be continued to be looked into. The idea of having
a program through the YMCA being put together and eventually with the
future new Department being built having a workout facility on the
premises as well.
The Committee thanked Alderman Kot for all of his hard work and time he has put into
this Committee,he will be missed.
The meeting was adjourned at 8:06pm.
Minutes by: Sheila Teausaw
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