##VIDEO ID:mkk4CtbXeEY## September 24th 2024 call the rooll Scott present pres pres please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the repblic for which it stands one nation indis liberty and justice for all can I get an approval of the agenda motion to approve so moved second all right any discussion all those in favor say I I I opposed motion carries we'll go ahead and move on to animals at Large are we just going to go right to it and discuss it correct do you want to take that BR yes I have some information as requested by Council uh we came up with a proposed ordinance it's included in our dog ordinance which was provided for your review the reason this came about was a complaint of a cat bite on Ottawa Trail um And discussing that with our Animal control officer it sounds like that was probably a pet so we have uh some concerns with costs and I think I'd like to start off with Mike if you could yeah please my name is Michael O'Brien obviously Animal Control excuse me I just put together some really quick notes for we do the animal control for five communities and most of those do have a cat ordinance I live in this town and I pay tax this year so I I do have some concerns about what this could cost um our contract would increase about $233 a month and that's me being generous so that is um I forgot my glasses 2,800 bucks a year so what you guys would pay the shelter would be $17 a day and you you hold cats for 7 days so $119 if the cat had to be euthanized that's $25 so it's $144 per cat uh in the city of Brainard which is the exact same land mass size as Breezy Point I don't know how we would compare that as far as how many cats would we get compared to brainer but 3 to 400 cats a year in a city of Brainard uh 25 to 30 a month basically so 25 cats would cost the city of Breezy Point anywhere from 20 yeah 297 $25 to $3600 at the shelter depending on how many had to be euthanized with my contract it would be anywhere from 5775 to $6,400 per for 25 cats 50 cats $ 8750 to $110,000 and I don't know how many cats we would get I get more cat calls here than we get dog calls we caught other cats trying to catch this cat out there and I just released them on site because you guys don't have a cat ordinance in my yard I live in Delwood Acres and I'm tired of my neighbor letting her cat come in my yard it's there all the time we have a Sandy yard and it's there to pee that's what they do I kind of think we should have a cat ordinance because at some point this is out of control but I I do have some concerns about the cost as a taxpayer here okay and we have no way of knowing exactly what it would cost right so is there no way to um ultimately have the pet owner pay any of those costs okay so that's a great question so how it works is you guys contract with me to handle the calls and then the city contracts with the shelter to hold the animals you guys do a 7-Day hold so if I I pick up a dog or I pick up a cat I bring it to the shelter if we know who it belongs to I would bring it home I mean if we pick up the same animal four or five times at some point I'm going to bring it to the shelter and make them go and deal with the paperwork but if we pick up an animal we bring it to the shelter it gets held for 7 days if an owner claims that animal in that seven days then they pay all costs incurred except for except for my contract with you that's always paid by you but any of the shelter fees the $17 per day that's covered by the owner how do you know then how would you know between a feral cat though National I mean cats do mine's not turning um I have I have four cats have a cat door and they stay on our property and they're great but I I have concerns that someone just saw a cat running across my road just the dead end that they would just call and then what right you go out every single time that I call yeah okay yep I mean we were looking for a dog on Eagle today and while I was standing there talking to the complainant cat runs across the road right in front of us um the question was how would I tell the difference the difference doesn't matter to me if I can't determine the owner right then and there the deal with dogs in a city of Breezy Point people are pretty good about having tags on their dog collors do you have tags on your cat's colors I do not because they climb trees and there is uh you know I'm worried that they would strigle themselves and that's a that's a valid concern everybody else has that same concern I can tell you of the thousands of cats I've picked up maybe less than 10 have actually had callers with with names or numbers on them and one of them actually said don't call Animal Control please and cats also slip out of doors and windows very very easily mine would never stay inside and I I adopted all of them basically from people who had them in very bad conditions so I don't like the idea necessarily of just like seeing a cat calling yeah calling you to come pick him up I just but if you have a cat ordinance I'm assuming part of however that ordinance is written is you need to keep it on your property right so if he's Three Doors Down then you're not following the ordinance and if you've ever held a frail cat you would easily tell the difference between a domesticated cat and a frail cat okay I mean I I could show you the scars they um the problem where the costs really start to increase on one call last week in brainer I took in 11 cats and they those weren't that wasn't a hoarding situation it was under a house there was a uh a mom on four kittens a mom on four kittens and the dad cat who was very happy to go with them all and that can happen I own a wildlife control business I've I catch hundreds of skunks a year and quite a few of those in Breezy Point I catch more cats in my skunk traps on Indian Hill then I catch skunks there's a lot of cats up there do you know what percent of the cats that you capture and brainer that the owners actually come and claim them in that 7day period um like the mayor said if it's a domesticated animal it's probably going to get claimed if it's a cat I can handle it clearly has an owner it's probably going to get claimed pretty quickly if it's a feral cat doesn't have an owner it's not going to get claimed oh is this curious I mean would you say it's it's 5050 50% of the time the owners come and claim the the cat um in brainer I would say it's probably 25 to 30% go un claimed and those are you know they're going to go unclaimed and those are not cats that I'm necessarily just pulling up on a property and hand grabbing those are cats I have to trap you know somebody is tired of them defecating in our flower garden so we'll bring in some live cages and we'll trap these cats and we'll catch anywhere from you know 1 to 10 or 15 cats at a single property do you have a wand I know that like all mine are microchipped so I know that a lot of times like having a wand can be very much easier than just taking them to the shelter like do you have yeah so we'll check them but that's not microchips are not foolproof it's a great idea my daughter just adopted a cat last week and we're going to have it microchipped but if you don't register that you keep up with that registration all it tells me is it's a number it doesn't give me your information it gives me the information to the uh microchip company so now if it's 11:00 p.m. I'm never getting your information until the next day and I can't hold that cat at my house okay that makes sense so while Mike is still here present with us um the manager at uh our shelter said this is for feral cats the average cost for a feral cat's $150 I could reasonably see a 100 cats going in over the course of a year they're feral that's $155,000 we have not budgeted anything for next year for cats this was brought up after the fact um it could actually be over $15,000 that's just the shelter if you have a cat ordinance then our contract would go up it could be anywhere from 147 to $17,200 for1 cats do you is there any other cities that have a because there's obviously a big difference between a feral cat and a cat that someone owns right I mean that's that's clear is there any other cities that do things a certain way where you kind identify the feral ones and trap those I do you not you said you knew right that you could tell if you know by handling it but are you suggesting that if I catch a cat and it's friendly I just let it go I don't know I'm just asking if if yeah I mean I was curious about that too if there's like other friendlier like ordinances I don't know that's what I would say is they friendlier ordinances cuz I know my cat my would go hang out at our neighbor's campfire and they loved when he came over and hung out at the campfire right so it's not necessarily all bad but I understand we well again I'm not I don't have enough time that I'm driving around your house looking for your cat slipping off your property once if your neighbors call and say hey we're sick of the zard and Scat coming over here yeah I would go over there and I would trap that cat so we've also had hoarders in the city which Mike has assisted us with there was a gal on Belgian Drive who I took two cats from Belgian dri so actually three I got three of them only take between 20 to 30 cats so if we're beyond that the shelter can't even take them all and then we have to outside resources which Mike knows but in those scenarios ultimately the city could be on the hook for a big portion of that because at least in this instance the gal didn't have any money to pay any right fees how many did you pull out of that house I'm curious cuz three of my cats came out of that house 27 27 oh my gosh so with hoarding situations just after we deal with multiples a year this spring 108 cats in a 400t house in Crosby 7 two cats in a 600t house in Brainard I could go on and on now how we is this being recorded yes yes okay you're going to find out feral feral cats um are divisive they they bring out emotions in people um how I would handle a fer so if I went to a house and there was 50 cats there that's a big Bill it gets worse and and he'll find this interesting it gets worse if we say this is a frail cat house here's the issues we have as far as neglect and all that stuff now we have to hold them for state law for a minimum of 10 days if they contest this and they want to go see a judge we're holding them until a judge makes a decision on average when it's all said and done those people probably cannot afford a $40,000 bill at the shelter so somebody has to pay that and you guys have signed a contract with the shelter so how we've handled this is how do I say this how we've handled this in the past with hoarding situations is I will write up a contract between the city and the pet owner and we'll say hey I need you to sign these cats over to me today they're my cats if you sign them over I'm not going to start pulling out a citation book and talking about your over the number of cats you can have neglect you know all kinds of issues they'll always sign them over we'll go get them tested right away cuz when you have that many cats together there's a lot of feline diseases that come into play and most of those cats I can tell you the 108 cats in Crosby didn't fa so well those cats were sick I had cats die in my custody on the way to the shelter oh that's those cats were very sick so that's how we can I don't know if they want to fight it you're going to hold those cats for 30 60 days maybe maybe and feral cats are not adoptable right so I guess I feel kind of conflicted like similarly to you right where it's like obviously we don't want cats running around but cats are very different than dogs um and so I don't sounds I feel the same I think it's I it sounds to me like there's a lot of outdoor cats in this community they're not all feral but there's a large population there is there's a lot in my neighborhood you see them all the time but they don't I haven't heard anyone complain like I have I mean in my neighborhood at least I and I haven't been to other neighborhoods but like it's a hard I don't know so Chief sandal mentioned this issue with the cat biting the young girl and why I believe that cat was for sure an owned cat we were able to get fairly close to it I couldn't catch it but we were able to get fairly close to it everybody in that neighborhood knew what happened this cat was very identified but was a beautiful long-haired cat that cat disappeared we CAU three other cats trying to trap that cat that cat vanished somebody most likely owns that cat now civil the the girl who got bit could probably go after that cat owner for letting it run wild and not having a vaccinated for rabies potentially we weren't able to prove whether it was or wasn't CU we couldn't catch it that cat's gone they've they're keeping it in their house now I don't know the City attorney not here I don't know if the city holds any civil liability if you know there's an issue and you don't do anything about it in that situation I doubt it yeah we can ask the City Attorney Jerry maybe um give Joe a call and ask well I think you could certainly get a city attorney's opinion um I without knowing where that cat is or the owner I think you've got a real real problem of trying to to find it yeah I just mean like in the future like are we liable it is hard again cats they they don't listen like dogs and they don't also stay in so that's a that's a tough one I feel like there's a lot of factors that could come into like somebody getting bitten by a cat so I don't know that you could blame the city for like don't pick up the necessarily even if especially if we're like talking about it right now and you know potentially we'll do something about it but I guess my concern is that a large portion of these outdoor cats aren't vaccinated um years are AR but how many aren't um and you know I mean cost that's pretty substantial we have four acres though so it's a little bit different than if you have you know maybe if you're on like a you know half an acre right you don't have as much room for them so I do think that similarly to some of our animal ordinances you have to have a certain amount of acreage to have a certain number of whatever the animal I don't we could do something like that that's that's interesting to me I mean I I would like to to see some more different ordinances just out of curi like do some find some other ones to see how they're written and potentially deal with that because I do agree there's different where different areas May warrant different rules for that well for your consideration for instance we allow three dogs so if we were to pass an ordinance Council would have to determine how many cats or are allowable and then whether they should be licensed they all should be vaccinated with r um in Mike's email it states that uh brainer doesn't require licensing but Crosby does whatever so I think in order to enforce a cat ordinance I think the uh the fact that it's at large has to be one of the factors and then it would be up to council to determine how many cats are appropriate for an individual to own well I think it should be based on how much land you have right if I lived on half an acre I wouldn't have rescued five cats but five cats on four acres they have free rain and they love I mean it's it's great so I do think that it it does matter the size of your property to like how many animals you have cuz I wouldn't have five cats if I didn't have a yard right you have a half an acre I mean that cat's easily going to go exactly your neighbors exactly I would disagree I think when it comes to domesticated animals like dogs and cats it should have an no varrying on the size of your property um how long have you been doing the animal control with cats involved in brainer and have you seen over the years any reduction in the number of cats annually that you're bringing in yes about seven years a little over seven years and in the city of Brainard um it's kind of twofold the cat colonies that we're aware of we have mitigated those but now the longer it goes and the more people find out that they they do have a full-time Animal control officer um we get more calls because of that there were people before they they've had animal control for 40 years but the last um the the last company that they hired they weren't they were only responding to like 30% of the calls they weren't really getting after it where we've been pretty proactive and we respond to every call um so it's kind of balanced out to that three to I'd say 275 to 375 cat a year 3 to 400 basically in the city of Brainard again brainard's a little unique I think I mean there's a there's some larger uh mobile home parks there's a lot of animals there um as far as brainer goes you can have up to four animals in the city of Brainard whether it's three dogs one cat four cats four dogs whatever you can have four animals that's what you're allowed um so in a situation where we took 72 cats out of a tiny house obviously they were quite a bit over in Crosby it's a little different you can have up to two cats and up to two dogs all cats and Crosby have to be licensed vaccinated for rabies all dogs have to be licensed vaccinated for rabies and Brainard cats don't have to be licensed but they have to be vaccinated for rabies and if I come to you and say hey I picked up your cat you don't have a tag on it you're supposed to but I get the cat thing I I we now have a cat so I'm wondering how we're going to deal with that ourselves but um you they have seven days to prove that it's vaccinated for rabies on the day we picked it up I mean I think that having you know I don't mind having licenses for the animals I mean I think that is fair right I mean if you're living here and you license the rabies I think that's fine but in no way shape or form like do I feel like oh we're going to have an ordinance now and I have to get rid of two of my cats like I'm not going to do that so I also feel like there's that issue I as I tend to agree with Brad though for domesticated animals I mean how do you know your cats aren't leaving your property I mean they have a cat door they come and go I mean it's one thing if you have horses um and you have fenced yards or dogs it's it's fenced yards and I just don't won't see that you can make the statement that they don't leave I mean if they well I didn't say that they didn't leave I mean we have a big enough property that if they stay on it yeah and and like I said though I mean they come home every night and they're in the they're in the garage but at the end of the day I still what are we supposed to do tell people to get rid of their cats I mean I'm not going there I'm just making a statement regarding they're not leaving the property but it's four acres and and I believe that the more land but the more land you have the more you should be able to have as far as like animals yeah I mean I you have somebody has 10 acres and you're going to say you can have two cats yeah exactly how do you know they're staying on I mean the whole point is you can't say that they're staying on your property if it's not fenced and they can't get out well and I'm also not convinced that it has to be like any animal at large I mean I don't know this is where I struggle with it too because I don't have a cat but like I just know cats wander around and some cats do not want to stay in the house so I sort of struggle too with knowing people do have cats to just say like oh well now everybody keep your cat in the house or get rid of it or you know just because it might wander outside once in a while I just that's where I'm having a hard time like coming up with like a good solution I just I I feel like there needs to be one and I don't know if that's like four times a year we have like somebody go out and like look for feral cats I don't know like and it's just a like a routine like I don't know yeah I don't know it's a tough situation because I don't think there's a necessarily an answer that fits for everybody well to speak to your number of cats you have when other cities have changed or amended their uh city ordinances they've grandfathered their number of dogs or whatever in right you have five cats cat now doesn't mean 15 years from now you probably should have five cats but no but if I I wouldn't have had five cats if I didn't have a cat door for them to go outside cuz I wouldn't have cats in my home I'm actually allergic to cats my husband's allergic to cats our kids are but we we took three of them from that Belgian property because we knew they were being neglected as kittens and I have bleeding hard for animals so I took three cats in never thought I'd own a cat in my entire life you know and it was because we could let them outside and that's what they wanted and so I do think that it's not black and white but I also know that if I lived on half an acre I wouldn't have five cats okay 100% wouldn't have five cats I mean if you rode around with me some evening and saw how many dead cats we picked up off the road you'd probably not have a cat door it's it's a substantial number of cats we live on a dead end Road and four acres so for me it's a little again it's the demographics of where I live are not sandwiched in between a bunch of homes there's not even a home across the street for me it's all open so where I live in Breezy is very different than the average person that lives in breey so that's why for me well you're taking on some sort of a risk if you are going to let them outside I mean it's even worse than that so in the city or in the state of Minnesota the DNR the state of Minnesota has classified feral cats as an invasive species they have no protections I know of a person right now who with the permission from the state not me but with permission from the state is trapping cats on his property and euthanizing them and he's not breaking any laws he's tired of them he a multi-million dollar house house and are peeing on the side of it and he's over it and this is not a guy that normally would do such a thing but he had a DN DNR officer come out and they could not find any sort of violation for what he's doing so you are taking a risk I'm not saying that's happening I'm no it's a risk I mean they can be killed by Coyotes I mean we've we've had coyotes kill our chickens like we we've dealt with that we tried to trap them and we've had our cats in the live traps as well so we've dealt with that um again I wouldn't have all these animals if I didn't have the space and that's my number one issue with with the the ordinance I get that but you're I do get it putting me in a weird spot if I have to if we have a cat ordinance and I have to go out and I mean I guess I could go on the gis website and see how much land they have but I mean it's it's it's odd and no other city does it right the space y that you're aware of okay yep and and I guess my rebuttal to that would be probably shouldn't matter how much land you have as opposed to how big is your house you know the cats are spending most of the time hopefully inside your house not outside if they're outside I can tell you they're not staying on your property cuz I have a lot of experience dropping cat they're in our garage we have a heated garage so they're in the garage they have a cat door in the garage um and that yeah I mean it's an interesting setup but it is what it is I adopted five cats because they were whatever you know so one other point to make due to the reason this is brought forward my Mike will assist us with animal bites so irregardless of a cat ordinance if a cat bites someone he will come and assist and try to trap that cat cat um so we're kind of covered there now whether he could just go looking for feral cat specifically I don't know if that's a possibility no no the the bite thing is unique so and I can tell you what the cost for the bite thing would be had we trapped this cat we would have brought it to the shelter state law is we're holding this cat for 10 days whether anyone comes forward or not if they come forward and can provide proof that it's vaccinated for rabies we will give them the cat back immediately they have to quarantine the cat for 10 days from the day to the bite after the bite we go and we observe this cat rabies is not what you see on TV if a cat has rabies it's going to die if a dog has rabies it's going to die they don't live and just run around and bite things for years so after 10 days if this dog or cat is still alive and it's healthy looking it does not have rabies and then we would report back if you bring an animal to the shelter on a bite hold it's it's 10 days $50 per day so if had we brought that cat in and as a city you're obligated to now this cat's bit somebody we need to know if this cat has rabies so we bring it to the shelter the city would have been on a hook for $500 if nobody came to own that or claim that cat or it's not microchipped if it's microchipped then it's registered we would have been able to find the owner now with that said from my experience cat bites are fairly rare maybe not from your experience that depends on if people try to pick up cats or not yeah exactly don't pick up cats that are not yours right I mean I me I get bit by cats every single day but I'm picking they don't usually let you get close four like four of my cats do not let you get close to them they will run back to the house one of them is a dog and he will let anybody you know he's the best cat ever so it usually cats don't let you get within 5T of them we are not receiving those reports I can tell you that with this exception y yeah and and that in my experience it's probably true I would say of the cats we bring in that are determined to be feral cats unless they're kittens 100% of those I trapped we didn't just go to some house and grab them out of the backyard because they're like a wild animal they're gone yeah I don't know I just don't know if I'm going to have any kind of I probably wouldn't be able to vote on something like this either because I I know where right stand on it and my animals and they're all vaccinated they're all really nice they you know I don't know how many calls is the police department getting would you say any way of knowing on average per year for cats cat concerns as far as I'm aware for this year that would be the one and only um but then again Karen could be taking some calls and stating that we don't have a cat ordinance and I don't hear about it that could occur but very few I would say so calls that come to me either come from Karen at the police department from dispatch if it's after hours or they Googled animal control and found my number and I get more calls just directly to me and I can tell you I get more calls for cats than I do for dogs in the city of Breezy Point again nipped in the bud pretty quickly because I say hey we don't have a cat ordinance I can't help you now if it's the other side of that is if it's neglect we're kind of obligated to go look see if it's true neglect or abuse because that's a state issue that I'm assuming the city has to take care of um but I probably get two cat calls to one dog call for typically in a year how many cat calls then I haven't kept tracked I I wouldn't know I would say I'm going to get 30 to 50 in the city of Breezy Point and that's a lot of people know you don't have a cat ordinance once once you have a cat ordinance I think um and again I'm not advocating for or against it I kind of tired of cats in my yard to be honest but once you have a cat ordinance the call volume is going to increase every year just because more and more people are going to know you are now dealing with cats and in my neighborhood is see I live in Delwood Acres it seems like we're growing as a city I have no idea what what our population's done in the last couple years but but there's more and more people here and I my daughter and I we walk around our neighborhood and uh we'll see two to three cats probably every time we walk around they're the same cats but they're just out walking around doing their thing but they inevitably end up in our yard seems like I also think though Crosby is very D like as far as like the layout of Crosby and Brainard right I mean you're talking about houses that are right next to each other and that is all of Crosby and that is all of Brainard besides maybe some of the outskirts right whereas they're Bree there's a lot of parts of breezy that are also like that but then there are parts of breezy that are not and so I think that it does make sense when you have that high density you know that a there's a lot more people building people are living right next to each other so yes I think eventually it'll make sense to have a cat ordinance absolutely but that's part of the growing city that eventually I think is going to have to be addressed So to that I would say yes and no the cats that we're trapping in Northeast Brainard where there's house after house their house are very friendly cats they're just people they'll call them uh inside outside cats and they'll just let them out at night they're very friendly cats a very good majority of those are going to end up back at their house I don't know if you're familiar with Brainard but where the the old high school is down below there there's the old football field we tra tons of cats down there the feral cats want to be in the woods we have a pretty sweet situation for FR cats here I I think you'd be surprised the wooded areas are you know oh I meant just for like people who own cats not for the feral cats is what I'm what I was referring to is the ownership of the cats not cuz feral cats don't just I mean they just decide where they want to go so I I don't I don't really know if I have anything yeah we we had a feral cat last year in the city of Brainard run into a guy's house chasing his cat in her and kill his cat inside the house and it was like a 13 lb Tom Cat it was just all scarred up it was it was super vicious and that was right by the football field okay I don't know maybe bring it up this next year um well we haven't budgeted right yeah that's what I was going to ask like if we even if we did entertain like what's proposed here within this year I mean it's not budgeted for and that's uh like a hefty sum of money that's just an estimate and what was it like 17 could be, 100 cats could be as much as $177,000 a month no no no year well I mean unless you're bringing in 100 cats a month we're not we're not a year poti there is one other way to bring that cost down a little bit the city of Breezy Point in your ordinance you hold animals for 7even days if nobody comes forward you are on the hook at the shelter for seven days the state law is 5 days there are some communities in Crowing County that brainer just holds animals for five days after that it's the shelter's responsibility and dogs we're always going to find the owner within five days M so you could so there's there are other similar ordinances that are a bit different that's kind of what I'm interested in looking at yeah because even some of those tweaks to this may help either with the cost or just with or even just licensing them too I mean we could have people license them pay for the license that could ease some of the burden of of you know the cost I mean I'm just I'm just thinking outside the box get a license instead of doing I mean but who a dog's the same way we' have to enforce that right we talked at one point like who gets a dog license I mean probably not many people do so we talked about getting rid of that at one point because the what we make on that is I think very minimal for probably the work that's done on issuing them but I right another issue I mean there are ways to increase the number of dog licenses if you want to we increased increase the number of dog licenses in Brainard and Baxter maybe 20-fold easily um to where they had seven and a half eight years ago when I started doing it for the city of brard I I get a list of the license holders every month and there was maybe 40 names on there now there's hundreds and hundreds uh people kind of want to be responsible a lot of people I guarantee there are people that live in my neighborhood my neighbor across the street doesn't realize he has to have his dog license I bring it up to him every time I see him he just doesn't know he has to have his dog licensed I'm not saying you get aggressive with citations or anything but we could send out a mailer or put something on Facebook saying hey this is a lot but I think Breezy Point also has a unique dog license situation in which at one point there was like a lifetime license too and then there's a yearly license it's it's confusing for me m and if there EAS way to get the license too I know at some point we talked about some things maybe being available online at some point which would make it easier too to get 100% that would be part of that I people that comply with some of those yeah instead of having to come in like a lot of people probably have never even stepped foot in City Hall so like having the ability to pay online pay for a license might make it a lot easier yeah and other communities in croan County have that you can call City Hall uh however in order to get a license you have to prove that your cat or dog is vaccinated for rabies so you would have the certificate of of vaccine and you would have to give that number I don't know if anybody at City Hall is running them down and verifying them but if they have it it's probably legitimate yeah um every every Community we work with um licenses are due every January 1 and I will get a copy of the license list in December and I will at my expense send out a mailer reminding them hey in January your license is due and again a vast majority of people are going to renew their license there's always a weird call like oh Jimmy died or something I you know and I was like oh man I didn't have to make that call um it happens um but you know we're not trying to run around and give people citations we want them to follow the law too and and most people there are people that just aren't going to follow your law I mean you know that yeah um but most people want to I mean Breezy Point I've lived here a very long time this a great Community my neighborhood at least is did you say that one point there was a lifetime at one point wasn't there a lifetime dog it was some weird thing when I when I started talking to him from my recollection when we first started issuing dog licenses they were lifetime okay and then they changed to a yearly that's not really it's not enforced yeah like you're saying um yeah wonder why like if it was if it was for cost like if it was cheaper to do the yearly for the individual or I don't recall what the initial reasoning was but they should be bringing them in yearly and getting a new license and proving vaccinations that's the point maybe that's why okay right the vaccinations are the primary reason for having licensing yeah and that is also the primary reason why if you look at I think you can go back 20 plus years and not and no Americans have gotten rabies from a dog or a cat from within the boundaries of the us all the time tons of Americans have gotten it but it's always Far East Caribbean they have no rabies laws oh no vaccine laws and we went our church goes to Honduras every year and we went down there I'm like I'm telling everybody do not touch these dogs these dog look sick and uh that's the way it is in other countries here in the US we've had rabies vaccines for a very long time and rabies is very rare it's 100% fatal you don't want to get it but um it's because of the licensing and the vaccine requirements okay well thank you so much for all your information I say information Mike does a fantastic job for us so yeah it's easy City to do a good job and people want to follow you seem to love your job too so you're a wealth of knowledge so I'm sure we'll be asking more questions yeah I mean you call call anytime have any questions if I don't answer leave mat I'll call you right back yeah well thank you we really appreciate it thanks thanks Mike all right so move on to the camping so a camping ordinance was provided and this one I will recommend the basis for it is the city has an ordinance in place right now that prohibits camping on on undeveloped property so a property owner can't come in and camp on their own property yet they could go out in the minimum maintenance road in front of their property or to some other public property in Camp and we don't have an ordinance prohibiting from doing so now the reason for the ordinance obviously is to prevent noise complaints garbage dumping and sewage issues in this ordinance though we do have a provision built in there's been mention of you know people that uh are in need of help so with this ordinance as long as they aren't in certain areas by schools whatnot they have 48 hours to comply we cannot take any enforcement action upon them unless they have been given given options um or assistance um in areas that they may need so we have to provide assistance to them if they are in need but just to get I guess the city as a whole on the ordinance of the camping ordinance I think this needs to be adopted so it follows what we do with our undeveloped properties it doesn't make sense that someone could camp elsewhere but not on their own property any questions does anyone have any questions on that one so the change overall then is just to add the prohibition of camping on public property whether it's parked property whether it's like you say a road right away correct that makes sense to me I mean if we're already regulating that you can't camp on privately owned vacant property um why wouldn't we have it including public property yeah I mean I I agree too that's an easy yeah make sense yeah great so and if you'd like I know you don't take action that Workshop so we just add it to the next I'll put on the consent agenda for next month yep that is that to go with that y well don't we have to hold a public hearing for amending an ordinance or no an ordinance change would require two readings you would have a a reading at one one Council me uh meeting we would delay the final action until the adoption of that until the second reading at the next council meeting so we could bring it on October and and if we all agree we could agree to it November you could do the first reading in in uh October and you could do the second reading in November you could make it uh effective first of the year or upon publication either one of the two that's usually cons uh part of the final adoption aren't we updating our zoning and ordinances though so couldn't this just fall in line with the entire no okay it probably if you're if you're planning on having this done for effective January one I think you probably have to handle this as an independent ordinance yeah is going to take a lot longer than that yeah I wouldn't wait okay all right so on the agenda just not on the real quickly what was the outcome of the animals at large we don't really have anything at this time I mean I mean the only thing would be if there's time to like if if if anybody else agrees like we could have if you had time to like pull together some other ordinances from other cities that we could like look at if we were but that made maybe for another Workshop or something maybe we add it to like a later Workshop agenda and then we can look at some of these other ordinances in the meantime I mean that could probably would slip into next year though I mean realistically well that's yeah it would I just I agree do we want to have anybody explore that or are we just putting it down I put it down for now I think think until what do you think brand well I definitely think we need to take the time to consider what other ordinances or excuse me communities in the county have for ordinances and um do some review of our current ordinance and the proposed amended ordinance with the cat language included um enough to at least come to some agreement on what an ordinance would look like I think we have an obligation as a city to do something with enforcing cat ownership no differently than what dogs so um I definitely favor us continuing to look into it and ultimately considering adopting an amended ordinance that would include cats I just don't know how soon we get to that this year so I agree with you but yeah what's the time frame I guess is what we're looking at is the kind of the probably a little early maybe it's not a high priority because he uh Jerry's just not going to have time for everything but right I don't want to just say just drop it either because I know it is an issue and I dropped I I don't know I just don't want it to get forgotten about and then well maybe at the start of the year when you guys do priorities then you guys can discuss the council can discuss what the priorities are for the year and then bring have this so maybe we have note to bring it back for like a workshop at the beginning of next year for priorities and then we can talk about how to prioritize that at that time so it just doesn't get forgotten about yeah I think we should that with everything right I mean I think that that at the first of the year the new Council they will you know just discuss what the priorities are going to be and then go from there yeah so okay thanks thanks to all right City brush pile so at the request of council we placed our speed sign on prron drive from September 10th to the 17th so was out there for one week we put it in blackout mode so the screen doesn't display anything we're trying to minimize um any input into the drivers so we don't have people reducing speeds we want to see as best we can the accurate speeds of what people are driving on that roadway um and I had some complaints about that because they thought it wasn't working but it is so if you look at the data that was provided and the peak speed things gets a little confusing to some at times but uh average speed on the road was 20 M an hour uh average Peak speed was 25 miles an hour so that's the average when they talk about Peak speed when the when the sign picks up a vehicle that's moving if it's doing 20 increases to 31 and drops back to 20 31 is the peak speed so average of all Peak speeds on that row was 25 miles an hour uh the actual Peak speed so the fastest vehicle on the road was 43 mil an hour 85th percentile speed was 31 m hour which means 85% of the vehicles on the roadway were going slower than 31 miles an hour um and then it gives you some of the max speed s um and some other information in here one thing to note where this where the speed sign was placed we wanted to be able to pick up as much traffic as possible and I think a lot of the traffic coming onto priton uses suffk which is the closest to the pit right there coming off Dove street so where the sign is place it shoots all the way down the roadway almost to Ranch head drive but there's a little corner that we wouldn't catch there the factory that kind of skews SE numbers a little bit is there's a dip in a hill at Belgian drive right between on that roadway so a car that's coming in on ranet drive for instance will be picked up on the west side of Percheron will lose signal and then when it comes up the hill if it's still heading that direction it will be counted again as as a second car even though it's just one vehicle can't tell you how many and that's coming and going both directions so I can't tell you how many this accounts for but the actual numbers will be less than what you see on here to some degree pardon under the traffic correct well I've drive past it probably four times a day so I literally see it every day but the other thing too is if you're coming off a s Fulk you're making a left turn you don't really have a lot of time to catch speed before you go down that really big hill so I do think that you're seeing more of the higher higher speeds on S Fulk and on Belgian coming into Peron more so than you're actually seeing on Peron just because of how it's laid out you're just turning left to go so I think the the higher speeds are absolutely more on saulk I would tend to agree but that didn't CT capture speeds on suul this is just yeah no I know I'm just saying like if we if we looked at the speeds on suff Fulk like guarantee they would be much higher like coming into that turn to go onto the um into the brush pile for sure if the council wishes we can certainly move the sign and get a study there as well I think that would be more accurate to the where the speeding is really occurring um just because I've seen it many many many times and like I said if you're turning off a Suffolk you're taking a left you don't have much time to even speed up before you get to the hill that goes down to the brush pile but that's just I mean I this like every single day so I don't know I think that it would be helpful to know what people are driving on suhul um because that's where I see the most speeding but the complaint came in from a party that lives on Pon that's part of the reason for it being on Pon m is there any way that we could do a week's worth of the speed study on Salk absolutely okay so I would this is just my suggestion um give it a little bit more time where it's at and then maybe move it next week so we can pull the data so we have a little bit more than a week's worth of data we'll pull the data again from piton and then move it to saulk okay yeah I think that's fine I I mean we initially had a discussion and there was a reason why we chose that location so but I think it makes sense cuz there's it was hard to choose which Road so yeah I believe we actually had a petition from the residents on perer on that's why I was MH it is just a little difficult though cuz do you know what I'm talking about when you turn off S Fulk you're turning and if you have a trailer or anything you're not going to speed up that quickly when you go past it so it doesn't you would get more accurate I think if you put it at the bottom of that hill going in that's where they start to speed once they come down that hill and then it's at that that they really start to speed up talking into the pit yeah into the brush pile area itself yeah so well we didn't want it at the bottom of a hill did we cuz but there's nowhere else to put it like it's literally the top of the hill or the bottom of the hill there's nowhere else to put it cuz it's such a short distance like once you get down the hill and it's a really Steep Hill you're just right in and people just kind of fly into the brush pile so it's not ideal but it's hard to don't know well I don't me potentially they are on the petition I don't know but there's two residences down there yep yep I know both of them y yeah so I don't know if they were on the petition or not but the complaint we had was further to the West the main the the G that came and spoke with this yes and that was s or was she on Belgium or she was on one of the other roads she was on Belgium was she on oh so she was farther down on Pon okay the West okay yeah I don't know I think we could move it and just kind of see where the speeds are really coming from um yeah anybody else have anything on that no I'd like to see it come to the council meeting at our regular meeting have more discussion about it and then provide additional Direction so at least the public is aware okay about what we've come to find out so far move the location and stuff yeah yeah agreed it can be placed agenda for next month if you'd like yeah I think it could be good okay just like an update this information could be in there then that's okay is this information oh this is online so people can take a look at this all right so we go ahead and move on to the police chief job description okay so the reason for the reviewing this my request and this this has nothing to do with any of the ministrators we've had in the past I've worked very well with all of them and I've never had a problem yeah um our current interim administrator is an anomaly just throwing it out there because that's not not what I've experienced in Breezy Point um Jerry was at his job for a long time if we had a Jerry this wouldn't have come up but our administrators on average lately seem to be here approximately two years a little less for the last I have been with the city of Breezy Point for over 25 years with 15 years of that being in a supervisory role so the concerns I have with this is every couple years I get a new boss coming in that knows less about the city of breee point and less about my department than I do but has the potential to force change on me even if I disagree with that change so what I was asking with this um is to remove on the job description um where I report to the city administrator uh for levels of service on the first page and then on the second page can you tell us is it which one is it because there's a job description in the packet and there's a job description that we got here right so the J both them depending on if they're a paramedic or not there's there's three job descriptions so there's uh the police chief the police chief paramedic and the police chief EMT it's all the same with the um obviously the paramedic and EMT having an additional uh Medical in theirs so all three would be subject to this change if you agreed um and once again if you agree I'll put in the consent agender for next month and if Michael wants to pull it off he can um point out like for me I'm conf like what page and then like just on the police chief one for example like what page and what paragraph Okay fortunately uh the agenda went away again I can only pull up just the one page so 223 41.2 scope and scope of responsibility yeah but we have a different so we have a job description for Breezy Point the city of Breezy Point so this is the one that was printed off the one that you provided is the Breezy Point PD policy manual Breezy Point Police Department job description 401 this is the actual city of breezy job description that was on our desk right so I don't is it in both or is it only in the it's what there's one in the packet the be pull okay so it's not in this in this no City job description so the one that was provided tonight would be page it says one of three on the bottom so it doesn't um yeah CU there's multiple here well wouldn't it be under the scope of responsib responsibility correct where it says it directly reports to the city administrator on those job elements relating to Personnel policy fiscal matters and overall service levels provided I have no issue with Personnel policy our police policy is separate so Personnel policy and fiscal matters to me make sense that I would answer to whomever the administrator coming in to take the full-time position is um that's what they are responsible for for overall service levels provided by our Police Department I feel like I am in the best place in our city to make determinations on what that is can you give us an example can you give us some examp I mean examples of what well what ises overall service level that's pretty open-ended right it could be however it's interpreted by the administrator that's coming in but um for instance um we want some extra Patrol at the disc golf course which we provided that was that Council Direction now the administrator could do the same thing I want your officers in such and such area for these events or for whatever those are that's some of our service right the service Services we're providing to our public that's the way I see that um now I'm not saying I would say no or obviously if what they're saying makes sense absolutely I would go along with it I'm not looking to push back anybody I'm just trying to protect myself in case just on the off chance we get a micromanager in here someone has some differing viewpoints that I can't reason with that has never been an issue but it gives me a little more stability if I know when it comes right down to it I can say no we're not doing that for these reasons ultimately they could bring it to you and if you agreed as a council you could say yeah we want to do that I think that to me is more appropriate con considering my years of experience within the city and my department and someone that's coming in with no experience with our city what about if you retire though like let's just say if we're making this specific to you and your experience and then you retire are you stating that we should put that back in because this is be more pertinent to you it depends but I would say probably not so Sergeant Garcia is the likely successor to me he has 20 years of experience within our city and department and also supervisory um leadership experience so I would say that he would be in the same position as myself as far as knowing more than a new person that's coming to the city I think part of it gets to understanding of the community and time and position but to me the other pieces of it get to the police department is a very unique operation I mean our employees our officers obviously need to be licensed and I think for most people that comes with you know an extra level of responsibility accountability and adherence to the provisions of those LIC licenses that really the police chief is going to understand and know and be able to manage much better and more effectively than most City administrators I mean that's just the reality in case and point to that I thank you for bringing that up as a chief of police if we fall out of guidelines with our mandated policies mandated training uh the post board from the state of Minnesota can take action against my license they can suspend my license for a period of time and I also can be personally fined so there's no mention of any City administrator in there as far as you know being on the hook if there's a problem with our department but the police chief is so I can I can be personally fine for issues or problems with our department if they're not done correctly yeah I mean I don't have an issue like turning those responsibilities over to you and were they like part of your description before and they were moved do you know or was that just like a since it's so gray was that just a line item that was never really in there just kind of a given so at the beginning um with the first city administrator this was not in their description and that's going based on speaking with the chief of police when the first um yeah administrator came um and it was it was put in place sometime there after probably during uh you know some review of uh job descriptions or whatever and there was one other portion on here that relates to that it uh under essential duties and responsibilities um and it's a on mine so it's two so let's just say we took it out right let's just say we took it out and so then the next city administrator if there was something related to the services overall service levels provided whatever that means then they would bring it to council so if if so I'm just so if a city administrator future city administrator had an issue with something you're doing I'm not saying it's going to happen because it's probably not going to happen but then instead of them being able to just tell you what to do if they wanted to see a change they could bring it to council and then council could is is that correct correct but I would say that first step is we're going to have a conversation for sure I'm just I'm just trying to what they're saying you know I'm sure we could come to some kind of uh agreement one way or another but if we can't then they would bring it to you and Council as a whole determine yeah we want to do that or no we don't okay um in the portion I can't find it in this other one but our policy it states uh using direction from the city administrator and city council regarding desired levels of Police Service once again I'd like to remove the administrator and keep you as the council in there using direction from the council regarding desired level of police Services develops develop Staffing plans to meet objectives and identifies related costs and that's what we're doing currently for the most part anyway in the printed PD that we were given tonight it's on page two under number six the way I see it is this is every bit of the conversation we need to have in light of the permanent vacancy in the administrator position what other organizational changes uh make sense are worth exploring um better really uh kind of suit the operations for this for the community um I really think and look at the police chief position as kind of being no different than that of the administrator um they're both apartment heads obviously the police Chiefs the department head over the police department City administrators the department head over the administrative and other operations of the city um I wouldn't mind us entertaining A Change uh on the org chart where there is um a direct line from the police chief to the council as there would be to the administrator and an indirect line of reporting um from the police chief to the administrator just so that we recognize the need for Rapport relationship interaction but at the end of the day police chief is accountable to the city council and remove the relationship of the city administrator supervising the police chief um entirely I just think that makes more sense for the city what are other cities around us do I know that in this while I mean the police chief works with the city administrator I'm just curious what do other cities do I don't know as a whole I would I would assume that most cities are going to have that the police chief reports to the administrator I think that's become kind of a a typical thing but the other thing most police Chiefs have that I do not is a contract um I've never sought a contract because I've always felt very secure within our community what do you mean by so same as our administrator had they have employment contracts correct an employment contct you don't have an employment contract I do not have I'm an atwi employee so okay it's I'm not too concerned because I like I said I have a very very good report within our our city and with councils as well they've treated us well I've not had an issue maybe I'm being a little naive here because you could always get council members in coming in that have a problem with the police department based upon their past or whatever but technically right now I'm at will I don't have a contract most Chiefs would have a contract so for me these changes it just takes that one that one it how would I say this it makes things I think a little smoother for myself I feel comfortable that when it comes to a majority of a council when you're you you know hopefully the majority make good sound decisions and I don't have a problem with that I think going forward I feel protected I don't feel too concerned with that have you ever felt uncomfortable with the language do sits with any administrators that we've had in the last administrators yeah like say like because you said that you know because you're making a change not based on like any issues that you have but then you're making a change based on like the potential of an is correct because I so I person my personal experience with the city of man sters I've worked for here has been fantastic they've been very helpful um we've had great relationships I've had no problems at all none I know of some Chiefs that have issues with their administrators um on a professional level not naming anyone and I know that if that person was here I'd have those same issues that's what I'm trying to prevent so absent like remove like removing this and maybe moving it under your responsibility I guess is my thought we would move that overall service levels provided be your responsibility um do you have an issue reporting to the administrator for like fiscal things or like you know the other I don't know whatever I mean obviously it's not very many things you probably reports them on anyways but the just out of curiosity yeah so the largest thing I deal with any any administrator with is our budget purchases that kind of stuff and ultimately the the the city administrator is responsible for the city's overall budget and I and every other department head throughout the city should report to them for that um and then the Personnel policy I don't have an issue with that either um like I said our police policy is separate on our police items um I did have an administrator make some recommendations to me on the police portion of it that was a little off and I said no that won't work this is why and there was no argument um he understood and we moved past that so um I just like I said I I don't think this will change much or anything at all because in in reality I didn't report to the prior administrators on a level of performance anyway because we're asked to do something it obviously makes sense we did it it was never a conflict I'm just trying to protect myself the best I can in case I get someone coming in here with differing viewpoints that it wants to be a micromanager we are busy enough as Sheldon told you the way it is without someone coming in here trying to make extra work for us we can always bring it back let's just say let's just say it doesn't work out right maybe you leave and maybe the next and that same should happen right we talking hypotheticals at this point right but like if it came down to it and it didn't work then we can move that back I mean that's why it's helpful if it's in there it's just your role and then it's you know you can move it it's not deleted it's just this is part of your job description I don't have an issue with it um I think maybe reporting back to us and letting us know like how that's going you know with the next city admin you know I don't know so I will remove those two items and which which two place it on the consent just the overall Services level provided overall uh Services providing and then using direction from removing City administr and putting and leaving the city council because city council is in there oh I see from okay correct well but this says prepares and administers the police department budget and controls expenses to meet budget objections so you would be taking direction from the city administrator with regards to the police department budget correct so we wouldn't remove that from six no that's appropriate for me to so just the first page we would be removing yeah I don't know if it's because that it's like I said I can amend it and present it yeah because six on page two is under the department budget and that you would still report to the city so I think it's the desired level of service bullet under there that is the the uh which where can you under six under the first bullet I guess I'm looking at this one yeah where it says using direction from City Administration regarding the desire that's under the that is under six prepares an administers the police dep budget and controls expenses to meet budget so this is related to the budget right but he would be doing the chief along with the council would be helping with the desired service levels with would help develop staff plans to meet objectives identify related costs but it with the administrator but not like that little piece of it would be determined by the council and the chief not the administrator I mean they would use like your recommendation on service right but this for the for the administrator to put in the budget like if he said we need another officer or four more cop S I don't know I'm just thinking I'm saying number six though is specific to the budget that is what number six is number six is specific to the budget that's why there's four bullet points underneath there so he would be using direct from the city of insur in city regarding but you could take out desired level of Police Service take out that part not using direct so Bas yes is that what okay cuz it wouldn't cuz that's the only part that he's asking to have removed right instead of using direction from the city administrator to be removed we are going to be taking out desired level of police services under that bullet if that accomplishes what he's right it's a 401 point2 scope of responsibility just removing the uh overall service levels provided correct y desired level of Police Service under six yes so I think you understand what I said yep I'm good with that I mean yeah I would just look at it that's item six and just Redline it or something for what makes sense to get to what you're trying to get at it's hard to do it right here he's still going to be meeting with the city administrator for the police department budget right of course but maybe the city administrator says no we only need two police officers or something you know like it's well I think that's something I would always bring to Council in regardless right right right as long as let's say that's a good point to bring up if an new administrator tells me no you can't do that I don't support that you are not going to councel well I'm coming to councel As Long As I can't get in trouble for doing so that's that's my concern because ultimately if I feel there's a need I'm bringing it forward to council I think that's appropriate yeah I think removing just the service both service sentences accomplish I support you know the changes CH sandel proposed but I also think Brad brings up good point about the or chart I agree with them um personally I'd like to see us spend some more time on that if we're going to have a workshop in October um I wouldn't mind U us taking a look at the organizational do we want that to be another first of the year first of the year with the new Council I don't think that whenever it happens as long as it happens prior to a decision on filling the administrator position permanently yeah I think we should wait there are other changes that are we can add or chart to the um the priorities at the first of the year all right so is that anybody else have a think of good all right do I have a motion to adjourn I'll make that motion second the discussion all those in favor say I I I oppose motion carries [Applause]