City Commission - Special Meeting

Is it ready? Yes. All right. [snorts] Okay. 6 o'clock and we'll call the meeting to order. I pledge allegiance to the flag [clears throat] of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. Are there any additions or corrections to the consent calendar? Second call roll. Commissioners Garbers. Hi Piggers.

Hi. Carlson. Hi. Mayor Lstrom. Hi. Are there any visitors to be heard tonight about anything that's not on the agenda? Oh, Doug McKenna Canton. Tomorrow night, Tuesday the 23rd at 6:30 p.m. in the commission room of the courthouse, the commissioners are going to review the old courthouse options. There are six options with possible board action on the next steps for the old courthouse. One option involves the city of Canton. I urge everybody that to attend that can you pardon? I didn't hear that last part. I urge everybody that can attend to be there. What time? At what time? 6:30 tomorrow night at the court.

Okay. What else? Thank you. Yeah, you

Charles Charles Smith 724 East Walnut. I'm here on behalf of uh the Canton Lutheran Church's restoring radiance committee. We are the committee that's involved with restoring the stained glass windows. We are in a three-year three-phase project. You might have noticed we started on the south phase already. Have all the in place windows are completed. The big main window is up in Minnesota right now being restored. It will go back in this summer. Uh we were fortunate enough to receive a grant from the fund for sacred places. It's a matching grant. Um and part of that grant is we have to um confirm whether K requires a historic preservation review. If you don't, that's fine. If it does, we have to go through that process, too. And that's part of the of their due diligence in that they just want to make sure that as these projects get completed that the proper steps are our project's pretty straightforward. Um but it's just one of the items we have to you know check the box for

and it's for the historical society to make sure that it was done according to if if you have a if the city requires historic review. No, we don't. Yeah. And just reflect that in the minutes and I will be done. Okay. put that. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else have anything? If not, we'll move on to new business. Um we're here to advertise to or to discuss or vote on advertising for a full-time police officer position, which will take um the place of a officer that resigned and relocated. So, open this up. Motion to approve. We have a motion. Do we have a second? A second. A second. Is there any discussion? I'd like to discuss some questions for

Corman. No. Um, you were here when I discussed what it took the patrol four people to cover 247. Yep. We got one at the school and we got you. So, I guess appropriate record for the newspaper or whatever. Can you can you explain why that's six is not enough?

So, the seventh position fills in that that nights and weekends. So, we will have two guys on on Friday night and Saturday nights. um they fill in. So we have two patrol officers because those are the most busy nights of the year and it it helps with officer safety completely. Um so that and that officer also fills in for any sort of extended period of leave um any sort of baby leave, military leave, anything like that. You know, officer uh Bates just left. He took two um baby leaves in his time that he was here and he was gone for weeks during that. and that helped alleviate everyone's workload and their stress to just be able to fill in that that position right off the bat. But primarily it is for the swing shift. So Friday and Saturday nights we have two officers on for officer safety purposes.

How long have we done that? Uh well for I believe we became a sevenman department in 20 Tiffany or 2023 I believe so is when we started doing that and why well we got the SRO and with the SRO coming in we could move to a swing shift um getting that seventh guy in. So that availability definitely helps again Friday, Saturday nights [snorts] for safety purposes because those are the busiest nights and for filling in for the department when people leave.

My question is why did we add two shifts two people on on Friday and Saturday night? Why and when?

2023 is when we went to the sevenman department and that's when we got had enough overhead for our department to have that swing shift. We used to have a detective. Okay. And prior to that, we removed the detective because myself and Sergeant Connley do all the followup. So, we don't we felt like we didn't need that position. And that's why we moved it to the swing shift, which helps again cover the most busiest nights of the week. Um, if you have a DUI on Friday night, you can be gone transporting for hours um because you have to get a lab draw, you have to transport and lodge. And so having that second guy in on the swing shift helps with coverage.

So the seventh person isn't full-time. The seventh person is full-time. It is a full-time position. They work a swing shift. They work Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Thursday, Friday, Saturday. So they work every weekend and then they fill in if anybody needs to leave, if anybody has vacation. So like this week um Josh is back from the academy. So we have him back, but we have Sergeant Connley who took leave today. Sergeant Connley who took leave on Tuesday and Friday. So all we had to do was fill in with Officer Livermore when he because he came back from the academy and needed to work those hours. So that's kind of what it was. He's fills in and he can work either days or nights.

So how often are you on patrol? I'm on play. What do you mean? I work Monday through Friday. I come on your Monday through Friday. People are asking. People are asking what the chief of police does. You

Okay. Well, I work right now currently. So, I work Monday through Friday, 8 to 5. I do all of the admin work. I do all the granting work. I do all of the make sure the equipment is working. Um, let's see. I do I fill in for patrol. I cover officers when they have they're on dayshift and they need somebody for a second. I fill in for there right now currently with uh SRO Valdez being on shift. I work the shifts when I come in and he's in the school. I fill in like that. Um there's a plethora of things that I do. Evidence I work I do all of the evidence. I control the evidence room. I send everything to the state that needs to be analyzed by the lab. If if you would like to if you would like to ride with me one day, you're you're more than welcome to.

For the record, when this thing started a month ago, it definitely was in the papers that I wanted to defund the police and that I wanted to pull a school resource officer. Correct me if I'm not wrong, but I never said I wanted to pull the school resource officer. As far as I know, you're the only one that said you were going to pull the school resource officer. So, would you corre clarify that I didn't say I wanted to, but you wanted to. That's not something that I wanted to do. Travis had to fill in for the day shift and that's what he's doing currently and we're all working to keep him in the school as much as we can. I apologize that you may have been misqued on what you said during a commission meeting, but I have nothing to do with the media or anything like that. So

So you said you had to pull Travis to cover the day shift. Nope. Until Officer Livermore comes back in March. You can't do that.

I can't work shift work. I can work shift work. I'm doing shift work right now with Trav. When he works during the day, I fill in for him so he can be in the school. I don't know if we can do part of this since you got the first and second, but I would really looking at the budgets not only in the police department and all the departments. I would love to have all the supervisors line by line explain their budget. Maybe the second second meeting in January if that's enough time for them to get ready. I don't know if [clears throat] we can do it here. Otherwise, I want it on the next agenda. Not you. I want the supervisors to explain their budget line by line because we I mean looking at it, we're going up $100,000 every every year roughly. I don't know if it was that steep of things, but yes, prices do increase, right? 2024, your police budget was 841,000. 2025 year police budget is 858,000. This year we're jumped to 922,000 which is 6.9% increase. Not only your but not only your budget but there's a lot of budgets that again I'm sitting here I believe in representing the citizens. The citizens want to know why is everything keep going up. And I I understand something's going up, but I don't think it's any I don't think there's a better way for then for you guys as a supervisor to explain your budget

and I have no issues going over my budget. I don't have anything to hide in there. Let's Yeah, let's let's um save that for another time. So, is there any other questions? I just wanted to also state um we had that long talk and I kind of the same thing that Paul said is that what we heard was the SRO needs to stay at the school. There's a contract for the SRO to be at the school and we've also heard that you are on during the days and that the plan was to take the SRO out of the school to cover for dayshift and he does work days. So, we just want to be clear that the citizens made it very clear they want the SRO at the school. [clears throat]

Yes, ma'am. And it wasn't like, oh, we understand that he needs to cover the day shift. It was, "We want the SRO at the school. You're on during the day. I get that you also take vacations, whatnot." Um, but just do your best to make sure that if dayshift needs covered and you're available that you're available because we've heard loud and clear the SRO needs to be at the school and they are under contract. I mean, this isn't just a we decided to have them there. I mean, there is a signed contract that this person should be working at the school. So, we don't want to make issues for ourselves. So,

I just want to make that clear um just so that we're all aware of what's the discussion has been about. So, okay. And I'm just going to say that I apologize for not being at the last meeting for you and for the community, but I did have a sick child, I said, which is why I could not be here. Family first, of course. It's not not anything new for for anybody here. Right. So, okay. One more question. Part of your contract was that to move to town? Yes, I do own a home in town. Uh, there is no time period set in that. I I believe from having conversations.

There's no set time for him to move. There wasn't because he already he owns that. It's not liveable until he gets it complete. So, and his children go to school here. I have two children in the elementary school. I But all I hear is that we have to time is of the essence. If we can't have our police chief living in town when they live in tea, I don't know how we can practice and preach time is of the essence. If your people need you, how long is it going to take you to get from tea to here? How long would it take if I was in Sou Falls grocery shopping? just

I I get that. I get that that that is something that's important and I know and I have had conversations with uh Sarah about it as well and she brought that up as well about how maybe you know the former chief was traveling over the weekends too much. I completely see where that is. So I have a home in town that I am renovating and that I plan on living. I have two children in the elementary school. So I I mean understand where I'm coming from. Sure. Okay. We bring it to a vote. You want to call roll. Commissioners Piggers. Hi. Carlson. I Garbers. No. Mayor Lindstöm. Hi. Motion passed. Thank you.

Thanks for your time. Okay. Now we go for commissioner dialogue. Sarah, you got anything? Uh, merry Christmas everybody. Yeah. saying merry Christmas. Yep. Merry Christmas. Be safe. Thank you. Thanks for all coming anyway too. We appreciate having people here even though nobody came forward and talk. Anybody want to talk? Nope. Okay. Okay. Now we'll move on. Um did you have anything you wanted to add, Andrew? No, ma'am.

All right. Now we have an executive session planned. Um, South Dakota Codified Law 1-25-2 or union negotiations. Thank you all for coming and merry Christmas. Motion and second. Oh yeah. Motion second. [laughter] Call roll. Commissioners Carlson. Hi. Carvers. Hi. Diggers. Hi. Marstrom. I do. Yeah. Right. Do we have to move