Public Safety Committee - Regular Meeting

The November public safety committee meeting to order. Roll call. Everybody is present. Public comment. Is there anybody here for public comment?

Second call for public comment. No previous. Last call for public comment. Consent agenda. Is there anybody that would like to remove anything from the consent agenda? Looking for motion.

I'll make a motion hearing no nothing to approve the agenda as presented. Second.

Motion and a second. Alright. Discussion and action items. First action item would be 25Dash0803. Request to change ordinance 10.39, regulating parking on South 8th Street near Lincoln High School.

Thank you for allowing this to be on the agenda. I brought with me a subject matter expert, SRO, Miranda Chek, up at Lincoln. She's the one that, notices and has a lot to do with school busing and parking, and, I'm gonna let her take it over. You should have had a a form that she put together or a memo that she put together, so she can answer any questions about that, or explain it if if it needs explanation.

So we're just proposing that we change the parking in the one block on South 8th Street between Columbus and Madison to reflect on what is actually occurring on the day to day rather than what it had been posted for in the past. In 2019, when the freshmen came to Lincoln, they changed the bussing routes to accommodate the extra buses that were needed. And therefore, do not use South 8th Street as the busing stop anymore. That's over on Green Street. And the bus company likes it there, so we will continue to leave it there at this point.

So just to ref I guess, to bring the ordinance, I guess, in to reflect what's happening on the day to day is what I'm asking for so that it's very clear to everybody, the people that park there, and the residents that live in that area. Area.

Questions?

All their comments? Thank you. I don't have any, any questions for it. I obviously pick up my kids or my son that goes there every day, and, I take Green down, so I see the buses. And so, yeah, it would not make sense to have an old ordinance for an old way of doing things versus how it is now. So I fully support the change.

Board.

And to approve. Second. Have discussion now.

Okay, All in favor.

Aye.

Aye. Opposed. Opposed. None. Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you.

Okay. Next item on the agenda 25 dash zero eight zero four ordinance to amend 10.83 of the MMC regulating bicycles and e bikes or electric bicycles.

Okay. Thank you for putting this one on the agenda as well. This is an ordinance we've been working on for a while. We hope that it solves a lot of the confusion about what's legal and what's not legal, riding around our our city. Obviously, e bikes are covered by statute as well as, e scooters.

So what was not covered, by state statute was more of the gas powered bicycles. So some are buying conversion kits or what whatnot, to make bicycles into a gas powered vehicle and cruising around, which has caused a lot of complaints for us, as well as some motorcycles that were electronic but not registered with the DMV or anything like that. So basically, bikes are more defined with something that has a sprocket and a working chain, and it has an electric assist. Versus what we're seeing on the streets and the sidewalks are, like dirt bikes that are electric, that are running around with no, chain and sprocket. They just have foot pegs, which have been causing the complaints.

So this helps our officers with, enforcing this rather than having to issue those. Right now, what what we would do is probably issue those mini bikes that are electric, either like a non registered vehicle citation or, driving without a license to the to the operator if they don't have a license. A lot of times it's younger kids that are 15, that obviously wouldn't be eligible for a driver's license. So that we're hoping that this clears it up. Obviously, the city attorney wrote this ordinance after meeting with us on several occasions. I've met with alder Beeman in the past about this, so trying to get clarification out there for people.

Yeah. I think we've both learned a little bit about these in the past year here. Discussion? Alder Reckleberg?

A question, I guess. I only read it twice, so maybe that's why I didn't understand it. But are there two different fines or fees? I noticed that it's one thing that's not less than 120 and not more than 1,500. And in another place, was a lot more expensive.

The simple answer is yes. There are. To expand on that, the

120 and all and then the other, it's only $20 but not more than 1,500. So help me understand the differ I'm I'm hoping that it's the poor kids out there that are having a ball that get the $20 fine enough.

So it's for the newer pertaining to the minibikes. That would be the $120 fine. And all others would be still subject to the $20 fine that was already in existence.

Because I noticed the last couple of days when I was riding around, there was I refer to it as a mini bike. I don't know what the term is. But, you know, I mean, and they're doing thirty, thirty five miles an hour up

and down the sidewalk. That would be the $120 fine. So we have, you know, this ordinance covers, for example, bicycles, actual bicycles on the sidewalks in the downtown area. That would still be the 20 the lower fee

Okay.

Than it's always been. This is to address the problem that we're currently seeing with the the newer issues. The old issues will remain with the the $20 fine.

I I I plan on supporting it, although I noticed on Facebook lately and those, they're going, let kids be kids. But

Right. And that's true. But, obviously, there's a safety issue

Yeah. With the No. I understand. Absolutely. That's why I will be supporting it. It's just, I'm just, don't be surprised on Facebook or you go, you know, you're not letting kids be kids. Well, same thing when I was growing up. We had many bikes or go and pay your fine and that's it and you go out to the farmer's field and do it, you know?

Correct. Correct. And of course, this being the newer addition of this ordinance, we would hope that our officers would use discretion as far as don't just start issuing ordinance citations right away. It's an education piece.

I'm a firm believer is you just explain the situation. And if they're good about it, that's problem solved. If they're not, oh, by the way, then here's your ticket. Right. Yeah.

Any further discussion?

I just I understand the the context about the many bikes and so forth. Alder Recklenburg was talking about the actual e bikes, you know, the 10 the 10 speeds that have the e assist, the electronic motor in the sprockets. I'm from District 7, obviously. So I've been in my district, you know, driving my vehicle at the post speed limit. And I've seen someone pacing me at 25 miles an hour going. They weren't on the e bike or the electric motorcycle, but they were on a pedal e bike. It's probably not contained in here. But just for my own curiosity is, are those also lumped into this? Because the speeds that they can reach?

Right. For the most part, there's there's different levels of e bikes. So some of them would not would be not legal, like, probably the ones going 30 or 40 miles an hour. Normally, e bikes assist maybe up to 20, maybe 25 as well. So they they're they're still gonna be bicycles out there, e bikes, with chain and sprocket that are gonna go pretty fast, that's the city attorney would not want to to, allow those or make those against ordinance because state statute allows for those.

Okay.

So anything the state Yeah. Statute allows Anything the state statute allows, we're not trying to carve out of this.

Okay. Thank you. Sure.

Any other discussion? If

not You approve. Second.

Okay. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank request for stop or yield signs at the intersection of Coolidge Place and South 30th Street.

For the I mean, we have an audience here. I'm I'm hoping maybe somebody's here to talk about this. I don't know if you could ask.

Is there anybody here? Perfect.

Nope. I'm

gonna state your name and address, please,

for the record. Hi. I'm Lucas Fett, and I live at 2914 South Coolidge Place. The reason I want to bring this up to you guys is we live on the corner house. Over the years, our neighborhood is filled with a lot of elderly folks.

But over the years, there's a lot of those houses going up for sale, a lot of younger couples moving in. Along with that, there's a lot of young kids ages from three years old to six to seven, and now us, we just had a newborn baby. We don't have a lot of yard in front of our our our plot. So, you know, you get cars cars coming 25, 30 miles an hour or even 15 at that intersection. Not a lot of them look or slow down.

There's been quite a few times where cars slam on their brakes, hold their horns because they almost t bone each other. Nobody looks. Nobody stops. And it's not just at the South 30th And Coolidge Place. It's along that whole kind of block area where those several unmarked intersections. So we're asking if we can implement, yield signs at those intersections that help kids from being hit, kids riding up on their bicycles on the street, playing on the sidewalks, or within close vicinities of their yards.

Okay. Anybody want to comment? Discussion?

I have a question. Would this sign be on Coolidge or would it be on 30th?

It would be on South 30th. So if you're driving South 30th, you would yield to Coolidge. A point able

get to we're point

the

the where

we're location.

Yep. No, just one more. Probably probably for chief anyway. Do we know what the rest of the signage in the area looks like?

This is a typical this is a very let me well, let me go back. There's like the gentleman said, there's uncontrolled intersections similar to, we have on the I don't know whose district it is, but over towards, like, South 12, South 13, 14th, Hamilton, you know, or not Hamilton, but Madison, all all that area, which, I know I wasn't at the meeting where, I believe, alder Ruckelberg talked about creating a committee to address uncontrolled intersection. I think that's kind of what Amber had sent out to you. Wondering if you just wanna add this to that that committee to decide this. Certainly, you know, if Greg Minickel was here, he'd be against yield signs, if you will.

People tend to ignore them, and they kinda actually make it less safe because that's just what happens. And then, like, stop signs are not meant to control the speed, obviously. So the the safest situation actually the medical and engineering area would be to keep it uncontrolled because people are supposed to yield to the person to the right. Now, this is a residential neighborhood. And again, I don't wanna generalize, but most of the people going through here should live there.

Right? I mean, I wouldn't think other than maybe delivery people, different things like that. So they should be aware that this is an uncontrolled intersection. But, I mean, if you want my advice on this, I would say it should go to if we're already creating committee for this, that committee should look at it. It shouldn't just be me or Greg. It should be also in different you know, looking at different areas. And we did have, our records division look this up. There have been no crashes there within the last since 2014. So and, again, we don't wanna look and wait for crashes to happen, but we do have to make decisions here. Or in my opinion, this committee should make decisions based upon statistical data as well or, you know, partially, at least.

So I know you often ask for the crash data, so we we went ahead and got it. Since there was none, it didn't pay to really attach it. This is just an email saying there was none. There were no crashes. But it's especially when you're talking about little kids and bikes and different things like that. You don't wanna wait till something happens. But, pretty much, so most neighborhoods do have kids and bikes in that area. But if it's an enforcement issue, then certainly, the police department needs to deal with with the enforcement part of that if people are flying through there, if you will. But we can we can do that as well. Well, Again, that would be my opinion is to add it to the list of inter uncontrolled intersections that are looked at to decide if we wanna control those.

Alright. Thank you for that. Yeah. And and first off, thank you for coming in as well and and making a recommendation and get you know, bringing it forth to the committee. So that's part of the process how it all works. So thank you very much for for doing that and being involved with the community, that way. Yeah. I was on this committee now for, I think, three out of three or four out of my, you know, years that I've been on the council so far. And, initially, I was kinda in the same boat, you know, thinking, hey. You know, with the stop signs, yield signs, all of that stuff and big report of that.

But then I that's why I asked the question, what's in the area on all of the research that I've done with this because my district has a lot of uncontrolled intersections and and also with controlled. And the research is is regardless of which way you go, whether it be a stop sign or uncontrolled, as long as it's consistent throughout that entire area for what drivers to expect, then that's what's the safest. If there's a mix of stuff in between, then it actually is very unsafe, you know, going off a national data. Yield signs, like chief said, basically, that you might as well not have anything there, at that point. People see yield, and I have a yield sign actually over by my house, and I probably got hit, I don't know, probably 20 times already in the nineteen years I lived there.

The like, it it's a point where now when I see a car coming, I make sure that they're stopping or, you know, before I even go through the intersection because it's like like I said, it's, like, not even there. So so I don't I don't support a yield sign, you know, at all just from personal experience in my neighborhood. But if whatever is consistent right now and obviously with the data, then I think that's what we stick with now. And we send it to the committee that's gonna look at the entire city for consist that consistency and then make recommendations back here after that. So we just established that.

I believe that was last month. Yeah. So so it's still new, but so you'd be one of the first ones to literally get referred to the new committee for that recommendation or for that that look at that intersection. So but that would be that would be what I would recommend and support.

So a yield.

Alder Eckenberg? Yeah. I originally, when was asked, I said, yeah, that should be brought up at the committee. Then when I was re asked, I said, well, I didn't have all the data. So put it on the agenda because if we are having I mean, if there were 20 accidents there in the last year, I'm going we're not gonna wait for a committee to act. You know what I mean? But one one accident in twelve years, I mean. So I think it can wait for the committee. And along with that, we're going to have like the police chief said, we're going to have some criteria that we're going to apply. And we'll apply it to the whole city.

And we're either going to be right or we're going to be all wrong. But we'll be consistent in one or the other. Because I noticed on Facebook and other social media, they were talking about the city of Green Bay and city of Sheboygan, where there practically are no intersections that don't have something. And I didn't believe that at first until I spent hours on Google Maps driving the streets on Google. And I'm going, boy, I couldn't find one either.

So I don't know if we're going to end up like Green Bay and or Sheboygan with something on all corners almost or leaving it pretty much the way it is and handling it on a one by one basis. But I know I've got a meeting on Wednesday between one meeting and another with the mayor to kind of form our group that we're be do that. To do ask for you to be on it. So put that on your calendar. Jeez, another meeting or whatever to attend.

But so I I would vote against it because one in twelve years doesn't justify it. If it was 12 in one year, I would say, let's do something and the study will take care of it and we'll either move it or make it better or whatever. But we got to base our decisions off the facts.

You. You're welcome. So we would do no action at this time?

No, we didn't do anything yet. This is still open floor at this point.

So

we still have to have a motion to do no action, but you can still let it up to if there's any further discussion. I

would move to deny this at the present time and then forward it to that committee for further study. That would be my motion. Okay. We have

a motion. Place on file.

And then forward to the committee. Yep. I'll second placing on file and forwarding to the committee.

Okay. We have a place on file and a second and forward to the committee. All in favor? Aye. We

have the motion and second. You need to ask for a discussion

before the vote. Any further discussion? Now the vote. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Okay. With that, that concludes our agenda. I 'd be looking for a motion to adjourn. So

moved. Second.

We are adjourned.

Do we have to sign any of those? The ordinance one or not?