Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2021 05-10 CCM Study Session MINUTES OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF BROOKLYN CENTER IN THE COUNTY OF HENNEPIN AND THE STATE OF MINNESOTA STUDY SESSION MAY 10, 2021 CALL TO ORDER The Brooklyn Center City Council met in Study Session called to order by Mayor Mike Elliott at 6:00 p.m. The meeting was conducted via ZOOM. ROLL CALL Mayor Mike Elliott and Councilmembers Marquita Butler, April Graves, Kris Lawrence- Anderson, and Dan Ryan. Also present were Acting City Manager Reggie Edwards, City Clerk Barb Suciu, and City Attorney Troy Gilchrist. CITY COUNCIL DISCUSSION OF AGENDA ITEMS AND QUESTIONS Mayor Elliott asked staff if the City Clerk was updated on the Work Session agenda items. Acting City Manager Reggie Edwards stated they have not spoken and would leave it up to the City Council whether to amend the Work Session agenda during the Regular City Council meeting. Councilmember Graves asked what was the change. Mayor Elliott explained the proposal for 6640 James Circle is already on the Work Session agenda but he wants to add discussion on the resolution. Dr. Edwards stated that would mean discussion on the Council Policy Governing Commission Appointments would come off and the Native Lawns and Bee-Friendly Gardens item will be moved to the next Work Session agenda. The Concept Development Proposal for 6440 James Circle (The Former Earle Brown Bowl) would remain on the Work Session agenda. Mayor Elliott asked if any cases are coming before the Planning Commission. Dr. Edwards explained the Planning Commission has been unable to meet due to lack of inembers to have a quorum. Councilmember Graves asked if there are more openings on the Planning Commission. Mayor Elliott answered in the affirmative and said he would be making an appointment tonight. City Clerk Barb Suciu noted that item is not on the regular City Council agenda so it will be added as Item lOc. The City Council concurred. MISCELLANEOUS Mayor Elliot asked the City Council if there were any Miscellaneous items. OS/10/21 -1- No topics were offered. DISCUSSION OF WORK SESSION AGENDA ITEMS AS TIME PERMITS A CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT PROYOSAL FOR 6440 JAMES CIRCLE (THE FORMER EARLE BROWN BOWL) Dr. Edwards recommended the City Council first consider the resolution item since presenters for the 6440 James Circle agenda item are not yet present as they anticipated this discussion would occur later in the evening. Mayor Elliott stated the City Council will then move to discussion of the proposed resolution. RESOLUTION ADOPTING THE DAUNTE WRIGHT AND KOBE DIMOCK-HEISLER COMMUNITY SAFETY & VIOLENCE PREVENTION ACT Mayor Elliott thanked the City Council for their work and extra amount of time each has put into meetings to address this tragedy. He looks forward to continuing the discussion around the resolution and how to move forward to bring the community together. Mayor Elliott explained the resolution he introduced on Saturday can be discussed tonight for the Council Members to provide their thoughts in how to proceed and then an expert who helped Joe Wood is available to answer questions. Councilmember Ryan stated he had requested an opinion and thorough evaluation ofthe resolution by the City Attorney as it pertains to State law, the City's Charter, and procedures. Dr. Edwards stated the City Attorney was investigating that but may not be prepared today to provide a full assessment. City Attorney Troy Gilchrist stated he has been reviewing the resolution and met today with the Assistant City Manager and Mr. Pendergrass who put it together to make sure he understood the components. As far as a full analysis, he anticipated he would be further along than he currently is. Mr. Gilchrist stated Dr. Edwards was instrumental in suggesting edits so the resolution relates to Brooklyn Center. The intent is to get those edits completed and thoroughly reviewed against the Charter to assure there are no concerns. He stated as to now, he has not seen any major conflict with the Charter but the intent is to have a revised resolution for consideration by the City Council this coming weekend with the edits done tomorrow and distributed to the City Council for review. He offered to answer specific questions. Councilmember Ryan stated then the discussion would be somewhat premature without that analysis from the City Attorney. He stated he has some questions the City Attorney may be able to answer about some gray areas where creation of another department over the Police Department, Fire Department, and the two new proposed departments would be congruent with the City Manager's authority over those departments under our Charter. He would like the City Attorney's thought in that regard. Councilmember Ryan noted there is also a Policy Committee to be appointed that would engage in contract negotiations with police unions, which is under the OS/10/21 -2- authority of the City Manager. He stated he has other concerns as well including the procedure pursued which circumvented the City Council's usual order of business in the interest of imposing a deadline to pressure the City Council. Councilmember Ryan stated he takes extreme exception to that and hopes other Council Members have shared that concern. Mr. Gilchrist stated part of the conversation he had with Dr. Edwards and the Mayor this afternoon was recognizing that ifthe City Council is inclined to adopt this resolution,this is starting a process that is going to take time and, frankly, will need study and analysis and implementation to work the bugs out in how this will actually work within the City. He stated a lot of that work will lay ahead once the City acts on this. He stated he certainly does not have answers to all the implementation pieces as that is the process that will come next. Mr. Gilchrist stated that is what they talked about today. As to the question regarding the creation of departments over the other departments and how that interacts with the City Manager's authority,that is one of the fine-tuning pieces as there is no doubt the Charter makes the City Manager the administrator chief and person in control ofthe City's Administration. Any structure for a new department like that would have to fall within that framework. Mr. Gilchrist stated it would be another layer, essentially, between the heads of those individual departments and the City Manager's position. Those are the sorts of things that would have to be structured in the fine tuning during the implementation stage in a way that absolutely is consistent with the Charter. Mr. Gilchrist stated when he first read the resolution, he made the point to the Mayor that the City has to make sure the resolution is implemented in a way that is consistent with the Charter because otherwise it will be subject to challenge if it is contrary to the City's operational documents. Mr. Gilchrist stated as far as contract negotiations, that is another implementation piece that he talked to Dr. Edwards about today. Dr. Edwards had raised some issues about how he would interact with that committee so it has meaningful input but everyone in that conversation recognized that it is impractical to attempt to negotiate a contract by committee as that simply will not work. Mr. Gilchrist stated this is also part of what Dr. Edwards had suggested be amended in the resolution to make it a practical piece with transparency and input but does not grind that process to a halt or make it impractical to negotiate a contract. Mr. Gilchrist stated what will be particularly valuable is that this is still a work in progress, he has work to do on this, so to the extend the City Council has any particular concerns or questions or recommendations, they can send them to him or Dr. Edwards between now and Wednesday so it can be reflected in the resolution for consideration by the City Council on Saturday. Councilmember Ryan stated he is very interested in having mental health professionals accompany police officers on calls in the interest of reducing bad outcomes where police officers find themselves interacting with people in mental health crisis. But this is an iterative process that is not defined by this resolution to address many important concerns based on data. He noted many ideas in the resolution are certainly aspirational but ideas and aspirations are not a plan and Brooklyn Center needs a plan. Councilmember Ryan stated he is very concerned and not completely happy with the process pursued so far to impose deadlines when looking at some very major structural reforms and defining new goals. He favors change done the right way but change done in haste can lead to less than favorable outcomes. OS/10/21 -3- Councilmember Graves stated she shares some of Councilmember Ryan's concerns. She went on a walk with Mayor Elliott on Thursday and the Mayor told her he was drafting this resolution and might be discussing it with some experts on Saturday. But she did not realize that meant there would be presentation and hearing from the community with no chance to discuss it as Council Members. Councilmember Graves stated she felt it was being moved towards voting by some of the Mayor's language and knew the meeting was over, there was nothing on the agenda that included a discussion by the City Council or input from staff, and the City Council had just gotten the resolution language the day before. Councilmember Graves referenced the last WHEREAS stating in part: `...this Resolution affirms our commitment to an intentional, inclusive collaborative process that involves City leadership and the community working together to fully implement the intent of this Resolution.' She noted the Mayor did not really work with an inclusive and collaborative process with the City leadership to create it or to even give them a chance to discuss it. Councilmember Graves stated she definitely feels like that is not fair to the City Council or staff. She stated maybe Councilmember Butler was able to get a resolution before the rest of staff and City Council, she is not sure, but she did not see it until Friday and that is the same day the press also received it, or maybe they got it the day before. Councilmember Graves stated it seemed unfair, not inclusive, intentional, or collaborative of everybody or the stakeholders at all. She stated that upset her and she does not like to feel like the only way to be supportive of police reform and justice is to do what the Mayor says today, when she hasn't had a chance to even discuss it with her other Council Members or to ask staff for their input and they are the implementors so their opinion matters as well. Councilmember Graves stated she definitely wants more information on the idea behind a Civilian Traffic Enforcement Department and what that would look like because it is a newer idea that she hasn't learned that much about. Also, one expert invited to the presentation expressed concerns about that particular item and how it would work in implementation. Councilmember Graves referenced the fourth RESOLVED stating, in part: `...creating a Community Safety and Violence Prevention Committee, to be chaired by the Director of the Department of Community Safety and Violence Prevention or a designee until hiring...' She stated she does not have a problem with making sure the people within that community who have experience with law enforcement in one way or another, but there needs to be others involved too. She noted from her own experience with the Office of Violence Prevention within the City of Minneapolis, there are some specific roles filled within the Steering Committee that needs to be very intentional about how many people, what roles will they be (volunteers), costs, and are they City employees or just representatives from several different stakeholder groups. Councilmember Graves stated there are a lot of things within this wording, she is not sure how it looks, and the City staff, community, and City Council should have input into that as well. Councilmember Graves referenced the fifth RESOLVED stating, in part: `...more appropriately regulate the use of force by its armed law enforcement officers including appropriate changes in ordinances, practices or policies requiring de-escalation, exhaustion of reasonable alternatives before using deadly force, prohibitions on using deadly force in certain situations including firing upon moving vehicles, prohibiting certain issues of force or other policing tactics during First Amendment protests and assemblies, and similar policies...' She stated the question for her on OS/10/21 -4- that one has nothing to do with whether she thinks it should be a policy. The question is, don't we already have several of those policies in Code already within the ordinance and if so, then it is more an issue of accountability and making sure police officers are held accountable to the policies the City already has in place. Councilmember Graves stated the City Council received the weekly update today,which included a link to the request she made to other minutes when the City Council was discussing law enforcement over the last year or so. She just received that information several minutes ago and not been able to read through it but she will and is sure the City has some information on specific policy recommendations mentioned within that fifth RESOLVED. Councilmember Graves stated to her the question is, if these things are already in place, then how is it being implemented and how are our police officers being held accountable to it. To her, the gap isn't necessarily that there isn't a policy that already is in place, the gap is in accountability and implementation. She would like more information around those specific recommendations within that RESOLVED and also how that is actually being implemented by our Police Department and staff and how police officers are held accountable should they violate those particular policies. Councilmember Graves referenced the sixth RESOLVED stating in theory she likes the idea of citation and summons as a way of moving forward for non-moving traffic violations and non- felony offenses or non-felony warrants. But she wants to learn more about it and figure out how that would work in our City and what are the intentional consequences and unintentional consequences of implementing that so it can be weighed and mitigated should the City Council vote to approve it. Councilmember Graves referenced the seventh RESOLVED about creating a Community Safety and Violence Prevention Implementation Committee. She noted Councilmember Ryan was already speaking to this one which says, in part: `... including residents from Brooklyn Center and other local, state, and national experts in public health-oriented approaches to community safety, as appointed by the Mayor, that will draft any and all amendments, ordinances, resolutions, policies, guidelines, or other recommendations for the review, adoption and/or implementation by City Council or City staff, as appropriate, that would fully implement the will and intent of City Council as expressed in this Resolution.' Councilmember Graves she is confused about that Committee and how it would be created, noting it says `as appointed by the Mayor' but how does that recruitment process happen, how will those people be identified, and will the City Council be able to vote on the appointments the Mayor wants to make, as they do with other Commissions. She stated she wants to understand the process of putting that Committee together. In general, she thinks having a Committee to help inform the process of this work that is made up of residents and experts from Brooklyn Center and other (ocal, state and national experts in these types of approaches would be really helpful through this process. Councilmember Graves referenced the ninth RESOLVED stating, in part: `...the City Attorney, City Manager, and Chief of Police, and other City personnel will provide all necessary assistance and support to all committees created pursuant to this Resolution, including by supplying the committees with any and all needed data...budgetary, staffing, or other information, and assisting with the crafting of amendments, ordinances, or policies as requested by Implementation Committee.' She stated she does not disagree with any of that but is wondering if any money they ask for is just a given and staff and the City Attorney have to make that happen without any input OS/10/21 -5- from the rest of the City Council or community. 'I,o her, some of the statements were sweeping and broad and while she is not against it at first glance, she definitely felt more specifics needed to be addressed. Councilmember Graves stated some may be addressed through the implementation process but she does not want to vote on something she does not understand completely and having this discussion is absolutely essential and also getting feedback from City staff and the City Attorney as it pertains specifically to Brooklyn Center. Mayor Elliott stated as he began the meeting, he will admit that in his haste and impatience to see that we stand on some things to address these rather impractical problems, in his zeal to respond to this moment, he may have fumbled and moved too fast. He wants to assure we are allowing enough time to go through the process and obviously include City Council and staff input to work together on this resolution. Mayor Elliott stated he appreciates the questions being asked, which are all important. Overall, he thinks the resolution was supposed to be broad enough to allow room for the Implementation Committee to work out the finer details and certainly put in more specific language around things on the funding as well. He explained the whole spirit and intent is to allow time for that and we want to make sure that we're doing something here that is really going to help our community move forward and set us on a path to being a leader in this. Councilmember Butler stated we should keep in mind this is a road map and the biggest thing she took away from the meeting on Saturday with the experts was to have all stakeholders at the table to create what it will be in terms of implementation. She does not have a problem with needing more time to discuss and work together to figure out the different pieces but does not want us to wait and delay for months. Councilmember Butler stated there are things the City Council has been working on since a year ago and they got a few things done but stopped. She thinks the City Council needs to keep in mind that we don't have time for something else to happen before making a decision. Councilmember Butler stated the City Council needs to keep this in mind and as a high priority to work through and get a framework created, pull together all stakeholders, and start on implementation. Councilmember Graves stated she does not want anyone to think her intention is to delay important work that is past time to be done. But buy in on this type of thing, especially from the most impacted stakeholders including people who will be implementing it, is absolutely important. She stated we need to all be on same page on intent with the resolution and next steps towards implementation. That is what she is looking for, not delay at all. Councilmember Graves stated she cares about these issues as well, has been affected by police discrimination and bias personally and by family members who have been subject to discrimination from police officers, so it is not her intention to delay. Councilmember Graves stated she agrees this is of the utmost importance and way past time not only in Brooklyn Center but on a much larger level. She thinks part of this work needs to leverage other campaigns at the State and National level as well. Councilmember Graves stated she received an e-mailed petition from Congresswoman Omar asking for signatures to expand the Department of Justice probe beyond Minneapolis, which she intends to sign. She also remembers something about the bill at the State level removing the qualified immunity portion of the bill, which she believes is essential to police accountability. Councilmember Graves stated she is not saying we don't need to keep moving forward on this work, but we need to be very careful in both how we implement locally as well as how that relates to the State and National initiatives for police reform. OS/10/21 -6- Councilmember Lawrence-Anderson stated she is listening and hearing the comments. Councilmember Ryan asked Councilmember Graves to share her professional role with the City of Minneapolis, which gives her so much credibility, noting the City Council could benefit from her expertise. Councilmember Graves stated she has been working for the Minneapolis Health Department's Office of Violence Prevention, which was created in 2018, in direct response to both the community violence happening (people shooting one another) as well as issues related to police inability to connect with community on a respectful and cultural level. Her work specifically deals with youth violence prevention, practices to prevent violence before it happens, and intervention, as well, after violence has happened that is around restoration. Councilmember Graves explained there are several different initiatives in the Office of Violence Prevention, preventative level programs, intervention level programs that give support to victims of violence and their families to prevent retaliation, as well as Project Life which specifically targets people within the community who are most engaged in violent crime. She stated a lot of this work does involve same cooperation with the police departments to get off the ground. Councilmember Graves stated she works primarily with prevention so not as much with the police as far as identifying who could use the most resources. She stated there are plenty of people who think these programs don't work at all but her experience and the data she has seen being part of violence prevention show it does work. Violence interrupters who are in the community can be the first line of defense and the police don't need to be called, they don't need to de-escalate, the interrupters are from the community, have the cultural competence to connect with people, and may have been part of that life at one time. Councilmember Graves stated there are several other initiatives such as Next Step that shows up at the Hennepin County Medical Center, North Memorial Hospital, and a Medina hospital to provide case management, trauma informed care, resources to the victims of violence, and connections for their families for counseling to try to prevent retaliation. There are also organizations that do violence prevention work in the community who are trained in best practices, how to write a grant, build a logic model, and help with evaluations oftheir programs so it can be expanded out into the community and it is not just the City doing the work, the community does the work themselves. Councilmember Graves stated that is a brief rundown of her work and she would be happy to explain more. She encouraged the City Council to check the CDC website's Veto Violence that has many technical packages that talk about ways to prevent violence and different programs that are evidence based and can be used in the community. Mayor Elliott thanked Councilmember Graves for her input, noting she has experience in working on these issues. He also thanked her for her contributions during the media crisis in Brooklyn Center,working with the crisis response teams,and putting in place some ofthe initial community- based responses. OS/10/21 -7- � �aYor��j��t�a . d�oUr���th�StU A���UR dy S�s�io���� N�EN?' nformalOAen por um at 6•4S ��m. STATE ���FY�F NENES�TA �h� �� B�ooKN��N� Mlnn�s�a�r��t� b�'ng ENrER) Ss �� That a�a ���� th� �trly 9ua���� ��rrif�ation o f�i �I�� �h�d d anc� nutes �� That ������� th�Cit a fUll, tr ap���nt�d City 3� That t Shcd m��rl�g�'as y of Br��k/'Ytt Cen�mPl�te r Cl�rk �f th� Cit he Clty Co�ncll be�d p�rsu�nt to� ter h�l�,on���Ipr o fth� .Y o f�rooklyh C '` /G ad�pt�dsaldm,�trt u�call an�,notic�r �2p2�.minUt�s o f� St�dy �nt�r Ci�CI �S at IrS�ay 24 2 h�re�f and Was dU s�ss�On°f'tl�� �rk �'�L� , p21 R� 1.Y held v. \ar s�SSion la Z��M _,, ayor �5�10/21 �8_ �