[0:00] i call to order the work session for the Dana city council it is Tuesday May 20th 2025 and 5:30 something

[0:09] 5:31 okay um so we'll ask uh Carrie Schilling to call the role

[0:16] um absent is Council Member Pierce but Council Member Agnu here Council Member

[0:22] Jackson here Council Member Risser here and Mayor Hutland here present uh and um

[0:30] Thank you we got a couple of different meeting topics um budget related and then we're going to talk about social

[0:36] supported staff we've got some folks here to have that conversation with us as well beyond the budget discussion

[0:42] okay so I'm going to turn it to manager Neil and let him introduce the topic and we'll go from there thank you thank you

[0:48] uh the first item is just is a is I think a quick one we just wanted to acknowledge that we got some questions

[0:54] from council members uh we did respond uh with some responses we are continuing

[0:59] to work on the budget um it will largely go into kind of the honing process I

[1:06] think is better describes it um in late May kind of into the summer um but we

[1:13] are continuing to work on it we get more and more precise uh estimates of what our major costs are going to be one of

[1:19] those costs is on your agenda tonight with the approval of the fire union contract that puts that in place it's an

[1:27] important stake in the ground because that has some impact on how we um how we

[1:32] look at compensation for other employees as well so we wanted to acknowledge that

[1:38] um but the second piece of of the the budget discussion tonight at least is just giving you an update on where we

[1:45] are with credit card charges um it's a complicated field for us we have a lot

[1:50] of different points of point of sales um some are easy to do some are not easy to do um but uh Pa Tao our finance director

[2:00] is ready to do that tonight hi good evening everyone i have uh just

[2:06] that staff report that I included in the council packet to just hand out so you have something in front of me in front

[2:12] of you um but like manager Scott Neil said this is a continuation of our discussion from the last the previous

[2:20] work session budget work session discussions um as far as calendar update I'll just dive a little bit more that

[2:26] staff or departments had submitted all their budget as of the 15th so last Friday and then now finance and the city

[2:33] manager office will be working on bringing to you our um uh initial proposal at the August 19th council work

[2:41] session so another part that I like Scott said another part that I'll be talking about is credit card fees at the

[2:48] council retreat we share that um with the rising cost and increased usage of

[2:53] electronic payments um the initiative at the council retreat was that um we

[2:59] should try anticipate to generate an additional $300,000 in revenue to offset

[3:04] the current credit card fees that's incurred in the general fund from all the electronic form of payments um we

[3:11] have then such uh since then we've been looking at credit card fees we evaluated and researched all the different POSS

[3:18] systems and merchant processors and we landed at a 3% uh convenience fee um to

[3:24] be implemented for all electronic payments um the goal is to be fully

[3:30] implemented across all city operations uh and for all completion for it all to

[3:36] be completed by December 31st of this year when you say all electronic payments

[3:41] that mean credit card or also direct pay uh so credit card electronic payments is

[3:48] anything that's paid with a card whether it's debit card or credit card um when

[3:54] you're saying electronic payments it's um including like um bank uh the payment

[4:03] where you like for example utility billing if you go in there you pay with your credit card unless it's set up from

[4:09] your bank to internally pay the city it won't be a fee okay that was my question yeah thank you um with that being said

[4:17] uh I want to also share that currently the city does not have any formal limitation on credit card payments

[4:23] amounts uh however it's best practice to avoid accepting any payments exceeding 20,000 otherwise the cost to the city

[4:30] will be very high um some uh things I want to share on the

[4:37] Minnesota state statute that allows us to impose a credit card search charge or convenience fee is we need to disclose

[4:44] the fact that we are charging a credit card fee or a convenience fee um this is

[4:49] required for any in-person sale we have to disclose both orally and physically

[4:55] via a signage um for any online or mobile sale there has to be clear notices post at checkout or um before

[5:03] the or uh order is checked uh before the checkout process and then any phone sales we have to verbally disclose that

[5:09] there's a convenience fee um the search charge cannot be more than 5% of the purchase price and then also Minnesota

[5:17] state statute allows uh municipal municipalities to charge a convenience

[5:22] fee for electronic payments except for tax uh payments which is required to be made electronically with that being said

[5:29] there are some uh impacted operations that uh I want to bring to you for consideration or just for thoughts as

[5:36] point of concern from staff this is in regards to activity reservations and rentals more so in our enterprise um

[5:44] currently all our activity reservations and rentals are done online there's a

[5:50] concern for on the service side that if we uh we currently don't have the

[5:55] ability to accept alternate forms of payment without causing a significant operational impact to this so that's

[6:02] something to consider um the other enterprise is the golf operation with the current point of sales system our

[6:09] current uh POSOS system doesn't have the ability to add a transaction search charge on these golf transactions so

[6:16] without having to switch out the whole entire POS system for the golf operation that's a that's an obstacle but then in

[6:24] our liquor operation and in our park and wreck facility recreational facilities they're ready to move forward with

[6:30] implementing these um convenience fees uh what by the by by the end of the year

[6:36] so with that being said there's no action to be taken in tonight's uh discussion it's really just for us to

[6:43] have a discussion on if you have any questions on this

[6:49] questions for Paul yeah I have one um are we working with Gulf Genius and giving them the feedback that we would

[6:55] like to see the ability to to charge this perry's here yes

[7:03] you are correct we have requested that the be a consideration since we are not a owner of the software we just have a

[7:09] license agreement with it is that is something we would like to see in the future for them to consider for future

[7:14] updates okay but at this time we've had the ability to add that additional separate percent transaction okay so but

[7:21] is this something that we could say let's say we move forward with everything we're doing 3% across the

[7:26] board more or less um we could then add that in once the technology allows I

[7:32] would assume correct or um to your point as well at a certain point where maybe there is a um more palatable point of

[7:40] sale system that G could utilize as well that would be a competitor to them that had all the features that we wanted in a

[7:47] point of sales system and could do that so yeah I think either it's either an upgrade or an evaluation at the end of

[7:53] the service contract thank you

[8:01] um is there any kind of best practices that would discourage us from having

[8:08] different treatment between departments so if we were to exempt the activity rentals and the golf operations are we

[8:16] going to come are are we going to trip over anything um in in best practices in finance

[8:23] i would say I don't think so other than a consistent maybe a consistent message

[8:30] but we are also working closely with our communications department and getting that um straightened so then um like we

[8:38] just discussed um with future opportunities the golf and the activity reservations when there's when there's a

[8:45] better software that can help us move forward in that area those are areas that we're willing to explore as well

[8:50] anything else you want to add i'll just say one of the things that was important to us was to set like 3% across the

[8:56] board for everything even though technically depending on what the amount is it might vary a little bit or um it

[9:02] might vary based off of whatever payment processor but from a consist that was more important to us from a consistency

[9:09] perspective was that um our staff is all communicating the same percentage across the board so it's not competing in that

[9:16] way yeah Perry you go ahead and say something else i was just going to add

[9:22] one point i think those are exactly correct the one thing that we um do not have the ability to control is some of

[9:28] our tenant partners so say if um General Sports decided to um add a convenience

[9:34] fee and their um agreement with their processor was say three and a half% um

[9:40] there might be a difference there of what you paid at the Quinn sale system for the arena versus general sports or

[9:47] even at Red River Kitchen um you know not charging one for golf but potentially they may venture into this

[9:53] if they switch so I think a lot of people may differentiate like why is it different within the building but

[9:58] there's that underlying so we don't control that level of their business so

[10:04] that may be something that in the future we'd have to fine-tune a decision so this would be would this be at

[10:10] Centennial Lakes you rent a pair of skates you get the fee if you pay with Okay

[10:17] course concession state rentals

[10:25] rental perception reservation this whole conversation

[10:33] started with fees paid internally here not internally but paid

[10:40] how because I got some I got some trepidation about the retail side of things we're not there yet but thinking about

[10:48] you know you walk up to the counter at the golf course and they you know you're paying sales tax plus uh let's say $45

[10:57] and now they're going to say well you're going to get a 3% fee on top of that you want a golf

[11:04] cart that's 3% your 3% extra on your green fees you go to the liquor store

[11:10] and you buy a 12 pack of beer and they say we're going to charge you 3% more

[11:16] for a convenience fee when we're involved in that retail business it starts to feel like a bad

[11:24] idea at least on the retail side i don't but I and that caused me to think about well where where does it feel okay where

[11:31] does it seem okay and I can tell that you must have had this whole the same conversation internally about it so then

[11:38] you kind of choke your head say "Well it just do it across the board." But I don't know Julie what were you thinking

[11:44] um admittedly when I first heard of this I thought it was um just for payments

[11:50] that you would make that you could make through your bank and have it set up you know and so that made sense to me that

[11:57] was very logical but you know just kind of thinking about it happening i don't know why you

[12:04] know renting skates and then having to pay that and I guess my I'm thinking well the Adina Community Ed place

[12:11] doesn't do that i just registered for woodworking you know and paid with my

[12:16] debit card and I didn't get dedained an additional fee but that's a different

[12:21] realm so I I do see the logic of doing it across the board but I have to admit I'm a little surprised by it

[12:28] too so people are charging their property taxes to get more points on

[12:34] their credit card the cost of doing that to us has skyrocketed and the cost of

[12:39] handling credit cards in general has skyrocketed and I don't remember where that um chart was um but that was just

[12:47] breathtaking um to see how those costs have gone through the roof in the last

[12:54] year or last two years um and so somebody's got to pay that right so

[13:01] the convenience of using a credit card is not convenient for the vendor

[13:07] and um I mean you could ostensibly say you know over a certain amount or

[13:15] retail versus government function um but the the bottom line is we have to

[13:21] absorb those costs for people's convenience and um and

[13:27] if federal government were to regulate credit card companies better we wouldn't be facing this um it's you know who who

[13:35] pays us fees i mean yeah I think it's a interesting point you know like just

[13:40] take the example of you you come in to pay your property taxes and they're 10,000 bucks you give them a credit card

[13:48] uh and you pay $10,000 but we got less than 10,000 even though your property taxes are 10,000 right so in that

[13:55] circumstance I can see where a fee seems like it's appropriate because we want to get what we said your taxes were if you

[14:01] want to use a credit card you get the points you're going to you're going to pay a fee for that but when you're in a

[14:08] retail situation and I'm over there you know and I buy a bottle of expensive

[14:13] scotch or bourbon and somebody the liquor store says "Well you're going to pay sales tax but then you're going to

[14:19] pay 3% fee to us too because you're using a credit card." I mean that may be

[14:24] the last trip I make into the Dana liquor store and uh and you know I don't want to lose

[14:30] retail business at any place we do retail operations because of the of that

[14:36] fee now the way you could maybe fix that is next year if people want to use a credit card

[14:43] at the golf course which they always do nobody pays cash and cash is almost irrelevant

[14:49] anymore you you build your fee structure you build an endear fee structure for the following year you build that 3% in

[14:56] there or whatever it is they charge you probably have to hit a medium because American Express charges more

[15:03] than Visa and Mastercard and you know so different kinds of customers have different limits

[15:12] so I don't know where we get when we get to the decision point we get further into the budget process yep

[15:18] okay so can we see Go ahead can we see it broken down by where the fees are

[15:24] hitting us the hardest um that would be important so if if it's skate rentals

[15:30] where we're getting hit the hardest then we got a problem but if it's things over

[15:36] $1,000 if it's the utility bill and stuff like that where we're uh getting hit the hardest then that makes sense

[15:43] but I'd like to know I agree we don't want to burden the liquor stores any more than we need to so are you thinking

[15:50] almost like a buy operation this is how much is paid in fees table right right

[15:57] or yeah the point of sale you know where where that happens whether it's retail or government function I'd like to see

[16:04] that so if if we're really getting hit in one area in particular with with

[16:09] credit card fees then we have to if it is retail then we have to look at that hard because it costs us a lot of money

[16:17] but if It's if that's you know 20% of it then I wouldn't mind waving that kind of

[16:23] thing but I'd like to know where we're getting hit the hardest yeah because what's at the end of the day what's the impact of the 300,000 right if we start

[16:30] chipping away are we losing 80% of that i think that's a good point

[16:37] yes we can have that kind of analysis prepared that'd be great thank

[16:43] you

[16:48] any other any other questions on

[16:56] that our third topic tonight is we call it enhancing social support for staff i

[17:03] I think I'd like you to think of it as you know our staff have depending on

[17:09] department depending on how they interact with the public have

[17:14] uh different levels or different needs of social support for mental health and

[17:20] safety um so we have three departments and and our risk management um manager

[17:27] here tonight to talk a little bit about how we handle those issues in three different departments in risk management

[17:33] so uh we have police representatives from police fire and parks rep telling you a little bit about the challenges

[17:39] they face in the field and and how they manage uh these kinds of things with their own team and then we will u be

[17:47] stand for questions all

[17:53] right so um as manager Neil mentioned we have a number of directors and managers

[17:59] to provide updates to this item so we'll start with our risk and safety manager

[18:05] who lives within HR uh Amy Murray oh sorry I didn't go over the agenda so we're going to touch on three

[18:11] three different areas so deescalation training um mental health checkup programs for both police and fire and

[18:17] then we're going to go into parks and wreck safety and security blueprint

[18:22] so our citywide deescalation training uh really originated back in 2022 from a

[18:30] postcoavid survey that we sent out to all city staff and there was a common

[18:36] theme that originated stating that our

[18:41] workforce wanted some framework and training around how to

[18:48] deescalate interactions between residents and customers and so that was

[18:54] one of the themes that stemmed from that postcoavid survey so we then formed a multi-depart

[19:02] strategy team to better understand and get all eyes and different perspectives

[19:09] um on this topic and right away that strategy team

[19:15] we recognized that we didn't want to lose integrity quality and service from

[19:20] whatever framework we were going to design that we still wanted to make sure that we were leading with integrity

[19:25] quality when we give service um we then uh that that group that

[19:32] strategy team we looked to resources external resources um like homeland

[19:37] security had really good information about like deescalation strategies power of hello world well-renowned guidance we

[19:45] also leaned into the League of Minnesota Cities who hosted a deescalation workshop and learned about verbal judo

[19:53] and took a lot of that information to put together our own framework for all city employees and that turned into an

[20:01] acronym called ROAR which is recognize observe assist refer report and restore

[20:08] which is returning to a healthy mindset um so we then created that framework we

[20:16] went to leadership we did a training in 2023 then once all of this got flushed

[20:22] out and then brought it back even to small groups within all of our departments and launched it on

[20:29] einetic about it and actually now in 2025 we've rebranded and relaunched our

[20:36] IQS training standards for and we've been doing facilitator in-person

[20:41] training to our departments all all police fire communications HR park and

[20:48] wreck everyone So here is what roar is using our IQS

[20:54] framework uh you can see like we want to recognize and continue to welcome everyone uh power of hello saying who

[21:02] you are and how can we help right that's the observe like if someone is u voicing

[21:08] a complaint or a concern asking clarifying questions at that time trying

[21:14] to get input so that you make sure that you're listening and seeking to

[21:20] understand i went into assisting trying to take action if we can resolve it

[21:26] right there and then take action to do so if you don't have that authority or knowledge then uh refer it to your

[21:34] supervisor and then we actually built out kind of a stoplight right a green yellow red and that's really again like

[21:42] if those conversations or the interaction just isn't continuing to go

[21:47] well sometimes words fail and you could kindly just say well let's reconnect a different day or I'll have my manager

[21:54] follow up um you we kind of gave script to our employees because I think more

[21:59] you practice these things the more you're able to do them when you need it and then of course we wanted to tell our

[22:07] team that you know at any point if anyone gets physical with you that's a stop and report and get our co-workers

[22:14] from police heading over and so that is our roar framework and then actually our wellness

[22:21] group brought in health partners um about a year ago and health partners

[22:26] came in and did a facilitate group about how to just work with resiliency and it

[22:34] was during that time that we realized okay we had a really nice thing about recognize observe assist refer report

[22:41] but we needed something to get people to get back to work in like a healthy happy

[22:46] manner and so we came up with the acronym restore which is reflect on what

[22:52] happened that unfortunate you know maybe negative interaction and just it's okay

[23:00] to be frustrated that's natural to be frustrated when someone is you know upset with you um we talk about eating

[23:07] and drinking water to flush out those natural hormones that got released get

[23:13] in a good sleep pattern and then our employee assistance program is for everyone in the city not just full-time

[23:20] but all the way down to seasonals and interns can use our employee assistance program um take organic resilient or

[23:29] organic mindset and know that there's a chance that you're going to have another interaction that maybe isn't going the

[23:35] greatest and that's okay to be resilient in that and learn and plan for the next time to get better at it and then just

[23:43] exercise to keep a good mind and physical condition and so that is our

[23:49] citywide deescalation strategy and associated

[23:54] training next up all right so moving on to the mental health checkup programs

[24:00] that we have for police and fire we will begin with police so I always like to start when I talk

[24:06] talk about this stuff is just a real good fact that um or stat that I learned a couple years ago that I focus on to

[24:11] help put all this into context in public safety um for officers and likely fire

[24:17] staff and EMS as well when you think about critical incidents so that's exposure to baby deaths homicide scenes

[24:23] you know those kinds of things those in public safety are exposed to nearly 300 of those events in their career that's

[24:29] 30 years to the average person not in public safety that number is more in line with like four five six seven over

[24:36] the course of their lifetime so that puts into context how many exposures that public safety have when you talk

[24:41] about mental health those serious scenes and that's why it's so important to talk about wellness mental health physical

[24:47] health those kinds of things and that's we talk a lot about that put things into practice so the next two slides for us

[24:53] and police just really list out the things that we've been doing over the last probably four years or really enhanced or added to so we'll go through

[24:59] that open up for questions if you have any at the end of that as well but to start off mandatory mental health

[25:05] check-ins um that's pretty common on the industry and so it requires each officer to go in before what I would call a

[25:11] culturally competent therapist to sit down and talk about whatever they want to talk about and it's a resource and if

[25:18] there's follow-up needed we the city provide up to five or six visits after that if they need more than that that's

[25:23] fine we'll figure out a way to get them in for that as well but it's really good for an officer to sit down with that

[25:28] culturally competent therapist is to talk about law enforcement specific type of things that they might have been

[25:33] exposed to provide opportunities for follow-up dialogue training things that they can do to help offset that or deal

[25:39] with it if they're having those kinds of issues and again everyone goes through that including myself so that's once a year we do that

[25:46] mand uh the other thing with man making us mandatory for officers and it's not quite a thing anymore like it used to be

[25:53] like for example when I first started my career we never talked about this stuff you just handled it you moved on now

[25:58] it's very much more um I would say in the hallways and in an industry standard

[26:04] and just about every law enforcement agency participates in this kind of a program so it's a good thing uh the

[26:09] other thing that we uh we've been working on but we've enhanced it is the peer support team we have a peer support team that's uh what we call kind of part

[26:16] of our consortium ly if you think about our SWAT team and the cities that we participate with those same entities

[26:21] come together and there are a number of peer support officers that are in play for that and the work that they do is more day-to-day interactive kinds of

[26:28] things if they're on a scene and and they need to talk about stuff afterwards they can do that and then we get into

[26:33] what we call diffusions and that's different now too because if we have a big event and maybe it's a baby death an

[26:38] officer needs to talk about it it's better to diffuse that and have a conversation to work through that uh 24

[26:44] to 36 hours after the event and not wait for a week for a full-on team to come in so that's in play right now as well i in

[26:50] fact went through that training myself about two weeks ago in Bloomington they also hosted that for command staff and chiefs across the metro area so we did

[26:55] that and it was about a 32-hour session state law now requires that agencies go through this type of mental health

[27:01] training and the peer support uh falls within that that category as well so it was good training for me as well uh you

[27:08] know about our therapy dog Lou and Lou is awesome big hit in the hallways for us there's dog toys all over the place

[27:14] if you walk into the hallway uh he's been really really good so he's now certified and ready to go we talked

[27:19] about bringing them in front of council so we'll probably do that later save him for budget night there you

[27:26] go um we have those metro resources in play uh we will do what we call SISM

[27:34] which is a critical incident stress management debrief too so we have specialized trained staff across metro

[27:39] area that can come in in a large event as well so if we have to have a whole team come in and do that work they can do that too so we just have a lot of

[27:45] resources in play and it's all been very very good next um on the physical side you may recall

[27:52] that we brought in Sigma Tactical about two years ago and they came in it was a national company and they did blood work

[27:57] on all of our officers they checked for cardiovascular uh issues they did scanning test that kind of blood work

[28:04] testing just to show and see if there's any issues that officers need to be concerned about again super stressful

[28:09] work and so we think about the heart and the impact on the heart and so it's important to kind of get these early markers and indicators and figure out if

[28:16] there's some things that need to happen there it's all confidential but I did hear on the back end that this was life-changing for a couple officers that

[28:22] they had some heart problems undiagnosed things that were going on and it helped them to change their diet their physical activity and it was a really really good

[28:28] thing for them so that was really good for us we'll come back to that on the last bullet on the slide and talk about next steps with that but uh the second

[28:35] bullet down is loading loadbearing vests we bought those for all officers i do not have one on i have the old style

[28:41] because I'm an old cop now so I have the old one doing it but you see the officers with all the bulky gear on top

[28:46] and that just shifts all the weight off their back and their belt and puts it on the vest and that's that's the reason why they have those load bearing vest

[28:51] out there right now they're really good for the back so that also is an industry st standard in law enforcement

[28:58] we worked with uh with Amy about two years ago with Twin Cities Orthopedics

[29:03] we brought them in to do ergonomic assessments and so mostly for patrol officers in those squad cars have them

[29:09] do some testing some baseline testing to give them some better advice and practices on how they sit in the squad car where the equipment should be set up

[29:15] and so that was very well received by our officers as well when I came here about three and a half almost four years

[29:20] ago now we expanded our workout on duty policy so we allow for officers to go into the gym while they're on duty i

[29:27] always tell our officers that if anything if you could just while you're on shift take your stuff off and go into the gym and just walk on that treadmill

[29:32] for 20 minutes it does wonderful things for the brain right and so it releases those happy chemicals helps us deal with

[29:38] the cortisol dumps that we get in our bodies and gets that oxytocin dopamine those kinds of things flowing and it's

[29:44] just a good it's a win-win for the officer it's a win-win for the community that we serve right with that positive

[29:49] um outset that the officer can have going back to Sigma on that last bullet so kind of taking the Sigma piece to the

[29:56] next step we're looking at how we can enhance that so we're having conversations with a vendor that can

[30:01] that provides more of a local treatment option and testing option for the cardiovascular issues that we're dealing

[30:07] with but also on the back end of that um if an officer is having some issues that needs needs work providing more of a

[30:13] menu of opportunities for the officer so if it's nutrition if it's mindfulness if it's physical activity if it's u

[30:20] functional movement things like that um we're going to likely bring in some instructors that can train on each of

[30:26] those kind of individual things or cater to the officer depending on what the needs may be at the time and that can be

[30:31] that can come off the testing as well one of the things I've seen with officers over the years is that they get into the gym but they may not know what

[30:37] to do in the gym and so getting the correct exercise training getting the right people involved maybe bringing an

[30:43] instructor in those are the things that we're looking at along with risk management to figure out what's a really good way to kind of continue to invest

[30:49] in the officer but expand it so that we can get as many officers into the program as we possibly can so so that's

[30:55] what we're working on the crime fund has some donated funds available for us later this year we're going to continue to talk about that and hopefully get

[31:01] something launched here by third fourth quarter of this year so with that I'll Well you want to wait for questions at

[31:07] the end probably yeah let's go through the um fire mental health update and then maybe ask questions if that works

[31:13] uh thank you for having me uh Sean White with the fire department um I'm going to piggyback a lot on both what Chief and

[31:20] Amy kind of referenced because I think a lot of the things that we do are so uh

[31:25] kind of ingrained and um work very well in compatibility and kind without going

[31:33] too far down that road but a lot of things that we've recognized over time is this holistic approach to how we need

[31:39] to support our people um over the years we brought nutritionists in we have had

[31:44] yoga instructors and all these types of different thing different approaches trying to figure out how we're going to go about this and kind of very much this

[31:52] recognition that mental health and physical health go hand in hand and so building up resiliency on both sides of

[31:59] those is so important um so really a a huge approach that we've gone towards is

[32:04] trying to educate and work on the front end of stuff we've been very good and kind of recognized that and over time

[32:11] despite a lot of the stigma that's occurred is uh we need to respond and be supportive of people well we now know uh

[32:19] a lot better that we need to we can do a better job up front of giving them a lot of the resources and the things that

[32:26] they need ahead of time to not only um in the immediate aftermath of things

[32:31] know how to react to that uh but also things that they can do that are going to just make them more resilient to the

[32:36] situation that's not just hardening up on things that they've seen unfortunately you know the the reality

[32:42] of the 300 um critical incidents but just knowing that uh through training

[32:49] and stuff we can really get a lot farther along lines so just as uh we try and build our protective nature up

[32:56] through preparation training and then our actual performance uh the mental health aspect it needs to follow those

[33:02] same pathways um we can go on to the Yeah so we have utilized a multiaceted

[33:08] approach and we have access to a lot of things um we have our local community through the chaplain right we have uh

[33:15] fire chaplain police chaplain are great resources to us um our fire chaplain has actually been with us for close to two

[33:22] and a half decades so created this amazing relationship within our department um somebody that creates a

[33:28] lot of comfort and that's they're very eager to reach out in those situations

[33:34] the state has come along um and this is through a lot of initiatives it's been

[33:39] really like kind of grassroots driven uh but there is some money out there um so we try and make sure that we're

[33:45] utilizing all these existing resources such as Minfire um which is an actively

[33:50] funded program from the state side how long that lasts right we never know but um that gives us to what chief was kind

[33:57] of referencing a different pathway where there is uh once you go through a referral process there is money already

[34:03] to do um certain u sorry I'm blanking on

[34:09] I'm having a moment here uh but therapeutic uh activities and stuff like that and so there's money so it's not

[34:15] coming down to the individuals you know depending on what that prolonged process needs to look like and probably our our

[34:20] best uh relationship has been uh with par 36 60 doc Dr margaret Gavian she

[34:26] comes in and uh we've been working with her for a couple of years and we realized it came became very obvious

[34:32] following the um Burnsville incident last year uh where they lost two police officers and a firefighter um that we

[34:39] need to make sure that we had a very good relationship with somebody who had access and recognition and so we've now

[34:48] moved to an embedded process where um the doc comes in and actually rides with us spends time in the fire station goes

[34:54] on calls as creating a much more personal relationship with all of our firefighter medics um what that allows

[35:00] for is her easy recognition upfront of things that are off um gives her

[35:06] day-to-day opportunities to teach people um one of the biggest things that we

[35:11] recognize is having the people who work around us the ability to recognize differences in each other it's not

[35:18] always the obvious somebody's walking around very sad you know they people

[35:23] have um reactions in different ways and so we're trying to increase that education and honestly she just becomes

[35:30] somebody who people are comfortable with reaching out to knowing that she has that technical expertise in the

[35:35] background um and that can also provide referrals and you know forward down the

[35:40] line so those are the those are the big things we've been working on recently

[35:47] should we pause for questions or just go on okay we have one more section but any

[35:52] questions so we're looking at um you know increases in pay that's one thing

[35:58] people always appreciate I think at least keeping up with the rate of inflation i expect that'll go through

[36:03] tonight we'll know everybody's going to vote on it but are are there things that we should

[36:08] be doing from a more supportive standpoint that we're missing in these programs that you're talking about or

[36:14] that we should be thinking about that uh that aren't getting covered or that you're hearing from officers or

[36:20] firefighters or emergency medical people that it'd be good to have some ability to interface with a certain

[36:30] kind of person or a certain kind of feel pretty good about interfacing or figuring out the right culturally

[36:36] competent people behind the scenes it's likely going to get into a funding conversation a year or two down the road for the next budget cycle i would

[36:42] anticipate when we think about the ROI on investing in these kinds of things risk management loves us for this

[36:48] because it helps us reduce our PTSD claims so right it's more cost effective it's better for us if we continue just

[36:53] to invest everything we can that makes sense to do so I would just offer up just to kind of ceue it up in the back

[36:58] of your minds that and you know next time we're going through budget process we're going to continue to probably ask for more funding to do these kinds of

[37:04] things we're blessed with a crime fund we can kind of short-term patchwork some things but then we're going to probably come back and say how can we sustain

[37:10] some funding for all these kinds of things that we're doing it's a win-win across the board my

[37:16] opinion i think it' be useful for us to see that costbenefit analysis um so that we can articulate that to the public as

[37:23] well absolutely so um I've got a question for each of you so with the

[37:29] staff roar and restore is that something that's taught to staff in their initial

[37:34] training when they're hired is that an upfront thing so that they're prepared

[37:40] i'd say no not right now um you may have heard that we recently like February of

[37:46] 2025 launched a citywide learning management system and we do have hopes

[37:52] to continue to expand that course content to include adding this type of

[37:58] stuff um Perry though I know like when he he is coming up next you'll hear that

[38:05] this is another like as we're moving and evolving with this that we do have you

[38:10] know intentions to do more especially with the front staff frontline staff and

[38:15] that's a lot of park and wreck okay and then for the police department I know um

[38:21] that Chief Nelson instituted a lot of deescalation training um and so I assume

[38:27] you're continuing to do that and is there a linkage between um the wellness

[38:33] of the officers and their ability to do deescalation and help with public safety in general

[38:39] uh so there is a link to be had there um an officer is feeling better about him or hers herself they can better handle

[38:46] and be what Shauna had talked about earlier is the resiliency right and so when you think about cortisol dumps over

[38:51] the course of their career and how that can impact your mind and body you can see how an officer can get five 10 years into the career to become a little sour

[38:57] on the job that can lead into use of force and problems of deescalation kinds of things right so we are required by

[39:03] state law now to go through deescalation training um all officers are and we continue to do that so there's specialy

[39:09] training that happens now for officers as well so very much is a persistent piece for us the other thing

[39:15] we do is we track use of force now we didn't do that before so we quantify use of force we can do pattern recognition

[39:20] if an officer is having problems we have an early alert system so that we can go in and identify and triage that and get that person the help they may need or if

[39:27] you get into a situation of accountability we have the tools to do that as well it's very important to us okay great and then for the fire

[39:33] department um the chief started by saying that mental health was mandated

[39:39] is it mandated in the fire department as well we mandate exposure um it's the

[39:44] rules are a little different and some of this comes through legislation and ours isn't the exact same thing um but we

[39:51] mandate a a one-on-one now what that looks like is different for everyone um

[39:56] so some people choose to what we've kind of laid out is you just need to go talk

[40:02] if you want to talk about trading baseball cards or the latest movie that came out what this needs to be an an

[40:07] opportunity exposure for you to make sure that you're having that interaction so to a certain extent but not in the same way I would say okay great thank

[40:15] you so I this is coming from someone who watches like a lot of crime shows and

[40:21] reads a lot of crime books right um in that world you see a lot of stigma

[40:29] and I'm assuming there is that's somehow modeled off of real life right a stigma of mental health and when you have to go

[40:35] and talk to someone and all of that and I know that changing the culture around that isn't purely like a a flip that

[40:42] switches so when you think about the full spectrum of it being not talked

[40:47] about everyone hates it it's a big thing to maybe the the happy pastures that we

[40:53] might get to at some point of it's just a part of the culture no one cares it's

[41:00] adopted where do you think we are on that overall spectrum and how can we

[41:05] continue to nudge it towards overall acceptance yeah pretty far along in that

[41:10] in that spectrum i'd say we've had a lot of turnover with young officers this is all that they know right the

[41:16] conversations day one when they walk in we start talking about it it's embedded in everything that we do it's built into

[41:21] our policies it's it's talked about a lot all command staff go themselves and somebody can lead by example too that

[41:27] has a huge effect so you probably just have some officers now that are very back into their careers that may not have fully bought into it maybe but

[41:34] honestly the conversations that we easily have in the hallways now it's not a big deal to be honest it's anecdotally

[41:40] what I feel and from where I came from of this other end of the spectrum of nobody talked about it it's everywhere

[41:46] it's pervasive in everything we do so I would just say it's probably 80 90% that of people are like totally fine i

[41:52] understand why what we're trying to do here the other thing that we brought in is all the professionals and therapists and we bring in training we bring in

[41:59] professionals that come and talk about this stuff wrapped into wellness initiatives but also training and they talk about it and they train on it so

[42:05] much it's just common language now things like that too i'd say it's it's in a much better direction now two three

[42:12] four years from now 100% easy amazing thank you

[42:19] um just a request can this get put up on the

[42:26] website so it's part of our packet because the presentation was not there and I think that will help you know

[42:31] anybody coming through and it's too bad it's not up there right now if anyone's tuning in to listen so they can actually

[42:37] see it because I think it does help educate the public about the value of these programs if they can become

[42:43] familiar with these programs also that very first chart you showed me I was just thinking I need to get my eyes

[42:49] checked because that font is very small um I know this is tangential but we're

[42:57] talking about the stress and creating a

[43:02] healthier environment and I just for both fire and police I just keep

[43:08] thinking of staffing not being up to the levels

[43:13] it's supposed to be and also mandatory overtime and those issues really kind of

[43:21] I just want you to know that's in the back of my head and I think that's really important and we need to address that so

[43:29] if I could jump in on that we're getting in a better spot now than we were a year or two ago we have a lot of cadetses

[43:35] that are coming online soon so we're not fully staffed we're as about as close as we've been now in in a number of years

[43:41] we're almost we're almost there and that's good for us we'll set we'll take that all day long

[43:46] that's good to hear can you tell in you know this we

[43:52] just finished that quality of life survey i don't know if that quality of life survey has an internal component or not where people are that work for the

[43:58] city are are telling you whether they're happy working for the city or not not in the quality life survey yeah but it it

[44:05] seems to me that that's another way to get some feedback on this is to know

[44:12] that people are happy where they work it's not just that the city's supportive in making sure that they're adequately

[44:18] compensated but that they're supported in all of the work that they do that is

[44:23] much more traumatic than most people ever experience you know and and you

[44:28] made some great points about the programs that we have in place and ongoing support that's

[44:36] offered it seems to me that uh that some way that somehow you got to be able to quantify that and how people feel about

[44:42] where they work i 95% of them are happy that about where they work and

[44:48] 90% 20% I I don't know

[44:54] you guys have any sense of that respective departments we do an employee engagement survey the last one that we

[44:59] did was in 2022 and um percentage-wise we're we're at a h a higher level than

[45:06] the public sector more generally that's in cumulative but I don't know the full

[45:11] details of everything but I would say that we are pretty competitive from that perspective and I think that's

[45:17] the like the one of the reasons that we're talking about this tonight is it was in the budget work plan and so it's

[45:22] nice for our staff to hear from you as council members that this is a priority for you to think about them their

[45:28] experience as employees i think that um continuing to invest in that way and that type of work really um is a

[45:34] reflection um of that value that our staff has that you guys are making is

[45:40] there a plan to do the survey again yep and we're doing it this year oh usually I see them done like annually at places

[45:50] we do have one more presentation to go to so all right so Harry well it's a a

[45:55] good tiein because a lot of the things we're working on were things we recognized but also showed up in kind of

[46:01] our uh employee engagement scores from prior years as well related to um you

[46:06] know health and well-being or being a top priority um working across department so one of the big things when

[46:12] we started our um safety and security blueprint is we wanted to establish goals and the first one was that our

[46:18] employees are prepared and confident to handle dynamic situations and that happens a lot in our major park uh

[46:25] facilities and operations is that um while their role may be consistent

[46:31] day-to-day um their interactions and experiences can vary uh the second is we

[46:37] never wanted to have someone injured um in a in a confrontation or not whether that's an employee or a patron i think

[46:42] the last time we talked about this um I mentioned that a lot of our experiences aren't necessarily employee to patron

[46:48] they could be patron to patron um so what is our staff walking in countering what are they getting themselves

[46:54] involved when they walk up um those types of things and really um the the great takeaway for our goal was to

[47:01] really have those employees understand that our leadership supports their decisions and actions and that kind of

[47:07] came out when we first started looking at this is some of them felt like um they weren't comfortable or they didn't

[47:12] feel empowered to maybe call 911 they weren't empowered to just walk away from the situation or feel like they couldn't

[47:18] handle it so really understanding that that the the training that we'll put together and the discussion that we have

[47:24] is that we do support their their actions in the end um what it is so they have that comfort

[47:30] level um and then we kind of built in objectives and we remember we went out um and we brought in the the Axel group

[47:36] to work with us on this but really it was determining all those ways that our frontline staff encounter critical

[47:42] incidents on a day-to-day basis um identifying those common ones but also

[47:47] other ones that are more common other communities are experiencing what the trends are um and then really the third

[47:54] one was famili familiarizing our staff with public safety um so we have a one

[48:00] of chief sergeants sits on every month in our department meeting um we talk about incidents that we're seeing that

[48:06] they are able to share with us and how those encounters overlap um as you can imagine employing this many people out

[48:13] in the field that's a lot of eyes on areas where where they can experience something understand something so if

[48:19] they know something's going on in one area um maybe we can share things back and really kind of that next step is

[48:25] familiarity with uh dispatch staff um we always talked about what happens um after you call 911 until resources get

[48:32] there and right after that call as well is what do we do in that area and we

[48:37] kind of always joke like just think you're calling another city employee we're very fortunate we have our own dispatch center so don't think about

[48:44] you're calling dispatch think you're calling another co-orker so take that take that down a notch and then really

[48:50] um helping us where we have no policy or an old policy policies that have changed

[48:55] from the modern climate um some of our staff we've been around so long that you know just the approach to a missing

[49:02] child has changed over our careers as well about what we used to do how we handled it how we should handle it now

[49:08] in the modern climate so um really kind of put those best practices together um

[49:14] and we kind of had a two-piece approach um the first was to assess all of our

[49:20] locations and um so they did a comprehensive security assessment for each site um they evaluated our use of

[49:27] technology um facility barriers access procedures our response protocols and then just

[49:35] standard of conduct for some of our users um we had very specific and actual

[49:40] recommendations to enhance that um some of them are um as Amy always says like

[49:46] low hanging fruit let's get on those right now um others are going to take some time um to go through capital

[49:52] requests and things of that nature um all of our assessments are um they include non-public information around

[50:00] some Minnesota statutes about security assessments and vulnerability um so we did look at those

[50:07] in two groups and we did one the first group kind of their busy season as we

[50:12] called it um so you imagine going out and doing assessments the aquatic center at a certain time of year is much

[50:17] different than the golf dome um time of the year we group those accordingly based on when they were the most busy to

[50:24] do those assessments so aquatic center obviously was during the warmer months um the arena the field the golf dome was

[50:31] done um in the winter and that went through um the

[50:36] evaluation was called SEPTED so crime prevention through environmental design um that was one of the real um um

[50:43] advantages of going through this is it brought an outside perspective someone certified in this looking at it um we've

[50:49] already started incorporating those like I said on some of those um easier to remedy areas but also on some of our

[50:55] long-term capital planning so um that information we are working into the Braar Arena project so thinking about

[51:02] all the things we learned through an assessment let's put those into action we have this opportunity now same thing

[51:08] with the um aquatic center pump room project is what can we learn from these assessments there and put that into

[51:14] action um so so working on that um and then the other piece um is is kind of as

[51:22] Amy had mentioned which is um what we see as kind of our blueprint training program to invest in our employees is um

[51:29] what we're calling our safety and security blueprint itself um so that's very specific to EDI only so this was um

[51:36] groundup built for for us and for our staff and it's kind of really a policy and procedure manual when it comes to

[51:42] these types of things um so it'll be a specific onboarding task for our employees um and not just our full-time

[51:49] employees but all of our part-time employees as well so um this this will be interesting because we do have some

[51:55] legacy employees that stay with us for quite some time but we also every year you know we're in that 200 300 350

[52:03] part-time employee hiring is we may get them for one summer we may get them for two by that time they're aging out so

[52:09] how do we maximize their availability through this um um we've developed a

[52:15] number of inservice training protocols so um kind of talked like team training talks so how do we um discuss at sites

[52:23] on a common topic and then also there's a specific topic so um if you're working at the aquatic center it might be about

[52:30] the chemical pool room and what happens exactly there if you are at the golf course it might be what happens um in

[52:37] the fuel island if you are at the ice arena it might be in the pump room or the compressor room but what happens

[52:42] specifically there to work on some of those things and then really just a response matrix on um guiding our

[52:49] employees um we have built in the roar and restore model but at a certain point

[52:55] we need to also progress upon that about our encounters with staff at sites and

[53:00] how we progress through that and depending on what type of a topic it is um that we do we do go through um it's

[53:08] been amazingly helpful to have Amy along this journey with us as we're kind of learning as we're going along um the

[53:14] Axel Group staff has been um tremendously responsive to us they are building this up they they traditionally

[53:20] work with public safety environments um we are the first park and recreation department to actually work with them on

[53:26] this and they've um they've been a great partner in developing this as well so um

[53:31] you know it is something that um we see as once it's set it will continue to evolve and be evaluated not necessarily

[53:39] collect dust and hopefully we can incorporate a lot of it into the learning module where um we can have staff check off on some of these

[53:45] training items as well as they go through so um it's opened up a lot of doors and discussions with with our

[53:51] public safety partners as well as how we can interact with them how they can use us as eyes and we can use those as the

[53:57] kind of the ultimate backs stop as well so that's what we've been working on

[54:03] you keep data like incident reports so we do keep um daily incident reports

[54:09] per facility one of the things that we um um have just started talking about is

[54:15] defining an incident that we can track to see how our progress is going um and

[54:21] we don't necessarily have a definition for that yet or a set of criteria where we could track where um you know I know

[54:28] police is required to track use of force and you know if a if a weapon is pulled

[54:33] out of a holster or not right you track a lot of the statistics we don't necessarily have definitions they don't exist for what they are so that might be

[54:40] something that we have to develop ourselves to say how are we trending um and as my staff reminds me it's not just

[54:47] the number but it's the type you know you could go from 10 to one but if the one is an awful incident um how do we

[54:54] react to that and how do we help them um you know and even you know just having conversations with fire about some of

[55:00] the other um aspects of the programs that they're instituting from a mental health aspect of um how can we um

[55:09] accompany them as well on that um you know one example is last year we had two

[55:14] remarkable saves at the aquatic center uh we had two people that were non-responsive non- breathing that came

[55:21] out of the water both regained breathing um one was an adult male one was a small

[55:26] child the small child was extremely traumatic to our staff thinking about they were

[55:31] probably 15 years older than this individual and while we talk about the employee assistance provider and we do

[55:38] do critical incidents is how can we pull in more professional resources to help

[55:43] them in this area um you know that shift that that guard pool that was on at that

[55:49] point is how do we help them better recover from this so we pulled in and had conversations but have the ability

[55:55] to pull in another level of a professional mental health provider on that is extremely beneficial as well

[56:03] when you have a I'll call it a conflict that's again undefined but could you

[56:08] track what percentage of the incidents or conflicts are patron to

[56:13] patron versus patron to staff yeah again

[56:18] we don't track it but we're seeing more and more patron to patron

[56:25] it might be arguments about a parking spot that trickles back into the building it might be um about how an

[56:33] interaction between their own children was going and then it becomes patron to patron um it might be um about um the

[56:44] result of a um athletic activity um when you think about um

[56:51] the in invested in investment at a hockey game um between players and a

[56:59] referee's decision might be or non-decision how that happens um where

[57:05] um you know two parents of opposing communities might not even be Dina you know we host a lot of tournaments um and

[57:12] how those um elevations in their view can spill off and again that's that's

[57:18] The worrisome part is because often times we're walking into a situation that we didn't cause and we don't know

[57:23] what transpired so a lot of our staff is walking into that situation of it might

[57:28] be two two adults that are arguing and elevating and we don't know why and we're walking in and what do we do at

[57:35] that point and how do we do it i think you know the one concern we've always had is just the number of staff per

[57:40] participant in the building or in the park you know we talk about Centennial Lakes when it could be a extremely busy

[57:48] evening down there it could be a couple of thousand people to one or to two or to three and how do we have the

[57:53] appropriate number of people that have gone through good enough training that they can help at least identify and try

[58:00] to resolve um you know it could be anything from that it could be um you

[58:06] know it could be an unhoused individual and how do we approach them we're doing training and or looked at training and

[58:11] on how that can be applied as well because there are techniques um that may be different depending on the situation

[58:18] what's the timing around beginning to collect data and having a framework for

[58:23] what that should look like i don't really know yet because we've got to work on we want to get the blueprint finished first and then um and

[58:30] then we can start working on the data collection piece cuz I know this was it like two or three years ago my first

[58:36] city council retreat we went through and had actual tangible examples right you played us the videos and all of that and

[58:43] then when we met up we sat next to each other at the retreat a couple weeks ago months ago I was like oh I feel like

[58:49] it's gone way down right cuz I haven't seen it and we haven't gotten that data or that information um and correct me if

[58:56] I'm wrong but you said kind of like nope you're Yeah not right um in that not

[59:03] increasing yes correct um and so I think that like even continuing to have some

[59:09] of those examples and you'll never be able to like short

[59:15] of having that data show that full picture but I think even continuing to get some of those touch points of what

[59:21] our employees experiencing would be super valuable especially when and if it

[59:27] corresponds to or if it's going to correspond to funding requests and other ways that we can help support you um I

[59:34] think continuing to have that touch point on what people are experiencing will be really valuable yeah and we have

[59:41] we um part of the assessments was reviewing kind of our security camera locations and and that has evolved over

[59:49] time as well where it used to be you had security cameras because you thought you were going to have an issue here um so a

[59:56] lot of ours are pointing at the front desk you know and that's not necessarily where things are happening it might be

[1:00:02] in this area of the the park or the facility or in this area so trying to um

[1:00:08] go through these assessments and reposition and working with it on different newer technologies where we

[1:00:13] used to have one camera and now that has three lenses maybe um to capture more of that um but it is unique and it's always

[1:00:20] a circumstance where you just um may not expect it you know the one of the most recent traumatic ones that we've looked

[1:00:26] at a staff and we haven't shown you is we had a missing child at one point and

[1:00:32] within I think it was 45 seconds the parent went after one of our staff

[1:00:38] trying to help coordinate the the search so at the same time we had a that interaction going one of our other staff

[1:00:44] was bringing the child back in had gone past the parents went out the doors and they didn't notice and so

[1:00:51] that's an example of that is um you know while it's one incident that was extremely traumatic for the whole um

[1:00:58] operation you know so like that one doesn't count as 10 but on the scale of 1 to 10 that was a 10

[1:01:08] i also want to pull on something I think you said but I want to make sure I understood it um so it's called Axtro

[1:01:15] Group is Axtel Group um did you say that we're the first city that has from like

[1:01:21] a parks and wreck perspective gone through this and uh like how did that

[1:01:28] come to be like one it sounds like amazing kudos to you and the entire like city staff for like that innovation and

[1:01:35] um kind of stepping into that but I'm kind of curious like if this isn't something that other people do like how

[1:01:41] did we think to do it um well I think the first was

[1:01:46] recognizing that we have an issue and not trying to brush it aside um so I think it was getting to the point where

[1:01:54] we as like a a management leadership staff in parks and recreation we're kind of hovering at the point where um how do

[1:02:01] we talk to our frontline staff about these incidents and and keep them coming back right um is it easier then to just

[1:02:09] go to McDonald's and work the drive-thru um or to to try to handle this right um

[1:02:14] and then we started talking to people um about do they do this or not we talked

[1:02:20] to a number um we we asked for resources we called up no that's not something we do that's not something we do we kind of

[1:02:27] had a lot of strikeouts and then we're introduced to um Todd Axel and and um

[1:02:34] and Rod Portman and they were like we would love to try this let's go down the journey together really and it's not

[1:02:39] that um no one else is doing it i think a lot of my peers are watching and

[1:02:44] saying what does that look like because I think we need it too i just don't know how we would put it together so I think

[1:02:50] a lot of folks are are asking me for updates on like once you're done can I see it like nope um but at the same

[1:02:58] point too is how can we use this to like bring it to one other communities within

[1:03:03] Minnesota but also just like nationally is this something that we can really champion of innovation but really moving

[1:03:11] the needle and so obviously we couldn't do that now um but as we get more and more outcomes I think it could be

[1:03:17] something that would be really good to celebrate more broadly yeah I would imagine when we're done and we're into

[1:03:22] it for a while this is maybe a a state association and conference presentation with them um again this is very Edina

[1:03:30] specific so each community would have to evaluate on their own it's not something where you could say "Give me a copy and

[1:03:36] I'm going to find replace Edina with a different community." Um it wouldn't

[1:03:41] necessarily apply um as well but I think there's lessons in here that are going

[1:03:46] to be really worthwhile and and Todd is the former police chief for the city of St paul um so unlike um the city of

[1:03:54] Minneapolis where the Minneapolis Park Board and the city are kind of entities different um parks and recreation in the

[1:03:59] city of St paul was a department in that so there was some familiarity start uh with how St paul operates as well um you

[1:04:07] know very on a regional basis which we are also kind of a regional basis so there was some comfort there and thanks

[1:04:13] to the police chief because he introduced us i will say that I know the vulnerability

[1:04:18] assessments are protected because that is these are where our camera locations are right we don't want everyone to know

[1:04:25] this is our response this is where the safe is this is um this is how we take the money from the cash register to the

[1:04:30] safe this is the car where no but one of the but what I will say so that was you

[1:04:36] know the first phase the second phase is this written more manual I'll speak and

[1:04:41] I feel like that you know Edina public schools might benefit from

[1:04:46] that you know so that kind of again like the similarities that could be shared

[1:04:54] and there are some nuances to that I mean because you know when they when your child enters the door they're legally

[1:05:00] responsible for your child during that time period so's um but there are some some aspects of that and especially

[1:05:06] since some of our um operations do spill on the school property you know I always felt the worst thing in the world could

[1:05:12] be you know the school has a lockdown going and the cameras roll up and our staff is in the back field painting

[1:05:18] lines with their headphones on just keep going right um that would be extremely So how do we coordinate messaging as

[1:05:25] well within here so there's a you know a communication strategy and a notification strategy to push alerts to

[1:05:31] our staff within within our blueprint and we hire Edina students to work with

[1:05:37] us at Parka Direct so there is this natural overlap the framework behind

[1:05:42] this is SEPTED and so you saw that and so what we use that for it's a certification you often hear about it in

[1:05:48] crime prevention when departments look to police departments to help kind of author and develop out a robust plan like that we just don't have the time

[1:05:54] capacity to do that so when we got talking about it I know Todd I trust Todd he started up this consulting group

[1:06:00] they do great work um we made that introduction but they had to have a Septad component to this and they did

[1:06:06] and so it was just kind of a win-win kind of came across the board but you use that um to really look at that environment and how you can change it so

[1:06:13] if the behavior isn't working so well what can you do from a physical environment standpoint to change it up and that's what the septag component

[1:06:19] does for you so it's really good to hear that's working really really well the relationships in play and I too expect a

[1:06:25] really good product to come out of that and there is some overlap to to Amy's point is um you know one of the things

[1:06:32] that just simple like access points right so we know how our patrons come in and out of buildings where emergency

[1:06:37] exits are um but also then like how our staff enters and exits a building maybe through a different door or not um but

[1:06:45] while you may you may know this you may not know this but for the the Hornets Nest at the Bremer Arena we issue key

[1:06:51] fobs for just that back door in the locker rooms to the um JV and the high school players

[1:06:57] but until this assessment we had never gone over a code of conduct with that so for next season there will be a code of

[1:07:03] conduct for them to get a fob which means they only let themselves in right you cannot bring a friend um those types

[1:07:10] of things about why entering a facility is so important about you know um once

[1:07:15] you come in make sure that door closes behind you um while we limit the hours they can access the facility we've never

[1:07:21] once talked about who you can or cannot bring in right so again that's not so

[1:07:26] much about our protection but for them in the high school um about vulnerability as well as

[1:07:32] um so you know it kind of took this to really kind of look at that from a

[1:07:38] different angle and a different set of eyes

[1:07:45] okay thank you it was an interesting update on all this activity to support the people that uh are under more stress

[1:07:53] than regular folks so thanks

[1:07:59] all right any else that's all we've got for tonight okay

[1:08:05] [Music]