Special Meeting
Littleton City Council
September 12, 2006

Doug Clark went home sick prior to the start of the meeting.

The subjects for the meeting were the Police Management Report and the 2007 budget.

Jim Woods, City Manager, opened the meeting with some soothing words. Littleton has a very good police department and they provide very good service to the citizens. We continue to attract very talented and dedicated people – both uniformed and civilian personnel. The study was not recommended because the police are not doing a great job. The City needed a framework for the future – how to utilize all this talent in the best way. Littleton is land-locked and is maturing and we need to do some hard work thinking about how to use our talented and resourceful employees of the police department. OEC (the consulting firm responsible for the report) does not see this as the end report – or the answer. There’s no perfect right way – there are choices and options. Tonight is the start of the process – not an end. The study was done, in a tight time frame, so if there were budget implications for the 2007 budget they could be recognized prior to finalizing the budget.

The goal for tonight is to get feedback from the Council – to get the Council’s initial take on the report, any questions or points of clarification. The staff needs to get out and meet with the officers and get their feedback. Tom (an OEC consultant) will be returning late September to do a follow up and help us to organize a process to move forward.

The leadership of the department has caught the attention of the press and Woods said he would talk about that a little later.

A Strategic Business Model was recommended by OEC and it needed to be talked about. Woods wants to talk to other cities that have used the model and will need up to 30 days to do so. In general, he liked the Project Team approach that was recommended, but he needed to get feedback from the rank and file.

Jim Taylor, Mayor, asked Woods for a little more clarification on the “30 days.”

Woods said Tom would be coming they could put more meat on this and talk about a process – the number of teams, power shifts, priorities, etc. More details are needed and a process to move forward needs to be defined. The best way to do this is with input from the officers and Tom. Some of the recommendations are process issues and others are policy issues. Council will be advised – he just needs time to organize this better.

Rebecca Kast asked if the Strategic Planning Team would get started right away with the Strategic Planning that will be an on-going task.

Woods thought the two were the same but Kast said she saw them as two separate things. Woods saw the Strategic Management Team as the kick-off of the Strategic Management Business Model. In the memo that Woods prepared the recommendations were broken into two groups; specific operational ideas and management models.

The management model is not clear in Woods mind – how does it enhance or facilitate – do we even need it.

Kast asked him if he was going to wait until he heard more before setting up the team.

Woods said that’s right. We need to get ideas from officers – sworn and civilian – and have an agenda for Tom. We need answers and examples for Tom to respond to. Tonight was the time for Council to ask questions.

Pat Cronenberger liked Woods’ September 7th memo and thought it matched up with the report very nicely. She thought the operational pieces were pretty straight forward and it wasn’t necessary to wait for OEC to return.

Woods said the training time for officers was noted in the study. (Littleton Police are well over in the training time in the opinion of OEC.) There may be a good reason for all the training required for our police. We have a low number of excessive force suits and law suits and that might be the result of a significant number of training hours for our police.

Tom Mulvey thought the meeting they were having was premature telling Woods that he (Woods) needed to deal with the report – he (Woods) needed to make decisions since he (Woods) was on the line.

Woods said he wanted to hear from Council first and Mulvey said this should be done another night. Taylor said they would.

Kast asked if they had to wait – can’t they move on some of the recommendations? Woods said some are moving forward.

Phil Cortese, Asst. City Manager, said there are questions to be answered. Who gets involved in the process? What can and what can’t we do? Some of the items will rise to the top. We need to get people involved at the level that it is happening – how do you do that with 100 different people and different shifts?

Kast asked if they are going to start right away and Cortese said they needed a back and forth to understand (the recommendations) first.

Amy Conklin had some specific comments to make. First, the Community Resource and the School Officers are critically important and any changes should include the school district. Second, there were two major conclusions of the study – a general restructure and civilianization. She would like a report on civilianization. She said that a lot of the decisions that need to be made are Jim Woods to make and he might consider a member of council be included in the decision making process. She thought it was an excellent report and they are on the right track. She will look forward to the next report.

John Ostermiller said that most of the recommendations are internal and they need to be resolved internally. He did not see a whole lot of budget implications. He liked the idea of the detectives staying in the rotation longer so they have a chance to develop a 6th sense and get the feel. He is anxious to get started. The study will serve as a good road map to follow.

Taylor asked Woods if he saw any 2007 budget implications and Woods said no.

Taylor mentioned that the scope of the work changed after OEC started and that there were some issues that did not get addressed. Two were:

* Expectations of police services by members of the community
* Viability and need for existing programs in the department.

He was also concerned about the low moral, excessive sick leave and high turnover in the department.

Taylor was also concerned that there were items that were supposed to be addressed by the study but weren’t and wanted to know if the consultants should be asked back to address those areas in addition to other areas that might come up. Cortese told Taylor that they city had gotten more than their monies worth and any more “study” would require more dollars.

Woods said that there were a number of citizens and council interviews done and OEC did not hear any concern about police services from either group. In terms of turn-over we didn’t come to any conclusions. The consultants just thought the turn-over was high but did not compare the rate to other police departments. We may be within the range of other police departments in the state. Are we excessive compared to Aurora, Englewood or California – he didn’t know.

Taylor thought they could take money out of the contingency fund if they decided to do further study.

Cortese said the Strategic Management Process is trying to find out what causes the issues – is one causing the other? They need to be flexible to change and he thought it was going to be a great open process.

Kast commented on the low moral of the police. She thinks the community let the officers down when they rejected the proposed police building. How could that not send a message? She feels bad about that and feels like they let the police down. Until we solve the building problem it will cause low moral.

Woods said the police know how community politics work and realize that Littleton is changing. They just want the opportunity to work smarter and have the opportunity to participate.

Taylor thought it was a good start. He wasn’t sure if they knew what they were going to get when the commissioned the study and the results need to be analyzed. We have a $10 million asset in the police department and it is where the largest piece of the budget goes. We don’t want to go too fast or too slow.

Budget

Woods began by noting two additional changes in the budget. They did not allocate enough money for future salary increases. It was increased from $1 million to $1,150,000.00. The second change was the addition of a staff person in the finance department that had been left out inadvertently. That increased the budget by $45,000.

The Council, in a previous budget special meeting, had created a list of other possible additions to the budget. The discussion of those items follows.

Conklin wanted $25,000 to pay for an Engineering Design and Energy Efficiency study – it might take less. Efforts by city staff have already netted a $75,000 to $100,000 in savings and she thought the fee would be covered by the savings produced. Cronenberger thought it was long over-due. Kast thought it was a good idea but it might be a report that made recommendations that could not be implemented because of the cost associated with the changes. Ostermiller said he would support it because if it isn’t done now he doesn’t think it will be done in the future. Mulvey liked the idea. There were four that favored the spending so there was no further discussion.

Judges Survey – Back in March the council members were interested in a survey of the judges. The City of Thornton has done a survey that, from the discussion, might be the type of survey the council wanted done. Taylor said the intent is not to go into a great deal of expense to survey the judges. Woods asked if they wanted an economy model of what Thornton did. After a little more discussion Woods said there weren’t four votes and did they want to continue. Taylor asked Woods to get the information from Thornton with costs for the council members to consider at the next budget meeting.

Post Cards – A budget addition of $23,856 for the mailing of postcards to citizens to inform them of upcoming CAC meetings. Cronenberger said the Council wants participation in the COMPLAN meetings and when the post card for the St. Mary’s meeting was mailed there was a far greater turnout. CAC member’s role is to talk to their constituent group that they represent. Maybe we need a primer for them on how to get the message out. Kast asked if CAC had a budget. Marty Roberts said no.

Ostermiller said that the large turn out at St. Mary’s was not due to the post cards but because the anti WalMart people got their people out. Conklin thought it was critically important to reach out on the land use issues for the entire city. Taylor said the critical one was the final report. Citizens were chosen for CAC because they represent groups and they are supposed to get feedback.

It was decided that it was a large expense for the results it produced. Other means will be used to notify the public.

Collection material for the library – It was understood by council members that they all agreed to this at the last meeting.

Public Financing of Campaigns – No. (This would have been taxpayer money given to candidates for council lelections.)

Computers for Council Members – Conklin made the point at the last budget meeting that it would be easier for all council members if they all had computers that were compatible with each other and with the city staff. She suggested that council members be allowed to purchase computers at the city’s negotiated rates, at their own expense. Ostermiller said he just bought a new computer and wasn’t interested. Mulvey thought it would be nice.

Water Conservation – Kast said there would be more discussion about this in October. She would like to fund a survey on water conservation with the Water Fund money. The fund was created to fund future water projects and now the projects are not going forward. She thought there were other needs coming and that the Denver Water Board might mandate some low flow toilets or low using sprinkler systems. She thought the water fund could be used to fund a rebate program. Mulvey thought some of what Kast was talking about was already mandated by Denver Water. Taylor said yes but they didn’t rebate anymore. Kast would like a member of the Denver Water Board to be in attendance the night it is discussed. Ostermiller said all they would get is the company line which won’t have anything to do with reality. The idea got the support from Ostermiller, Kast, Conklin and Cronenberger

Volunteer hours – although it has no budget implications Conklin was insistent that the number of volunteer hours be mentioned in the budget report.

TV Producer – A TV producer would cost the city $70,000. Mulvey thought it should be included in the budget. He read from the Comcast contract and thought they had an obligation to the citizens and to their contract to provide for a TV producer that would allow a greater use of Channel 8. Taylor said this staff position was lost during a budget freeze and he thought here were more criticial needs that should come before a TV producer. Conklin asked Larry Berkowitz what the possibility would be to negotiate the contract with Comcast that would allow the PEG money to be spent for salary in addition to the equipment. Mulvey said he would be happy to go and talk to Comcast. The citizens are paying and getting nothing but two meetings a month on Channel 8. Taylor said if we are going to talk to them we should also talk to them about the refunding of the unused PEG money. Comcast might think it is too much trouble to refund the money. Ostermiller said he was not in favor of funding something that they might not be able to continue. Conklin asked if he would object using the PEG money for funding a producer and Ostermiller said he didn’t know, he would have to look at it. He also said that Kelli Narde had other ideas about how to spend that money for other efficiencies in the City. He just didn’t want to start any new programs. There were no comments from Kast and Cronenberger.

Trail Mark – Doug Clark had left his comments with Taylor prior to going home sick. He suggested Littleton buy a house in Trail Mark and purchase a piece of equipment for transporting patients that would fit into a garage without having to modify the garage. The house could be mortgaged. Berkowitz said they can’t incur long-term debt and would have to go to the voters.

Ostermiller said there are 50 calls per year from Trail Mark – how do you define the “high-call” time? The Fire Chief said he hesitated to try to determine when an emergency is going to occur – to ensure response you have to have a 24/7 operation. Ostermiller thought the neighbors of the “house” would not be happy. Kast said they have met with the Safety Committee from Trail Mark to help figure out what to do. It is a concern but it is difficult when there are very few calls out there, she said. Conklin did the math saying that for the number of call out at Trail Mark and the expense involved it came to $50,000 a call and she didn’t know how to justify that. Mulvey said they had to do something – they annexed the area. Cronenberger said they can always de-annex it. There wasn’t a lot of support for Clark’s idea.

The following is a memo written the day after the meeting. I decided to include it in the minutes as it further explains the Trail Mark situation.

Council Members,

Last night at the Council Workshop, I was asked if our mutual aid agreement with Lockheed Martin has had an effect on response times into Trail Mark. I answered that we have had two mutual aid responses into Trail Mark and that Lockheed Martin will not produce a better response time than LFR. I was mistaken.

We have yet to call Lockheed Martin into Trail Mark. I assumed that, as we have an agreement signed with Lockheed Martin, we had invited them in. There are still some operational issues that we need to address. We will be pursuing these and hope to resolve them within the next two weeks.

I apologize for any confusion I have caused and will notify you when the mutual aid with Lockheed Martin is truly operational as well as the response times produced.

John Mullin, Chief

Littleton Fire rescue

Landscape Grant Program – On hold for now – no money.

Enhanced Clean Up Program – Clark suggested a clean-up program during the holiday season. It would require $1500.00 – 3 college kids at $12 per hour for 2 weeks. Taylor didn’t think homeowners would be doing that kind of clean up during that time of the year. People are trained to expect the service in the summer. Cronenberger thought it would be difficult to get kids lined up to work.

Berkowitz ended the meeting by passing out a memo, in envelopes, to council members on sanitary sewer claims that had been settled.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

To Get a DVD of this Special Meeting:
The Littleton Examiner videotaped this Police Study Discussion. We offered it to the City to be televised. They refused. You can get a DVD of the meeting by requesting it from us.

To see Official City Minutes:
Since this was a Special Meeting No official minutes will be available.