Agenda - Council - 09/14/1993 - Laserfiche WebLink

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3une ~/~ 1993 At 7:OOpm on the 16th of June a meeting was held in the council chamDers at the c~¥ hall to in response to d~rect~on trom the City Council to delve further into snowmobile regulations. Prior to the meeting, on 4-28-93, notice of the meeting was plaoed into the June Ramsey Resident and letters were sent to persons who had attended the public hearing on March 23rd, advising them of the meeting. The following persons attended the June ]6th meeting: Dave Lewandowski 8405-156th Ln Steve Nettleton 14211 Barium St. NW Harlin Parry 16237 Kamacite St. NW Ron Julich 826~-158th Ave. Bob Peterson 15621 Erkium St. NW John Noard 6760 Hy.' 1~ NW (Anoka-Ramsey Sports Ctr.) It was immediately apparent that all in attendance were pro- snowmobiling in %he City and no one present voiced any desire see any radical changes to the present ordinance that would ~urther limit snowmobiling. There were several ideas advanced as to what they would like to see the City, and specifically the Police Department, do to work with supporters to alleviate the problems that have come about from snowmobilers. One of these suggestions was to form a citizen patrol, prob- ably comprised of snowmobile club members, to do pro-active education in the field. It was suggested that they could wear some sort of blaze orange vest with printing to indicate their status. They would not be an enforcement arm and would be properly coached in how to approach violators. The idea would be to hand out educational information not only to persons who are observed violating the ordinance and state statutes but also in general to riders. In some cases they would copy down snowmobile registration numbers from the violators~ machines and turn them into the police for further follow-up. I indicated to them that %hey may also be called upon to come to court for certain flagrant violations or if we tag repeat offenders. The police offices would record in its computer, the names of offenders who are warned about their conduct and in the event of repeated offenses the violator(s) would be brought into court. This would take some City time and there would be a cost factor bu~ it would be no more, and likely less, than if only police officers were doing this enforcement. Another variation of this would be to take advantage of Mr. Noard's offer %o provide a snowmobile and trailer for police use. We would pick times that we have sufficient staff and put one officer on the machine and have one of the citizen patrol persons on another. Because snowmobiles have a nasty habit of breaking down in obscure places it is almost a maxim that ~wo operate together. By doing this we would have immediate enforcement potential as an officer would issue a citation and perhaps order a tow on the scene. We would also avoid the cost of drafting a I I I I I I I I I I I i ! ! I I I I I