Woodstock City Council 3/17/09

At this evening's City Council meeting I addressed the Council, minus RB Thompson, on three topics, the Board of Fire and Police Commissioners (BOFPC) and the Woodstock Police Department.

The BOFPC is a 3-man commission of non-employee civilian residents of Woodstock, one of whom happens to be a police chief of a neighboring community. I asked the City Council to examine the issue of fairness to an employee of the police department who has been placed on suspension without pay. While he may have been charged in Wisconsin with traffic offenses, he has not been convicted.

For the BOFPC to issue the discipline it did, before any traffic case against him is resolved, is wrong. The Human Resources Director of the City, the City Manager, and the City Council should be all over the Police Department and the BOFPC for its premature decision. And they should direct the BOFPC to hold a hearing ASAP. As a matter of fact, it should have already been held - yet it hasn't even been scheduled!

A second topic for me tonight was the traffic initiatives of the Woodstock Police Department and the 51% jump in "Other traffic arrests". Rumors swirl around me about new ticket quotas for officers, and I asked the City Council to look into them. I did add that performance standards are okay, but not quotas. Quotas are illegal. I am very concerned about any effort to change the Police Department into a revenue source for the City.

Unfortunately, police officers are ordered not to talk about issues like these; if they do, they are subject to disciplinary action. So how does the public find out if quotas have been established? If an officer is unconstitutionally muzzled, does he have to win the Lottery before sticking his neck out and talking about working conditions?

I didn't plan to speak during the audience comment period on the Mass Notification System (MNS) for alerting residents to emergencies. And I forgot to ask the most important question - about the total cost of the System.

Item E3 was "Approval to establish a Mass Notification System within the City of Woodstock and authorization to enter into an agreement with Blackboard Connect for their product, Connect-CTY at a cost not to exceed $22,000."

Councilman Ahrens said he hoped the MNS would not be used for Christmas Tree Pick-up alerts and other non-emergency notifications. Also mentioned were ball field closures (too wet to play) and downtown snow emergencies.

These things are what email and text-messaging are for. One City employee should be able to send an email alert to all the ball players and coaches in about two minutes, if the fields are too wet to play on. Or they just read the "Too Wet. Closed Today" sign on the fence when they arrive.

Now, if a tanker car falls off the railroad tracks and leaks chlorine in the downtown area, that's an emergency. A tornado warning is an emergency. A block on the Square burning? Maybe, if you live downtown.

I'm sure I endeared myself to them by stating that I couldn't imagine why there were spending so much time on a $22,000 decision, when that type of decision really could have just been made by staff. And then I got to thinking, "Is the $22,000 just for the contract negotiations to end up with the System?" Surely, this could not be the case.

The $22,000 had better be for the entire working system, not just for the lawyers to put together a deal.

Councilman Ralph Webster was the only vote against the MNS. He said there is already a system in place to do this. Apparently, it doesn't work right at this time, but there is a system.

Other councilpersons stressed the importance of frugality during hard economic times. I don't think I heard the word "recession" today.