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12-18-2000 - Workshop CITY COUNCIL OF EDGEWATER WORKSHOP DECEMBER 18, 2000 6:00 P.M. COMMUNITY CENTER MINUTES CALL TO ORDER Mayor Schmidt called the Workshop to order at 6:00 p.m. in the Community Center. ROLL CALL Mayor Donald Schmidt Present Councilman James Brown Present Councilman Dennis Vincenzi Present Councilwoman Harriet Rhodes Present Councilwoman Judith Lichter Present City Manager Kenneth Hooper Present City Clerk Susan Wadsworth Present Legal Assistant Robin Matusick Present MEETING PURPOSE The purpose of the meeting was to interview two candidates for Police Chief. City Manager Hooper commented on the way they would handle the interview process. Acting Police Chief Bill Bennett presented the background for Michael Ignasiak. Mr. Ignasiak identified who he was and what motivates him which they wouldn't find in a resume. City Manager Hooper identified he was introduced to all of the directors at the staff meeting and that he and Mr. Ignasiak had also gone out to dinner together. He further described the history with regard to the process they had followed up until the interview process. He identified Rick Overman had withdrawn as of Friday due to taking another job. Mr. Ignasiak then answered questions presented by Mayor Schmidt with regard to why he chose Edgewater and if his wife had had a chance to check the area out and what she thought. 1 Council Workshop December 18, 2000 After Mr. Ignasiak mentioned he had some ideas, Councilwoman Rhodes asked him what those ideas where. He identified one idea as being communication and presented examples of ways communication could be improved. He then commented on bringing the community and the police officers together by going into the neighborhoods and talking to the people as well as there being a lot of issues with youth and getting the City and police officers involved with youth being critical. Councilwoman Lichter asked what type of community Hollywood was and what the major police problems were and how that might compare to a smaller community. Mr. Ignasiak commented on the Hollywood he grew up in being similar to Edgewater but over the past twenty years they have experienced a tremendous amount of growth. He further commented on the biggest problems the Hollywood Police Department has been trying to confront because of the build out with regard to an increase in demand for services. City Manager Hooper asked Mr. Ignasiak to describe the statistical information for Hollywood with regard to population. Mr. Ignasiak described it has being a coastal community that is approximately 26 square miles with about 130,000 permanent population. Seasonal population goes up about 20,000 to 25,000 people. He then identified the Police Department had approximately 335 sworn officers and 240 civilians. Acting Chief Bennett identified Edgewater as having 35 sworn officers and 15 civilians. Councilwoman Lichter commented on the Citizens Assisting Police program. She agreed more needed to be done with the youth and interaction. Mr. Ignasiak described Hollywood as having a Volunteers in Policing (VIP) program. Councilwoman Lichter commented on having a senior advisory council that was not part of the local government. She commented on there being many seniors in this area looking locally for fulfilling a purpose like that. She further commented on having three to five retirement parks in Edgewater that are really involved in their communities. Mr. Ignasiak estimated 20 to 23% of the people in Hollywood were retired and were the greatest source of their volunteers. City Manager Hooper commented on Mr. Ignasiak's response in his interview to Councilwoman Lichter's question with regard to what the major problems were in Hollywood. There really isn't any difference in what they are dealing with; it's just the number of problems he has to deal with at one time. Mayor Schmidt then asked Mr. Ignasiak if he had a chance to look at the Police Department's budget and if he had any comments. Mr. Ignasiak had looked at the budget and felt the department was funded adequately for the size operation it had now. 2 Council Workshop December 18, 2000 Councilman Vincenzi pointed out Hollywood had 335 sworn officers, ten times the population of Edgewater and their budget was only four times as much. Mr. Ignasiak commented on that being one of their problems and identified how they resolve that with volunteers to supplement their work force. He also spoke of aggressively pursuing grants. Mayor Schmidt asked how much personal experience Hollywood had and if they had grant writers within the department. Mr. Ignasiak informed him they had both. They had one full time grant writer and were going after two additional grant writers and also used a lot of people in- house. The more people you put into the process, the further you look, the more you bring back in. He further commented on grant writing being a complicated, tedious and time consuming process and then finding out they didn't get the grant after all of the time involved with the process. Councilwoman Lichter commented on Mr. Ignasiak being in the same department for many years and not having had to go through the experience of coming in new. She felt that might present attention that could be positive but there could be negatives coming in cold turkey. She questioned how he would handle that. Mr. Ignasiak looked at it as a challenge and opportunity for him. He further spoke of taking an assessment of the department and meeting with every person in the department to find out what they think of the department and what its strengths and weaknesses are. Councilman Brown questioned if Mr. Ignasiak thought he would get disgusted going from a larger force to a smaller force due to not having the amount of personnel and the challenge he has with a larger force. Mr. Ignasiak explained he looked at this as a great opportunity. Larger departments are larger problems. He further identified size sometimes has its drawbacks and that with smaller departments there can be an influence over shorter periods of time which in turn leads to seeing the result in a shorter period of time. Councilman Brown commented on the Council being very involved with the community and it sounded like Mr. Ignasiak wanted to be involved also. Mr. Ignasiak identified in the proposal he submitted to City Manager Hooper that he wanted to sit down with each of the Councilmembers and do the same interview and find out what they felt was the role of the Edgewater Police Department was, where they wanted to see it go and what they would like to see it do. Mayor Schmidt asked Mr. Ignasiak if he had any experience working alongside a sheriff's department and highway patrol. He spoke of there being a lot of County area and highway patrol with I -95 being so close. Mr. Ignasiak spoke of his experience in the Broward area being nothing but positive. He has never run into any problems before. He 3 Council Workshop December 18, 2000 didn't anticipate the Sheriff's department and highway patrol would be anything other than professional. Mayor Schmidt asked if he had ever heard of or worked with Ben Johnson who was elected Sheriff. Mr. Ignasiak had heard of him but had never had any personal dealings with him. Councilwoman Rhodes asked Mr. Ignasiak if he would be happy being a small town Chief over a significant period of time and if he had a career goal of being Chief of a larger city and if it was a long term commitment on his part or a means to an end. Mr. Ignasiak informed her it was a long term commitment. He disclosed he had this discussion with City Manager Hooper at dinner. His response to him was he would like to stay as Chief as long as he is effective and doing the job he is supposed to do. He is looking for an opportunity to make a long term commitment. He has lived in the same house for 25 years. He does not make commitments lightly and when he makes them he keeps them. Councilman Vincenzi asked Mr. Ignasiak how he feels about people's rights in doing his duty. Mr. Ignasiak asked him if he was talking about civil rights. Councilman Vincenzi informed him people's rights in general, constitutional rights. Mr. Ignasiak informed him they should be protected at all cost. Everyone has rights and should be treated with courtesy, dignity and respect and he would demand this from the department. Councilman Vincenzi asked him how he felt about profiling. Mr. Ignasiak stated it is illegal and unconstitutional. It is done in law enforcement and he has seen it out there before. He spoke of many agencies beginning to establish policies against profiling. Councilwoman Lichter asked if his 335 officers were encouraged to attend school and take courses. Mr. Ignasiak explained the average educational level of a sergeant and above in the Hollywood Police Department is a four year degree. He also pointed out some of the best police officers he has ever worked with only had a high school education. Councilwoman Rhodes felt with experience in the field, there were people out there that weren't students but in their field were excellent. Mr. Ignasiak described he would encourage officers to continue with their education to help them in their profession as well as their personal growth. He felt the better educated and not just with college education but with police training the less likely the City is to be sued because of the actions of the officers. Mayor Schmidt commented on Mr. Ignasiak wanting to meet with community groups and get a feel for them which he really liked. He asked him how often he would try to do this. Mr. Ignasiak would try and make as many community meetings as he could throughout the course of a year. To be involved you have to be out there which keeps him touch with 4 Council Workshop December 18, 2000 what is going on. He believes in being accessible. He also identified having an open door policy. Councilwoman Lichter asked if they had a Victim Advocate Program in Hollywood. Mr. Ignasiak informed her he did and they also obtain VOCA grants to fund it. Councilman Brown asked Acting Chief Bennett what his impression was of Mr. Ignasiak. Acting Chief Bennett felt he was definitely interested in this position. He liked him, felt he was a very personable individual and represented the highest degree of character and stands for the core values of law enforcement, integrity and honor. He believed he was the finest modern day law enforcement had to offer. Mayor Schmidt asked if anyone in the audience wanted to ask any questions or had any comments. The following citizen spoke: Ferd Heeb, 115 N. Riverside Drive, asked how his family felt about making this move. Mr. Ignasiak informed him his wife loved the area and couldn't wait to get out of Hollywood. Councilwoman Lichter pointed out she was going to leave salary considerations up to the City Manager. City Manager Hooper commented on the earliest being late January due to previous commitments Mr. Ignasiak had. They were going to do some more negotiating and talking which he thought would be concluded this week. Mr. Ignasiak thanked the Mayor, Council and City Manager for the opportunity. City Manager Hooper wanted to talk about a few upcoming issues. City Manager Hooper commented on the Humane Society agreement that had been signed but was not on the agenda to vote on tonight. The only issue outstanding was the price was still at $45 for five days to hold an animal. They are charging $37 for every other city and $4 for each additional day which would be equivalent to the $45 for five days. He also wanted to pursue with the County a countywide or east side area for a humane society /animal control shelter mixed together. Mayor Schmidt asked if their Board had seen the agreement yet. Councilwoman Lichter pointed out that the County was a handshake and Deltona was a handshake. Edgewater and Ormond went over this contract, not in every detail. The Board has never seen any of this and it usually isn't the board's function. It kind of gives a summary 5 Council Workshop December 18, 2000 of the price and that it did. She also mentioned leukemia testing that would be done in the near future. She felt perhaps they would get some new policies in the shelter. Councilwoman Rhodes pointed out there were no nights in the agreement. City Manager Hooper stated there was a night but it wouldn't go into effect until April. He further identified some timelines. He was going to place this on the agenda for the first meeting in January. He could also take this to the Animal Control Board, who had seen the draft. He mentioned ordinances would need to be changed in order to make the agreement compatible. City Manager Hooper further discussed the comments made by Mr. Schlemmer about the five days the City would be paying for including the day they pick up an animal and the day they put the animal down. Mr. Schlemmer's view was there were five days. City Manager Hooper understood Council wanted a longer certified holding time of five days for an animal that was tagged. City Manager Hooper didn't agree with Mr. Schlemmer that they keep every animal for five days which was what his argument was. Councilwoman Lichter questioned if New Smyrna was going to follow suit. City Manager Hooper explained New Smyrna currently had a seven day and Frank had asked for this contract and he thought New Smyrna would generally adopt this with some minor changes. Daytona and the County had also asked for a copy of the contract. City Manager Hooper then commented on the grant writer. They have advertised about seven months ago and entered into a contract with Grant Writing. He was ready to recommend they sever that and readvertise. The other option was to hire a person, which would be $50,000 to $55,000 with an incentive of 2% to 4% of what is brought in. He wasn't quite ready to say that was where they should be and wanted to look one more time at a contract. If it didn't work, he thought they would be back talking of a person. Councilwoman Lichter asked if maybe it could be a half a position and the other half of the position being out there looking for economic development. City Manager Hooper identified if they did hire a person that was probably where they would wind up. City Manager Hooper then spoke about having a work session on a monthly basis one hour before the regular meeting to discuss issues he would like to have more time to go over. He identified reclaimed water that was coming up and he wanted to put that on as a work session item for the second meeting in January. He wanted to make sure they were on the same page before he put it on the agenda. City Manager Hooper further commented on talking of a Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) and having an outline and footprint of 6 Council Workshop December 18, 2000 where it goes and how it works which he wanted to get feedback on to make sure they were on the same page as far as how and when that would be implemented. City Manager Hooper then asked Council if they wanted to speak with him about Mr. Ignasiak. Councilwoman Lichter felt he was fine. Councilwoman Rhodes felt he seemed overly qualified. City Manager Hooper felt what they saw was what they would get. He had had some very good conversations with him. He was direct and very personable. He was eager to get started and was looking for property in Edgewater. Councilwoman Lichter asked if he applied to be the Hollywood Police Chief. City Manager Hooper informed her he applied and they decided their Police Department was moving at a pace and would not change direction and were looking to go outside. They recently hired a City manager who wasn't interested in hiring from within so they opted to go outside. That City Manager is no longer there but the Police Chief they hired is there and he spoke to him and their Council and a lot of folks in the organization. He got good reports on both of the gentlemen that were chosen for interviews. The Chief said Mr. Ignasiak was as supportive as anyone could be and had done things out of his way to make the Chief look good which he felt was a response to what they saw tonight. Mayor Schmidt asked City Manager Hooper if he had talked salary with him at all. City Manager Hooper showed him our salary range and his description to him was they would be able to work that out. ADJOURNMENT There being no further business to discuss, Councilwoman Rhodes moved to adjourn. The workshop adjourned at 6:50 p.m. Minutes submitted by: Lisa Bloomer, CMC 7 Council Workshop December 18, 2000