Committee. Jenny, can you please do roll call?
Ms. Atompa?
Ms. Melbe Kelly?
Mr. Mettler?
Mr. Lavin?
Mr. Deacon?
Mr. McLaughlin?
Mayor Massive?
If we can please stand to say the pledge allegiance.
Before I move on to the agenda for this evening approval, the city did hear comments from
our citizens last time about the sound.
Is the sound better?
Are you able to hear?
Wonderful.
Thank you.
And now I will move on to the approval of the agenda for this evening.
I'll make a motion to approve.
Before I think.
Madam Mayor, I have a couple of changes to the agenda that I'd like to ask.
One is to remove from the consent calendar item D from the consent calendar.
It's not ready for adoption.
And then I would also like to add a discussion before the ordinance of
of considering joining the safe and stable community's coalition.
Do I have a motion to approve the agenda?
I'll make a motion to approve last year,
add safe and stable discussion.
Council Member Hattap and made the motion to approve the agenda.
Removing for D and joining the coalition.
Council Member Melby Kelly, second, excuse me.
All in favor say aye.
Now we move on to the approval of the minutes of our February 9th meeting.
Do I have approval?
Two minutes.
Councilmember Mattimer made the motion to approve the minutes of the February 9th.
Councilmember Deacon Second, all in favor say aye.
Opposed?
Now we move on to our public open forum.
We do have names on here that have requested to speak.
I will call them and in order and have them come up knowing that the three minute is on the screens.
Jameen, please.
My name is Jameel Huck.
I'm here tonight to express some public comments for everybody.
I'm a professor, up at MSU.
First I'd like to address the comment I made two weeks ago concerning the protest at Target.
I feel like my words were unnecessarily harsh towards the police department, specifically
as well to Director Clifton, and I want to express my regret about that.
I want to point out that the main thrust of my comments was meant to be Director towards
Target.
I think that when we're looking at pertinent to this situation, we have ongoing right now
with human rights in the state of Minnesota, the realization is that ISIS is still active.
ISIS was here, they detain somebody yesterday, and this means that this is still ongoing.
And when we look at who is profiting off of this, there are billions of dollars being made
by corporations like Target.
There are billions of dollars being made by corporations that are used by the city and used
by individual businesses in Mancados, such as I'm sure Cisco Systems is making a ton of
off of supplying goods and food to detention centers.
And when Martin Luther King Jr. came here to
Mankado in 1961, part of his message that of the
speech that he gave at West High School on November 11th of
that year, was that the challenge of our age is that
we need to engage in creative protest.
What does it mean to engage in creative protest?
Going to target and singing songs, this is a creative
protest and target shut that down before it even started. Shame on them. They should be the target of our
ir. But it also engaging in creative protests is engaging in boycott. And boycotting businesses that are
profiting off of the suffering of our fellow citizens is a sort of a call to action that I give to you.
The city council is going to consider a resolution or an ordinance tonight and I really urge you all to pass this.
I also want to wish everybody a happy Ramadan, as many of the Muslims and Mankato, such as myself, have been fasting these days, is a very challenging for us, and it also reminds us of the suffering that's happening in Palestine, and the fact that the IDF, the Israeli Defense, I'm sorry, the IOMF, the Israeli Occupation Forces, has been training ICE, draws this connection together, right?
They have been providing ICE with both technology and material and training.
And during this month, when we can't fast, I couldn't fast today because of health problems.
We pay for somebody else to eat.
So this is a call to all of you, Muslims and non-Muslims here, to be extra charitable during this month.
If you can calculate the cost of how much it would cost to feed one person a day,
donate that please to any organization that feeds people.
Thank you all.
Thank you.
Eva please
I'm Eva I'm asking the community not to settle or breadcrumbs today. Two meetings
ago Mike Lavin told us that if we drafted a policy to establish a human rights committee
he would propose it for a vote. We sent him that policy 20 days ago. We immediately made
it based on his criticisms and when he expressed concern about duplication of efforts with
the diversity council we reminded him that their director told us months ago that there
not interested in making policy recommendations, which is the whole purpose of forming this
committee. Despite being told twice that the purposes are very distinct, at the last meeting,
Mike again claimed that there were unanswered questions about duplication. So I raise my
hand, and I said, I helped write it, I can help explain, and rather than having that conversation
which could have taken about five minutes, the council ignored me and adjourned. There was
no reason that they couldn't have taken a few minutes to discuss the resolution then, and
necessary edits so that we could have a committee ready today. After the meeting, Kevin
Metler suggested our recommendations are too lengthy. He suggested that we instead said bullet
pointed lists under around a page. And here's the problem with this. If we send a brief list
of recommendations, there are still so many questions. But when we do the research and provide that
information, suddenly we're throwing too much at the council. So we highlight key recommendations in
they can pay attention and they still don't. They make excuses and they move the goal posts.
They also claim that local government inherently just moved slowly, but we've informed the council back in April that they need to be prepared.
We're preparing for ICE activity. They dismissed our concern to the past and AIS surveillance proposal, and they wasted six months doing nothing to prepare. We warn them again in early December and violate December we were right. ICE has been in Mankado now for two months, and it's been ten months since we first started warning the council to prepare. Every step that they take today could have been taken nearly a year ago. This is not about the government moving slowly. This isn't about activists making the wrong recommendations.
or making their recommendations in the wrong way with the wrong tone.
If the Council wanted to protect the community,
they could have listened to us 10 months ago.
They could decide now to meet twice a week instead of every two weeks.
To meet late, to make their own edits to our recommended policies
and propose a version that they're comfortable passing,
rather than just making vague criticisms to push the process off further.
These Council members could even take a couple of evenings
to write a policy of their own to propose.
But they won't, they will stall, they will ignore raised hands in the audience, and then walk out when those raised hands speak out of turn.
They will direct their staff to take tiny steps, spread out across months to appease the audience, and to create the appearance of action.
They will not, however, do their jobs.
When they refuse to do their jobs, it is our job to demand justice.
It is our job not to fall for breadcums.
It is our job to remember this November, who refused to act unless pushed and treated the pushing.
Awards 1, 3 and 5, up for election in November and the mayor,
Jeremy Kuznaya.
My name is Jeremy Kuznaya, I'm pleased to be talking to the City Council tonight and
more importantly to the residents of Mankato.
If you're interested in the meeting and phoning or discussing
a few are interested in discussion
about forming community resistance against ICE. Please give us a call at 507-519-2586. Again,
that phone number is 507-519-2586. Thank you.
Mark, please.
Good evening council members.
My name is Mark Plots and I am a traffic safety planner at Region 9 Development Commission.
My purpose in addressing you tonight is to bring to your attention and ask for action on what is a worsening traffic safety trend in our our community and in Mancato and in the broader area.
Last year, so 2025, these are the most recent statistics from Mandat. There were 33 fatal and serious injury crashes in the Mancato area, the Maple area.
Active transportation users, so pedestrians and bicyclists were 12 of those, that's 36%
that may not seem like a high number to me, it is when you compare it to the actual percentage
of all trips taken, only 4% of our trips are taken by walking and bicycling, so it's extremely
high.
So, the question is what should our numbers be?
Of course, the ideal number is zero, but I think that we should be working towards what
comparable communities have achieved.
The Mankheter Regencies 1 fatal or serious injury for every 400,000 walk-in and bicyclam
trips.
The St. Cloud region sees 1 for every 2.5 million trips, that's a 6-fold difference.
For us, that would mean if we were to have the rate fewer than two serious or fatal injury crashes for active transportation users each year and what we have now as 12.
Our last good year was 2021 when we had three.
Before I come in here tonight, I checked on our year-to-day crash numbers.
I compared 2025 with 24 and 23, I'm sorry, 26, 25 and 24.
So far this year we've had two series injuries and one of them was a pedestrian.
I looked at the same period for the last two years and for all and compared to those years we are off to a bad start.
When looking at where those crashes happened, you probably won't be surprised
the names of the streets. Riverfront Drive, Madison Avenue, Victory Drive,
Monks and Stadium Road. Why? Why are those crashes happening? That's a little bit more elusive
But I want to say that the vast majority of the crashes occurred during daylight and fair conditions on dry roads, and there is
apt no evidence of impairment. If you grant to me one wish to improve road saved in the Mankato area, it would be that more people walk in bicycle.
Because places where they do walk in bicycle tend to be safer. I can't have that, thank you.
And what this does is it reprograms your traffic signals
to give the pedestrian a three to seven second head start.
We've got the people in the room tonight
who can make this happen.
Start with your 10 most dangerous intersections.
Thank you for your attention.
Thank you.
Liz, Draper, please.
Hi.
This is a verse I've ever done in anything like this
and I might not even be doing it in the right
to the right people or whatnot.
But this is in regards to reading about the Walgreens development that's happening when I write about it in the free press.
I urge the city of Mankato to carefully consider what draws people to South Front Street and downtown living when permitting and improving the final design of the new Walgreens block, Walgreens block development.
Please do not remove existing offices, retail and restaurant spaces on South Front Street.
Doing so would erase the area's historic architectural charm and undermine the downtown
character of an entire block in downtown Mankato, which would be especially impactful in
a downtown that's only if you walk to begin with.
Let's be forward thinking in mindful, although preservation may be more expensive up front,
it would pay off in the long term by increasing the desirability, sustainability and quality
downtown Mankado living. At the very least, please consider incorporating the existing buildings
on self-front street as a facade in the final design. We already have a number of empty store
fronts in newer developments in our city center. I do a lot of traveling for my job. I travel
probably about 150 days a year, and I spend a lot of time.
I'm in city centers all over the United States and all over the world, and I've kind of noticed
that communities that keep their center of their town, the city center, historic and vital,
there tends to be a ton more foot traffic and a lot less open store fronts and the open store
fronts tend to be in open developments and that might be a whole another issue as far as what
you know, leases look like and things like that, but it is an observation that I've made very
first hand, and I know that a lot of other people have to, or if you think about travels,
you've done places and where you tend to walk and explore.
So, I was, let's really look at what is conducive to encouraging new, unique smile, local
businesses, and foot traffic.
Manqueto is lucky to have old quaint brick buildings, even if there are some structural issues,
or if a building hasn't been put through the whole process, officially, of becoming a
on historical registrar, it doesn't mean that it isn't worth the trouble and consideration
to keep around. Once this block of front street is gone, it's really going to be gone,
and I think that would be a shame to allow happen. Thank you. Thank you.
Cindy Winters.
Mary and Council members, I'm Cindy, and I live on Swiss Street,
and I'm a member of the Greater Mankado Walkbike Advocates. And I'm here to ask the city once again
to implement leading pedestrian intervals at the traffic signals where such programming is possible.
In October of 2023, myself and I, myself and another member of Gunblah came before the council
to make the same request. In the two and a half years since we have all since then, all we have heard
is that we need to study it, or more recently, that the staff is discussing it, and that was back
September. The last October, Gumboa and Smiles conducted an advocacy awareness walk to try and bring
attention to some of the challenges that people who walk by can roll experience as they navigate
through our community. One example we found on our walk is the pedestrian crossing light it's
south to River French ride and Warren Street is extremely short for such a wide intersection.
It badly needs an LPI to improve it.
As a society, we've designed our streets to make driving more convenient over the past 50 years.
That's slowly changing, but it seems to be slower, even slower here in Mancato.
Implementing an LPI is done by programming them, not replacing costly equipment.
We've got Mankado manages the traffic signals in Mankado, North and North Mankado, and the signals
that could be programmed with LPI are significant.
And LPI's are not new, they've been implemented in various states since the mid-2000s, and
I'm not asking you to implement something that hasn't already been studied or tested.
The Federal Highway Administration recognizes LPI's as a proven safety countermeasure, a leading
pedestrian interval gives pedestrians the opportunity to enter the crosswalk and in intersection
three to seven seconds before vehicles are given a green indication.
But pedestrians can better establish their presence in the crosswalk before vehicles
have priority to turn right or left. LPI has been proven to have the following benefits.
They help increase visibility of crossing pedestrians.
They reduce conflicts between pedestrians and vehicles.
They have increased likelihood of pedestrians yielding or cars yielding to pedestrians.
And it enhances safety for pedestrians who may be slower to start into the intersection.
Vinda, andlements of PIs on their highway crossings, and there is an LPI in North
Mankato at Lookout Drive and Marine Lane.
The city of North Mankato manages all these flights, so it can be done and it has been
done.
It's about time LPI's were implemented in Mankato to provide safety for people who walk
bike or roll.
Thank you.
Laura Bira,
we're going back to the ice stuff.
Yes, I can hear.
Okay.
Thank you, City Council members, for working to try and put parameters on federal government
overreach.
Tom Holman announced for removal of agents, but he didn't say how many and he definitely
wasn't talking about out state Minnesota.
In fact, Agents numbers have increased substantially in rural areas, which brings me to the
emergency ordinance. I think it should be considered to be permanent. At this time, the tactics
are changing to be undercover, like dressing as a civilian, pretending to be utility workers,
construction vests on dashboards, business placards on DHS vehicles. If we back down on the
and it's being permanent that leaves the room for it to happen again and it's already happened once.
I also get it about the problems with enforcement, but it's still a statement that the city of
Mancato won't capitulate to government bullying. It also sets an example for other cities.
Now I'm going to put on my grandma mode. But first, to the council, isn't it wonderful to have such
passionate, loud, young people that are brave enough to speak out about their beliefs,
and what a great part of a team to have. Not everyone can do the quiet work.
Second, my fellow passionate activists, we are doing what we are doing because we have strong
emotions about life in general, and especially for what we believe is right. Sometimes, unfortunately,
we aren't necessarily believed right away. And kudos to everyone predicting the problems that
we're coming and the mess that we are in. But now we are here at this moment to push what
needs to be pushed. If you're anything like me, things always feel like an emergency. And sometimes
they definitely are. But sometimes democracy doesn't work immediately. And this is where everybody
listening does the eye rule.
It takes input from the public with fascism, dictatorships,
rogue governments, and theocracies, things happen really
fast and furious, because you have a few people
making decisions for everyone.
And those few people are making decisions based on their wants.
We are witnessing the attempt to put democracy aside
by this current administration.
The impatience we exhibit is the very thing
that we're standing up against.
Remember the alternative to slow democracy is just a few people making decisions for everyone.
I want to close with I feel so lucky to be part of this mixture of quiet business like loud passionate.
And a determined need or determined team, and we need you all. Thank you.
Thank you.
We have listened to everyone that has been on the list, so thank you for doing that. We are now going to close the public forum.
We're going to move on to our consent calendar, as everyone had a moment to look at it. Are there any questions or comments?
If not, do I have a proven of the consent calendar removing for D?
Motion to approve the consent calendar with the removal of item D.
I'll also member Leyvin made the motion to approve the consent calendar.
Council member Melby Kelly.
Jenny, if you please.
Ms. Atapa?
Yes.
Ms. Melby Kelly?
Yes.
Mr. Leyvin?
Yes.
Mr. Deacon. Yes. Mr. McLaughlin. Yes. Mayor Masad. Yes, that has passed. Now, we move on to six, which is our council business. Six A is consideration of the emergency ordinance.
There were fine requirements for law enforcement agencies and officers within the city. To imagine, aren't you? Do you want to start with this or I had requested that we start with the discussion of the cities for safe and single communities.
So over the weekend, I had three of my colleagues from the Metro reach out to ask about whether
Mankato would consider becoming part of this coalition.
I said, tell me more.
And so there is a coalition of cities primarily right now Metro cities who have created
this cities for safe and stable communities.
It's a nonpartisan coalition of Minnesota cities working together to restore stability
trust and effective local governance. It's a working coalition of Minnesota cities, coordinating
and response to shared public safety, operational and governance impacts related to what
they're referring to as Operation Metro surge. And I keep every time I hear the word, I keep
reminding them to let them know that it's not just happening in the Metro that it's happening
The city has the ability to participate in either a full membership status, which comes with a $5,000 fee, or as an ally.
In discussing with some of the colleagues, I do think the city should consider being an ally member.
The reason I would consider that over the full membership is that many of the cities that are participating already share, not only borders and boundaries, but are sharing their law enforcement activity.
So I think we could always modify our membership in that coalition as time goes on, but my recommendation would be for the council to consider an ally membership.
It still gives us the ability to receive communications, share our information and be part of their discussion.
It doesn't give us the ability to be part of the governance of that commission or coalition.
And my impression is that it's still forming.
So it's a group that's still kind of creating its shape.
And there are 22 cities that I counted over the weekend
that have raised their hand to join that coalition.
Again, most of them are Metro cities from what I could see.
We would be the first non-Metro city to participate in that.
It allows some communication from between the staff of what's happening in other communities
so that we can have access to that information and certainly the work that we're doing here has been of interest to a number of our colleagues as well.
For example, there are not that many communities that publicly have indicated they're interested in participating in in Amika's brief.
As the council knows, we made that decision at the end of January, and, or February, we made that decision previously, but we kind of melt together here a little bit.
We have been working with our attorney at Kennedy and Graven on that review.
Earlier this afternoon, we had a meeting with Attorney General Ellison, and we're able to talk to him about when that time is right and with the status of that.
activity is, so we continue to work on that amicus brief on our behalf. The council has awarded
three grants to different organizations that provide food support in our community. And we have
been working on that. The one that we have not yet executed is the Minnesota Southern Food Recovery
because we're still waiting for their W9. But as soon as we have that, we'll get that executed.
So we've we've taken action on that in in the recent weeks here.
This would be another.
You know, joining this coalition would be another.
Step that would provide your staff some access to resources.
Certainly we can call.
Our departments around the city and state to ask.
What are you doing about this? What are you doing about that?
this has the potential to create a coalition kind of focused around those activities.
It thank you. Any questions for submit? Councilmember McLaughlin please.
Just a rehash and for those who might not have been in attendance, can you elaborate on
what an amicus brief is? Oh sure. So Amicus brief is a friend of the court brief and it would be a
brief that we, that the council authorized that we submit in response and in support of the state
v-nome lawsuit that is out which involves the state of Minnesota, the city of Minneapolis and St.
Paul regarding the federal immigration activity. Thank you so late terms it's essentially like a legal
letter of support for that filing. And aligning the impacts the city of Mancato has experienced.
And then for this coalition is the kind of main goal, this group, the rule of resources,
and then I saw the part of looking at advocating for damages from incurred by cities
and local businesses from Operation, this operation.
So one of the activities the group has talked about is their words are seeking acknowledgement
of economic harms including 2026 relief for cities residents and business owners. One of the things
that earlier this month when they had their press conference, that was a big part of the
discussion was advocating for relief for community community members, business members,
that as a result of the federal immigration enforcement in the community. Some of it's easier to
other's of course and and so as time goes on if the city were to join that
coalition we'd try to collect that data for our own community and share our own
experiences.
Any other questions? About the coalition for the city council.
Just a comment. We have a hard enough time getting federal funding and state funding further. Unfunded
mandates, let alone a unfunded mandate, unwanted mandate. So I mean, if it's a group to
depool resources and if it's a group to look at getting some damages that have been incurred by
the community from this operation. I guess I'm not opposed to it. I'm open to it.
Council member Melbe Kelly, did we need to make a motion?
Okay.
I would like to make a motion for that.
Council member Melbe Kelly made the motion to add on to the consideration or going on to the
Galician with an ally as an ally.
Council member Mattler's second, all in favor say aye.
Opposed?
That has been so few please move on that.
Thank you.
So then the next item for discussion this evening is the emergency ordinance.
The council clarified that our last meeting that you preferred this to be considered
as an emergency ordinance.
One of the things that I want to clarify is that I did discover that there is some provision
that would allow the council if you wish to move this forward.
You do have the ability to move this forward tonight without a future public hearing, with
or without amendments.
So, the council could amend the language that's been put in front of you, you could accept it as written.
You can modify it.
As the code provides, this ordinance would expire on the 61st day following adoption.
So, if you adopt it today, it would expire on at midnight on Friday, April 24th.
And we have a council meeting that following Monday.
So if the council desired to extend the emergency ordinance,
we'd have to consider it at the April 13th meeting.
Or it would expire on its own at 12.01 on April 25th.
If the council desires to have this become a permanent part of our code,
We have identified some issues that we need a little bit of, I know, this is frustrating,
but we need some time to try and figure out how to address them so that they could work forever forward.
For example, there's language in this temporary code that identifies that anyone conducting law enforcement activity,
which is broad in Mancato has to do these three things and it does exclude undercover. So
undercover officers are excluded and allowed to continue to function. But for example,
once the BCA building is built here in Mancato, there'll be a lot of people coming from
agencies all over the state that may or may not have access to equipment that some of the
equipment that this covers. So we may need to modify some of the language if this were to be considered
a permanent part of our code. And I think that it would be a good idea for the console to
consider this. And then, you know, as we kind of navigate here these next 60 days, if it's adopted,
we can bring back reports and give you feedback. What I wanted to do this evening was walk you through
logistics part, which we did, right? So April 24th midnight that would be the end of that 60th day.
I'm going to let City Attorney Pam Wittmore walk you through the memo and the ordinance,
because she's the one that helped us draft that code, and then we can answer any questions you have.
Thank you, City Manager. Madame Mayor Council. Good evening. So I want to just reiterate that
that having this as an emergency ordinance allows you to adopt this right away, so there
isn't that time to wait, that would normally happen with an introduction of an ordinance
in the second meeting and then under our charter or regular ordinance doesn't go affect
until 30 days. So between those two meetings and they extra 30 days it's quite a bit of time
for a regular ordinance to go into effect.
So under our charter, under 2.15,
you have the option to do an emergency ordinance.
It has to have a vote of five, council persons,
and then it goes into effect upon adoption,
unless you choose a later date.
So just so you know that that's in the charter,
under 2.15.
And so what this does is it pulls on our
of authority under our police powers to be able to protect the public and those emergency
ordinance specifically says to me it's public emergency affecting life health property
or the public peace. So that's pulling on our police powers to be able to adopt these
regulations. We have to be careful though we can't regulate things that are strictly matters
reserved that's language that's used in various statutes matters reserved for the federal
government. So that is why there is that limitation through preemption. I'm not being
able to have an active role in any of this enforcement or regulation of the enforcement.
The other thing, there's been lawsuits on this one. Most recently out of the state of California
that it was a state law in California that code was or that law and that case was very
informative and that under the federal law every law enforcement agency needs to be treated
equally by our regulations and so you'll notice that this ordinance applies to all law enforcement
it does not target one particular type of law enforcement so that was very intentional in the
after that. So what it focuses on is the easiest one is the no masking. There is a state
statute. It is properly cited in the ordinance itself. The section number is dropped in the memo,
but it's 609.755. I believe is anti masking from our state law. So it pulls on that. It pulls
on the desire to identify law enforcement officers to identify themselves as law enforcement
and provides in circumstances to make that request upon request unless there is as City Manager
and under cover operation, it also talks about body cams, so if the law enforcement agency
has body cams available and the using them in their own journey.
Resistion, then to have those in use and pursuant to the policies that dictate their body
camps. And finally,
it covers, what am I missing, covers one other area?
Am I not missing anything?
It was the first part of it, the section 2.02 where law enforcement is coming into our jurisdiction.
they give some notification if possible. So that was the one that I was thinking of that I'm missing.
And so there's no clear precedent out there as far as whether
these are being appalled or not appalled by the court. Other cities have done them. I would say
we are one of the first who has this type of draft site. As I mentioned before, our office represents
of quite a number of the cities in Minnesota and I think you're one of three or four
in our offices who have had, are at this spot with adopting an ordinance,
the federal government
has sued. They, they, you know, most recently, obviously this case that we have been authorized
to file an amicus in against the cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis in the state of Minnesota,
But there have been other lawsuits and other jurisdictions to date.
There hasn't been really any success by the federal government in those lawsuits.
One of the questions that I've gotten a lot is an elected official.
Is there a risk of any kind of penalties for voting and adopting on these ordinances?
And there was a reference to the subpoenas for mayor fry and for governor walls just to be clear
those subpoenas were under a criminal law for getting gathering evidence in front of the
grand jury, so it wasn't individually against them upon further research into that.
That gives a broad overview of the ordinance itself and the process.
So my move in for questions if any of you have questions based on the memo.
Council Member Hattam, please.
Thank you. Can you clarify, when you click on the ordinance and you go down to the second page under definitions, A1 where it says facial coverings, it says means any opaque mask garment helmet head gear or other item that
of the social identity of the individual, and it continues on, but my real question is more
related to the helmet or head gear if it was a SWAT incident or something like that. I just
didn't know practically how does that work. When we were talking face masks, I think most of
us were kind of talking about, you know, the ski mask looking things. And so I just wondered if you
head gear.
So if there's like a motorcycle or anything like that, unless it's necessary
for them to be able to perform their duties, as it's mentioned in there, those are accepted
out. So if you're a SWAT member and you have to have that, that helmet on or that head gear
then that's an exception out.
Okay, and then, so practically, if we pass this
and an agency comes into town and is performing
their duties and is wearing a face mask,
what will happen?
What will our officers, they'll,
I mean, they'll ask them obviously to move it.
What if they don't?
Yeah, so that's a really good question.
And you'll notice the same poll adopted recently,
similar ordinance, and they actually put a penalty
provision in there's our code and our charter already address penalty which is a
misdemeanor and misdemeanor is a citation.
So you know practically this is
going to be a difficult one to enforce for our officers. When I know we've
talked in the past about that we don't have jurisdiction over federal officers
and so it's kind of a question of again if they say I'm not going to give you my, you know,
I'm not going to tell you who I am, how are we? It's right. So I mean, so it would be a citation,
just because there a federal officer doesn't mean that they can't violate one of our city codes
if it's not in conflict with them, their federal duties as far as regulated. We're not telling them
they can't execute that warrant,
retelling them that they can't have a face covering on, right?
So, but if they, so it's just a citation.
Okay.
If they, if somebody approaches them and says,
you're law enforcement, identify yourself
and they refuse to do that,
that's really hard to enforce.
Is there an officer there, I mean, or not?
And so if the public were to witness that, or I was standing there in witness that, you would recommend calling a police officer to come to assess the chair to assist.
But the outcome of that is very likely should be in a rest because under state law, there's an officer present for a misdemeanor and even then it's very rare where there'd actually be an arrest on a misdemeanor.
Okay, and then my last question was we have in here, you know, that to try to give notice that we've asked other agencies to give us notice.
If and I think, you know, for a long time they weren't and then Dr. Clinton had mentioned a couple weeks ago that they did get notice, I don't know if that's occurring every time.
But since that's not really just a person, if they don't give us notice, is there really any recourse to that?
Again, no, I mean, if you could argue that if you'd have to prove that they had reasonable time to do it or to do it afterwards, but then again, it would be a misdemeanor.
So that portion is probably just hoping that we can say, hey, we're asking you to do this in our ordinance.
Okay, that's kind of one of clarification. Thank you.
Council member, I'll be Kelly please and thank you so we do have the legal authority to establish
an ordinance to protect the welfare and safety of everyone and the federal government has
actually sued some cities so you talked about that. The enforceability is challenging and
there is a mention in the memo that that can be really frustrating especially for people that might
be there but I think it's really good that we are vocal about that so they understand it's hard
enforce this something that we have. So I'm clear on that, right, correct? Okay, there is a potential
that this could impact us as a city for federal funding. We talked a little bit about that.
Although this to date, to this date, the federal government has not had a lot of success with that
correct, okay, like pulling funding.
Or anything. They have pulled funding, but then got reversed or enjoying from a court to stop pulling the funding, but that doesn't mean that they won't try.
Okay, it doesn't mean that they won't try. So we could be facing something.
And the feds have been doing I9 audits to the cities that have been passing ordinance kind of ordinance is kind of like this, correct?
But the city is already, the city of Mancato is already preparing for an I9 audit that could happen because of this, is that right?
Yes. Okay. My understanding from the City Manager that we have gone through all of our
I-9 forms in nature that we're all right. Very good. Okay. Good. I'm so glad that you did that.
Those are all my questions. This is one to make sure that I was clear. Thank you so much.
Councilmember McLaughlin, please. I just wanted to point out Councilwoman Tampos question.
I mean, and definitions of facial covering. It covers that clear face shield for like
crowd control has the gas mask for, you know, CS gas, things along those nature, so we're not
obstructing their ability to protect the officers to protect themselves is just the
identity disclosing mask essentially is what it is.
Yeah, thank you for pointing that out. I think I misunderstood your question initially,
because I think I answered that it differently.
And then, you know, again, council member Melde's point two in the risk of
the feds, you know, retaliation, and poll and funding, I would say, you know, that, as a barrier to us going what sounds, everything I'm getting from council as well within our legal rights.
I think is an unfortunate risk, but I think if we use that as our metric, it's essentially succumbed to tyranny at that point.
because we're doing what is within our legal means here at this point and if somebody's going
to try to hold retribution over that, I take issue with it. Just couple the questions
to under cover was mentioned, but I just want to make sure things such as River Valley Task Force,
formerly known as Drug Task Force. I know we have officers because in my day job capacity,
we do some cross-training, you know, part of the, the sex trafficking, an
introduction that we're doing in the area, as far as the body worn cameras and as far
as any sort of covering our altering of the fate. Like, is that all excluded as are
included as under cover as far as exclusions for this?
Yeah, so the undercover portion of it is exempted out that there is into requirement to
provide their identifying information. You know, this is something that should be noted
council in public because this could be a frustrating as a council member Melby Kelly said.
That's the discretion of the officer working at to say, you know, to refuse to
provide that identifying information and likely later to argue, you know, I was undercover.
So, so that is something that should be considered, but, you know, state law and data practices
and privacy law is very limiting, as far as requiring the disclosure of identifying information
of folks under cover.
And then as far as the body-worn camera of peace, as far as, again,
the enforcement of some other agencies coming in, it was brought about BCA in the future. Currently,
our Justice Center on ours, Blueworth County's Justice Center, up on Martin Luther King Drive,
up back in there, has a lot of other agencies coming in and out, transporting, picking up,
and moving around, I know a state patrols right over there too, and Highway 22, 14 state
patrol ends up patrolling that a lot. So as far as those other agencies that are coming in out
of May and Cato for that purpose, but I also for the purpose of County Sheriff patrols,
victory because that's a county road, state patrol, patrolling, I know back to the Jake
breaking signs that we had to do. There was a whole, you know, I would say hurdle with
the state, you know, in the communication back and forth on that. So at this, this ordinance
goes forward, I guess, what are the kind of those next steps on interfacing with those other
jurisdictions that police within our community that are also state and county.
So if the council moves this forward,
couple things would happen tomorrow,
we will send this ordinance to the free press for publication.
It's required by our charter and the law to publish it.
It could go into effect today, but it would, we also are required to do
publications. So we do that. The agencies that we also routinely work with, we would do our best to notify them that this ordinance has been adopted and put them on notice and ask them to communicate with the staff that work in their
restriction that may work in our jurisdiction, that this ordinance exists and, you know, there will be entities that we don't send it to that may come in a town.
And what I would anticipate would likely first happen is if we encountered that, our first would be to educate them, you know, we have this.
We can certainly work with our department to provide them copies of the code so that they can, you know,
here's a copy of the code, right? You know, so here it is.
We can provide them copies of that to assist in that in that measure.
And, you know, we're hoping for a lot of local compliance.
I think as you go higher up, that's where things get a little more challenging.
Sure, and that was my my question for a lot of those small police forces and other counties is it a educate and you know, Warren, you know, kind of a thing.
I think close proximity we have Mapleton has a very small police force and then they come to the county justice center for training in collaborative and transport to a lot.
So just want to make sure that that's going to be the practice.
Obviously, we're not trying to make our public safety be, you know,
combat of with partners on that side of it.
It was kind of alluded to earlier if, you know, we, if the occasion does happen or
somebody doesn't have to be federal, but is, you know, not compliance, not wearing our wearing
a mask.
And I imagine law enforcement will identify themselves a law enforcement,
but refuses to take that mask down and is it just a citation on the site and here you go if
they refuse to take it, is then our supervision having to reach out to, you know, their supervisors
what's that process because it's probably not going to be as clear and direct as, you know,
bystanders would want and I'm just wondering kind of behind that curtain.
I think that director Clifton should answer that.
That's what I was going to reference.
Well, he's coming up to the microphone.
One of the other things that we were able to include.
In this code, is language that, for example, agencies that don't have body cameras. You know, this doesn't preclude, for example, one of the examples I've given you is, you know, kind of in a mutual aid, you know, let's hope it doesn't flood this year.
Now that I've said that a lot of, we have created bad vibes for us, I don't know.
But if we needed an agency that's not from here and their agency doesn't have them, this ordinance wouldn't require them to use it.
The other thing that earlier today we identified, if we were to consider this ordinance permanently, there are some things that we'd want to put some energy into defining and some of this is what law enforcement activity is.
For example, if we had a police department from somewhere in Southwest, Minnesota, I know the city administrator in Marshall, so I'll pick on Marshall for a minute.
I don't know the police staff there, but I know the city administrator, but let's say their staff had to come to a business in Mancato to collect evidence.
That's law enforcement activity.
I don't know that that's really the effort that we're trying to go about if they're doing other, you know that they're not doing other things.
So if we're going to consider this kind of an ordinance permanently, we need to be a lot more
prescriptive of the activities we're thinking about and as we sat this afternoon talking
through some of that, we came up with four things and then as the discussion went on, well,
what about, what about, so if we're going to consider this permanently, we need to put some
work session style about a draft if we're going to consider that more formally. Sorry,
with that, I'll introduce Dr. Clifton. Good evening Mayor, members of the council.
I echo some of the challenges that many of you have brought forward and things that the city
manager and nurse attorney have also spoken about. In adoption of the proposed ordinance tonight,
However, I will say this, I think the meaning, the idea, the intention behind this ordinance
is sound.
And more specifically in what I may add to what the City Manager just addressed to you,
the reality is that when law enforcement officers are taking enforcement action, searching,
seizing and using police powers within the City of Mancato, we want to know who those people
are, and they should probably identify themselves.
Other taking action.
With that being said, the challenge is still exist.
Well, specifically, in first and foremost,
just notification.
So if you enact an ordinance tonight,
a system notification piece,
I too have thought about the Jake breaking as an example.
And just how are we going to let the general public know,
but more importantly, our law enforcement, non-routine
partners provide notice of this ordinance and how it exists and in the future should we change or
amend some language. How do we get more specific? Perhaps after we put it into practice in
relationship to what is a law enforcement activity and what are we really looking to carve out there
so we can be more specific. I do understand that many other cities and not many. A few other cities
in the state of Minnesota have adopted similar ordinances.
If you choose to adopt one or nine, I think, well, I know that we'll be looking at those cities
as well to look what their practices are, what they're doing, how it's working for them,
how it's not working, what are the challenges.
So we can bring some of the information back so we can continue to hone this and make it work
for us here in Mancale.
Most specifically, Councilman McLaughlin to the peace of enforcement activities should there be
violation of the ordinance as it reads tonight. That will be the most contentious piece.
A refusal to identify yourself for what looks like a misdemeanor
arrest could be contentious. Like we will be contentious and we'll cross-severage when it comes to us.
If adopted we'll have to do some training in that and that's part of the issue with adopting
an emergency ordinance and why normal practice would be to wait so that we can look at the language
adopt the language and wait. I do see the need for an emergency though, in this case. And that we can work with our staff immediately so that we can come up with scenarios and identify who should be responding, including a police supervisor so that they're there and we're working through these issues.
as clearly as we can with the language and hand. Of course, we want compliance as we do with all of our
laws and all of our own enthusiasm will work towards compliance. But if an arrest needs to be made as
described, it would be a misdemeanor citation and we'll do our very best to identify the persons that
may be responsible for violating the ordinance as a stance. And then again, this is all on force
and that was why California had the one state piece because of the part that was just exclusively
directed at federal. So this is for all. Yeah. So the California case was a little interesting
because it was a state California state law and it didn't apply to its own state law enforcement,
but it applied to local jurisdictions and the federal government. Sure. So since they exempted
themselves out, that was the issue and was found to be holding yourselves accountable. So that was
Intergovernmental Unity was violated last question. I'll be quiet on that. So
there is going to be that scenario. There potentially could be that scenario where there is a covered
activity where there is a federal, you know, whatever, 18 US code, whatever, a site for that
exemption. Again, you know, a lot of these interactions have been, you know, highly viewed.
You know, we have a lot of constitutional observers out there too. And so in that action,
And where it is a covered activity and that exclusion is there to where under state or federal
exclusion that they have, do we have, do we discuss how we're going to articulate that
to the public on, hey, this wasn't us just not enforcing potential ordinance, but, you
know, how do we, what's the response and educate and when it's an exclusion, I guess.
There won't be, I mean, that's the trick here, is that just like in any other citation,
we don't publicly articulate when a violation has been found on a property and then we
find that there's a different finding or in this, in the case you're suggesting,
they identify
themselves may be to us as undercover, and that's why they didn't comply, there isn't a reporting
mechanism for that activity. Not even just the undercover, but it's not familiar with all
the federal codes where there might potentially be an exemption where it's a covered activity.
Yeah, so under our ordinance with respect to identification, the exemption is undercover.
So, there's nothing in federal law that would give them the right to not have to identify
themselves to our local...
For a cement team other than undercover type activity.
Sure, and just the example that's popping up on my head is the license plates, right?
Like we have our own ordinances and the state has its own thing, but they have their own federal exemption on that.
And when that kind of came to light in our meeting,
at least for me, that kind of took me by surprise on that piece, makes sense.
But I just didn't understand that, so undercover is the only exception or this, what a surprise.
for inclusion?
Fair enough.
Any other questions?
Does the member leave a debate?
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
If we pass this ordinance and it goes in effect tomorrow, I really don't want us to take opportunity to provide education.
We have an ordinance in place if we do adopt this tomorrow that I want director Clifton and his staff to be able to issue a citation immediately.
I do not want to wait for an opportunity for someone to say,
Oh, well, that was my buddy in the agency you talked to yesterday.
I don't have to apply to that because I wasn't aware because that doesn't fit.
If, if someone violates this misdemeanor and creates this, the violation to the ordinance and a misdemeanor,
would be no different than any other misdemeanor.
If there is a reason to contest that, they can take that to court.
So I don't want us to educate, we can communicate to our partner of agencies that you mentioned.
I'm 100% buying that, but what we're talking about is a group of federal agents that come
to our community and abduct people and we want to stop that.
So what we want is Director Clifton and a staff tomorrow to be able to say if someone is
doing that and they're wearing a mask or they're not identifying the self or they're not
wearing a body cam, they can be set for this issue and that's what we want.
So please, I appreciate everybody's comments about what it is.
I fully believe that there are the hypothetical problems that could occur, but that's not what's
going to happen.
And I think we just need to just be honest about that and just say, Dr. Clifton, you and
your colleagues, tomorrow, if somebody's not following those three things, say it.
I need to hear a majority of the council say that. That's your directive because that's not
how we handle code enforcement of any of our codes
with park violations, that's a misdemeanor, right?
We first educate if it gets combative,
it changes to a citations, sure.
So I mean, this would be a departure
from how we enforce our code.
And I'm concerned about the non-uniform enforcement
of the code.
So if we're going to enforce this code and by hearing you say and force them all that way,
I don't think that that's, I don't think that's what the community wants to see.
I understand that the community wants to see us punish the federal government for their activity
in the community. I understand that, right? If you adopt this today, there is, there will be the only
people that will know that it was adopted are the people in this room today tonight.
I understand that.
And so you're asking for us to do something tomorrow that there is no way for people to know
that it happened.
Okay, I apologize.
I do want, I do want us to communicate to the community and our partners in law enforcement,
what we enact tonight potentially.
I want that to happen, which is what we always do to your point.
What I don't want us to do is tomorrow, if this is in effect, a member of a federal agency
is violating one of these three criteria and we educate them they no longer can do that
and they are allowed to do their job while they're violating that.
That's what I'm asking.
And I ask a question, I just, to make sure I'm understanding what you say.
So, if this was in place and a federal law, maybe this question is for Jeremy, a federal law enforcement is conducting activity and they have a mask on and you're called there.
So, do you want the Jeremy to be able to say it's our policy that we don't allow face coverings and give them the opportunity to remove their face covering or not give them that opportunity and just cite them.
I think they could not give them that opportunity.
There's the education right there.
Ordnance says you don't have a mask on.
If they don't take the mask off, then sight.
That's what we already do.
That's why I think I'm confused as to what you're saying.
This is really a question.
If you came up, I'm a misdemeanor.
Jay Walking, whatever it might be.
If you walked up to me and said,
You know you can't do that or you can't litter.
You can't throw your cigarette on the ground.
Would you give me the opportunity to pick it up as of right now or would you just say to me?
How how do you guys handle it practically or pick another example you tell me?
Yeah, a lot of speculation here, of course.
But the reality is yes, that, you know, we get we look for compliance.
It's part of our policy. We look for compliance.
And if we get immediate compliance, then and heat and heat warnings and identify the law, then we work with compliance.
If I leave the park, if it's time to leave the park, if it's time to leave the park.
Correct, if it's an egregious issue, at any one of us would say that this deserve it of immediate intervention, then we both do that as well.
Or if I refuse to leave the park.
Or if it's a refusal to comply with the ordinance.
Things that are already on the books, if I refuse to leave the park, you would already say, you know,
Park closes at 10, please leave if I say, forget you, I'm not leaving, then in that case you would most likely probably cite me.
That's correct.
OK, so that's all I'm asking is just to understand
you want to deviate from that or you want to, in this case,
if they encounter whomever it might be,
and they don't wear in body cameras.
Say, it is our ordinance.
Here you go, that we wear body cameras.
And if they say, too bad, I'm not doing it.
I think we all then would say, that's all.
But give them the opportunity to go get it.
Sure.
OK.
So then it would be, essentially the way that we do with most misdemeanors is, this is how it works, you can comply or not, and then we will cite you.
I think that what is now that Council Member Tappa is correct.
Thank you for re-impring me.
Okay.
So, Member Leyvin, did you?
That's fine.
Are there any other questions?
I would, I would, if we're going to ask,
I think it would be good to do this as a emergency order.
Not only for the quickness, but would give the opportunity then if there is desire for pieces of this or all of this to move forward.
Instead of just waiting 45 days and then saying, okay, let's talk about it, we could kind of continue that discussion or report back from director Clifton on.
Maybe everybody just complies and it's a non-issue or maybe it's just a disaster and we need to go down a different route.
I guess I would like some feedback first, especially since there's not a lot of other cities.
And I think that should also be that Dr. Clifton, if you can, maybe in two weeks, I don't know the date of time, but come back and tell us what you have seen and stuff, that way you're letting us know exactly how the ordinance is working in the main case.
No.
Yes, ma'am.
Well, and too, if we were to move it permanent, we can't make it effective immediately.
No, it has to be an emergency for it to be effective tonight or tomorrow morning, whichever
it is.
So, I just wanted to be able to understand that that is why we're working towards this.
So there's not any other questions for staff or any other questions among each other.
do I have a motion to approve the consideration of the emergency ordinance clarifying requirements for
law enforcement agencies and offices within the city of Mancato.
On the motion adopted in the proposed emergency ordinance council member McLaughlin made the
motion to consider the emergency ordinance council member metler's second Jenny and if you please
Mr. Tampa. Yes. Ms. Melbe Kelly. Yes. Mr. Metler. Yes. Mr. Leaven. Yes. Mr. Deacon. Yes. Mr. McLaughlin. Yes. Mayor Masad. Yes. That has passed.
And I appreciate everybody being here tonight. And we do appreciate all the comments that everybody has made. And we are going to work as hard as we can. Not just on this subject, but on the.
there
is anything else our next meeting will be marked second in the Minnesota River Room for our work session and then March 9th and March 23rd we will have our City Council meetings with EDA to follow and work session.
So, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, topic that we deal with normally in the LPI's that was discussed earlier.
I remember this being brought up in 2023.
One of those big intersections that I was hoping that it was going to be looked into was for long and Madison Avenue.
I've had near misses and resident struck their, a fatality of that resident that was, I think the only vehicular homicide.
since I've been on the council was in my ward crossing that side.
So where are we at with the LPI stuff?
As the council will recall, we had a fairly significant upset with our engineering department
at the end of 25.
We have had, I've been involved in at least two different discussions about LPI's.
We have our new engineers that we have in December, we were able to get them in place.
we have a new right-of-way team in place and so it is a conversation that we're having about
which systems do we have because one of the things that we have talked about before is that some
of our signals do not have the ability to turn that feature on but we do have so many that do have that
so another project that we've added for this year is to do an inventory of those signals and a condition
inventory of them. This harkens back two years ago, I don't know what year, baby, 17, 18,
or maybe even longer than that longer than that. I'm being nodded to and told, but we did a similar
kind of study of our street lights and what the conditions of those were. And so there are a couple
of traffic signals that are in our capital improvement plan that probably aren't the most urgent
to be needed for improvement as far as structure.
And so that's something our team's going to be working on.
But outside of that, the LPI or the indicator light
that allows the pedestrian to be able to cross slightly
before the light turns for the vehicle is a programming element.
So it doesn't require equipment.
It doesn't as long as it has that on the feature.
And so we have talked about a couple of key intersections
for that. There was the new intersection at Riverfront was talked about and then in our engineering
department kind of we've been working on rebuilding that. And so in December we've got that
in place. We have the right team now to review that and give that stronger consideration. And
as familiarity with it. So we're fortunate in that regard too. And there is one of our citizens
mentioned Warren Street and I do agree on that one one hundred percent, I think, because of our
Durham Hall, that's right there. So, you know, my only other question would be when we, when that comes
back with whatever the findings are, whichever ones are available, also about the young men that came
here, about the crossing on monks and monks. Yep, that's also on the other kind of an update of.
Yeah, that's also on our list.
Thank you, yeah.
All right.
Just general timeline or something
that could be potentially implemented
the spring when pedestrians
season opens up again.
Tonight, I don't know the answer.
That's a, once you have a better handle on that,
I can let you know.
OK, thank you.
Thank you.
Nothing else to have a motion to adjourn.
Don't move.
Own favorites say aye.