04-12-2021 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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MINUTES OF THE ORONO CITY COUNCIL MEETING Monday, March 29, 2020 6:00 o’clock p.m. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Page 2 of 4 PUBLIC COMMENTS There were no public comments. CITY ATTORNEY REPORT Mayor Walsh noted earlier in the week a brush fire was started and all the fire stations were called out. He said someone went into their house, did not pay attention to the fire and it spread quite a ways; apparently this was admitted. He asked under circumstances like that, does the City have the ability to charge the cost of services to go out versus the residents having to pay for it in a case like this when someone did not pay attention to their fire. Attorney Mattick replied in some communities the statute allows them to adopt an ordinance. He said in the past when communities would respond to a fire or a medical, they would charge a flat rate ($300 or $500, for example) and the statute was clear they could set up an ordinance to establish that kind of rate. Orono does not have that, in part because the fire department is through Long Lake. If they were to pursue costs associated with this, they would have to be costs related to Orono, so one avenue is that Long Lake could conceivably pursue the costs involved in what they had to spend to respond to the fire. Attorney Mattick does not necessarily think the City could respond for the personnel involved in Long Lake because it is not a direct expense to Orono. His understanding is that some other things were impacted - perhaps some road, curb, or gutters. Attorney Mattick said, granted, Long Lake’s fire department is the one that did that but it was in response to a call; if the City wanted to pursue that he thinks they could involve the resident for that but the question becomes if the resident does not pay, what does the City do? The City does not have the right to assess it to their property but depending on the amount they could bring a conciliation court action. He noted the damage to the City’s infrastructure would be a legitimate thing to pursue. Mayor Walsh said it is not just “there was some damage, should we go get it,” but it is more of a philosophical issue. In the future if something like this happened, where someone is causing issues and public works, fire, or police have to respond, and whatever damage is done because of the negligence of the homeowner – does the City want to be able to solve that by being able to chase them for the money. He said putting an ordinance in place that says the City will do this so other residents don’t come in and say someone did all this and then they just walk away and now the residents are paying for other people’s negligence. Printup asked what infrastructure was damaged and how great it was. Edwards would have to run more detailed calculations but basically the overweight tanker trucks that responded to the fire on Fox Street caused a pretty decent section of the roadway shoulder to slough and slide. The City has done patching for it but they would still have to work up the cost for a professional patch which may be in the $10,000 range. Johnson noted at the Police Commission meeting this week, that was a topic and he was surprised to find out there was not a penalty to the property owner. He could see the fire from his house, and it looked like it was about to get to another neighbor’s house – he called the neighbor who was in Arizona so they had their caretaker drive over to see what was happening. Johnson noted the City received a thank you note from a parent whose daughter went off into the ditch on Fox which was because of the section of the road