04-27-2000 Council Work Session - Laserfiche WebLink

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TO;Mayor and City Council FROM:Ron Moorse, City Administrator DATE:April 26,2000 SUBJECT; Police Department Effectiveness and Credibility The Orono Police Department is doing an effective job of providing police services to Orono and to the contract cities. This is based on positive feedback by the Cities of Long Lake and Spring Park, and by a very low number of complaints received from Orono residents. The Department is blc.sscd with a number of outstanding veteran officers, and we have been extremely fortunate in being able to hire exceptional new officers in recent years when other departments are struggling to fill vacant positions. However, there are a small number of veteran officers who want to play by their own rules and who resent any oversight by any supendsoiy^ position. The strategy they use to try to avoid this oversight is to discredit the leadership of the Department, and they do not care who this strategy may hurt. The two key negative impacts of this strategy arc that it discredits the Department in the eyes of the contract cities, as well as in the eyes of other departments; and it has the potential to contaminate the attitudes and actions of the new officers. Several years ago I stood in front of the police officers and told them the world is moving toward contracting and/or consolidation of services. I told them 1 wanted the Orono Police Department to set the standard for excellence and professionalism so that if any outsourcing or consolidation was to occur in the police services area, the Orono Police Department would be the choice to be expanded rather than eliminated. Recently the Mayor of Spring Park called Mayor Jabbour to follow-up on information he had received that indicated there were big problems in the Orono Police Department. We only have to go back to the early 1990's when a group of Orono officers were involved in an effort to discredit the Police “Administration" to the contract cities, fhis effort was one element of the friction between the Cities of Orono and Long Lake that lead both cities to the brink of dropping their contracts for police and fire service. It was also a key element leading to the City of Spring Park nearly dropping the police contract in favor of a proposal from the Mound Police Department. Because there are a number of issues currently being addressed in the I'olice Department that are being negatively affected by the same small group of officers, it is important the Council be brought up-to-specd. Staff w ill provide detailed information at the work session to show this pattern of behavior.