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Police, fire experts testify in Wyoming |
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Wednesday, 02 April 2008 |
Alice Pickering
Wyoming Area Reporter
Further testimony in the contested annexation hearings came from public service and financial witnesses selected as experts by Wyoming, Chisago City, Stacy and Wyoming Township. Testimony came Tuesday through Friday.
Kevin Stenson, chief of the Lakes Area Police Department, was the first to testify on March 25, referencing a report he had compiled for the department before the hearings. He identified the capabilities of the LAPD in terms of the number of employees, squad cars, shifts, computers, other police services, response times, distance between stations and substations to the far reaches of the city, and routes traveled in response to calls.
Areas that are in the far northeastern parts of the contested area (near CR-36) and Sections 35 and 36 in the southeast part of the township are some distance from police stations. He believed these could be well served by the LAPD.
Stenson gave his opinion that LAPD would be able to provide the same level of service in the annexed area as it does in Lindstrom and Chisago City. He did not believe additional officers would need to be hired if the area was annexed to Chisago City as Wyoming planned to do. Stenson’s opinion expressed the opinion that the department could provide the better police protection, more economically.
He acknowledged adding two officers and another squad car after the 2005 annexation. Judge Steven Mihalchick learned that communities contracting with Chisago County for police protection are satisfied with their police coverage.
Wyoming’s acting Police Chief Scott Dexter testified that the Wyoming Police Department has similar equipment to that in Chisago County and has the same communications system. He said LAPD “chose to go with a different system.”
The city can and does use some equipment to determine the ones used by the Chisago County Sheriff’s Department and the Forest Lake Police Department. WPD also utilizes diagnostics lab at Fairview Lakes Medical center for blood and urine tests.
The city can and does use some equipment to determine the ones in the Chisago County Sheriff’s Department and the Forest Lake Police Department, Dexter said. WPD also utilizes diagnostics lab at Fairview Lakes Medical center for blood and urine tests.
WPD has close working relationships and mutual aid agreements with other local police departments and the Chisago County Sheriff.
It uses the intoxilizer in either the Chisago County Sheriff’s Department or Forest Lake Police Department. It is more economically sound to use the same technical and transcription services as the county, he said
WPD has emergency access on CR-84, through the Polaris with a sensor opticon which will open the gate, backup access to a lock box, and a direct number to the security station. Polaris has no objection to police access to CR-84, but the road is not open to the general public.
Access to extremes of the contested area, would be on the same roads, no matter which department responds to the call as routes are not a territorial thing, he added
Dexter explained that adding officers to the department would depend upon the additional call load once annexation is complete. All departments would use the same routes to provide the “best service possible for the community,” the fastest and safest ones, he said.
Fire Chief Dennis Berry explained the Wyoming Fire Department currently provides fire protection to a large part of Wyoming Township, including the contested area.
The Insurance Service Organization rates fire protection for areas based on the equipment and demonstrated competence of the firefighters. Smaller numbers are better and on a scale of 1-10, Wyoming has an ISO rating of 4, about as good as a volunteer fire department can get, Berry said.
Wyoming Township has an ISO of 5, which is “very good for a township,” according to Berry. The department has formalized, prioritized auto-aid agreements with neighboring departments.
The fire department also has the emergency access through the Polaris site on as does the city police department.
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