CCPD presents first half of proposed police operations manual to council

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

Charles City Chief of Police Hugh Anderson presented the Charles City Council with the first half of a lengthy Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) manual at Wednesday’s planning session.

“This policy manual provides a framework and guidance to our team of employees,” Anderson said. “It is impossible to provide an answer for each and every situation officers will confront in this job, but this policy manual provides a baseline.”

The council had discussed and approved funds for the creation of an SOP manual for the Police Department at previous meetings. The company recommended and chosen by Anderson was Lexipol, which currently provides manuals for about 190 police and fire agencies in Iowa and about 4,000 nationwide.

For the past many months, a committee of officers has reviewed the policy manual with representatives of Lexipol, meeting weekly. Anderson said he feels the policy is now prepared for council approval.

The manual has also been reviewed by Brad Sloter, the city attorney, who commented that it appears to be well-drafted and well-researched, and offered a recommendation for approval. He said he did not see any policies which seemed problematic on their face.

The first half of the manual is 344 pages long and consists of five chapters – Law Enforcement Role and Authority, Organization and Administration, General Operations, Patrol Operations and Traffic Operations.

The second half of the manual, which will be presented to the council later, contains Investigation Operations, Equipment, Support Services, Custody and Personnel. The entire manual is more than 500 pages long.

Also Wednesday, the council heard information about and discussed the connectivity portion of a Charles City Housing and Rehabilitation Authority (CCHRA) safety and security project at three public housing sites — North Cedar Terrace, South Cedar Terrace and Morningside. The focus of this project is installing and maintaining a video surveillance system that provides good coverage and clarity of all vital areas throughout the three properties, accessible at the main office.

The project will also allow CCHRA to provide Wi-fi services to tenants. Fiber connections at each site and back to the main office will be provided by OmntiTel, contingent on being granted Wisconsin Street right-of-way access by the city and high school easement approval.

Options for external connectivity being considered include a connection through Mediacom with a virtual private network (VPN) tunnel setup between the site and South Cedar Terrace main office to retrieve the camera feeds, which is currently being done with the Morningside cameras. This has proven to be very ineffective, the connection is unstable at best, and it does not allow wi-fi services, the housing authority said.

The second option considered was a gigabit wireless mesh between the sites, providing connectivity back to the main site without the overhead needed using the VPN option. The third option considered is a mix of fiber connections between sites with tenant wireless onsite. Omnitel can provide 1 Gbps ethernet/fiber connections between all three sites through the vaults located near each of the three properties.

The cost for infrastructure/construction (inclusive of all sites) is a onetime fee of $20,000. This portion of the project will be paid for with the HUD Safety and Security grant specified for these type of capital projects. The onsite boring at North Cedar Terrace will be integrated into the electrical project slated to begin this spring.

The ongoing service cost on a 36-month term is $1,100 per month for the ethernet circuits, unmetered internet access and static IP. The monthly costs will be paid for out of operating funds. The city currently pays $363 per month for the Mediacom Connection at Morningside that is not used due to its instability.

It was the consensus of the council that more information and more time to study the issue was needed before any action would be taken. The council agreed to bring the issue back up at a special planning session, possibly March 14.

The council also discussed on-street parking on Main Street on Wednesday. The completion of Union House and other projects that are getting people to live downtown is starting to create some parking issues. Overnight parking is currently not allowed on Main Street or the parking lots behind the Main Street Downtown area, although it is being used by some tenants.

The council discussed amending the code to allow overnight parking while encouraging people living downtown to park in the lots to the rear of the buildings.