CC Minutes - 06/11/01 Work Session

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Mr. Papd noted his own experience with false alarms as a business and property owner. He believed that verification of false alarms would significantly reduce false alarms. He thought the ordinance proposed would help to focus attention on the problem and reduce false alarms. He wanted to reduce false alarms to maintain the number of officers on the street. He wanted a shift toward verification and highlighting the responsibility of property owners in stopping false alarms. Mr. Kelly expressed appreciation for the staff work that had gone into development of the agenda materials and staff recommendation. He said it appeared there was no single solution, but a combination of solutions. He also appreciated Mr. Rayor's remark regarding the definition. Mr. Kelly said that officer safety and freeing up officer time were both important considerations to him. He anticipated the fees would be revenue-neutral. Mr. Kelly reminded the staffthat the fiscal and resource impact of the ordinance should be addressed in the packet material. In response to Mr. Kelly, Mr. Smith confirmed that the proposal was intended to be revenue-neutral. He said that the policy question was to what extent the City should be recovering the cost of the officers' time and whether the department should build a reserve fund to pay for new software related to the Computer-Aided Dispatch system to better track false alarms. Mr. Kelly did not oppose the establishment of the reserves but he hoped the moneys would come from the fines for repeated false alarms and not from a general registration fee. Mr. Kelly said it appeared the proposal was not only revenue-neutral, but would be time-positive for officers to respond to other calls, which was a financial and community benefit. Ms. Bettman agreed there was a need for the ordinance and generally supported the changes proposed by staff to the code. She wanted to ensure the revenue associated with the ordinance was sufficient to pay all the costs of administration, the CAD software, education, and outreach. She suggested the cost of education might be most appropriately paid by revenues from the permit fee. Ms. Bettman wanted the fines to be high enough to discourage future false alarms. She noted the disparity between the fine schedule and highest recommended fine in the ordinance. Mr. Smith clarified that the schedule set the fee limits; another schedule set the fees. Ms. Bettman observed that a provision in the existing code that allowed the City to place a lien on the property that generated false alarms had been removed as a result of the draft ordinance. She suggested that in cases where the permit owner was the property owner, that tool should be retained to recover those costs. She asked what the tool was being replaced with, adding that the court approach was a costly one. Mr. Smith said a lien was a costly tool to use as well. The intent behind the ordinance was to make it as simple to use as possible. Those who do not pay are on verification status until they pay; their unpaid bills would be sold to a collection agency, minimizing the City's cost and generating some revenue. Mr. Fart also noted his experience in responding to false alarms. He said that the most important thing was to ensure the City could respond to actual calls for service from the police. He thought the ordinance would reduce the need to respond to false alarms as well as ensure that true alarms were responded to. Mr. Fart determined from Mr. Smith that a business could purchase packages from the private sector that included alarm verification services. Mr. Smith said that businesses purchasing that service were also subject to the ordinance, even though they had, in effect, adopted best practices. He noted that the issue had also been raised by Mr. Kelly and in public meetings. Staff included those businesses because it believed that there was a need for basic information regarding the need for a biennial renewal. He added that the key lever in determining the response to true alarms as opposed to quelling the frequency of false alarms was the point at which the MINUTES--Eugene City Council June 11, 2001 Page 10 Work Session