Item B: Ordinance Concerning Used Merchandise Dealers

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automated reporting program. As more agencies begin to utilize an integrated database, options for criminals to sell their stolen items in other communities will be even further reduced. Financial Considerations: As described in Attachment “B,” a vendor with a secure database will electronically receive the automated reports from each store and then make information from that database available to law enforcement agencies. This would replace the current practice of detectives manually collecting the ‘pawn’ slips from stores and the civilian staff’s manual entry of the data into a Eugene database. Currently, Eugene’s hourly staff cost to collect, manually enter, and review a secondhand dealer transaction is estimated at $2.60 per transaction. Eugene manually entered 11,238 secondhand dealer transactions in FY05 which totals approximately $29,218. Vendor quotes indicate that a five- year contract, appropriate to this region’s transaction levels, would total $20,200 per year for all three agencies. In the proposed process for implementing and operating the automated reporting system, EPD would perform the role of the administrating agency. EPD has both the administrative and financial systems available to smoothly coordinate the program and, of the three agencies, has the only civilian staff currently assigned to work with used merchandise dealers. After the initial startup of the program, it is anticipated that the cost to the department would be minimal. The anticipated savings in staff hours through the implementation of automated reporting systems would be redistributed toward the detection, recovery and investigation of stolen property cases. The actual cost ($20,200) of automated reporting would be borne by the regulated secondhand stores, using a tiered fee schedule based on the number of annual secondhand dealer transactions. It is anticipated that the annual cost to the individual secondhand store would be $200-$700 per year (see Attachment “C”). RELATED CITY POLICIES The City Council goals of a “Safe Community -- where people feel safe, valued and welcome” and Effective, Accountable Municipal Government -- a government that works openly, collaboratively, and fairly with the community to achieve measurable and positive outcomes are both related to the proposed ordinance. COUNCIL OPTIONS The council may choose to: 1. Hold a public hearing on the proposed ordinance on January 23, 2006; 2. Direct staff to redraft the proposed ordinance and hold a public hearing at a later date; or 3. Choose to take no further action on this item. The proposed ordinance has a number of stakeholders with varying perspectives. In summary: The Public - The Eugene community has much to gain from this ordinance because the ability of law enforcement agencies to collaborate to reduce the easy sale of stolen property is enhanced. Law Enforcement - A regional automated reporting system will allow any law enforcement agency with internet access and password permission to access the database and match merchandise to lists of stolen serialized property. L:\CMO\2006 Council Agendas\M060111\S060111B.doc