over the next several months i'll be interviewing a variety of people involved in local law enforcement including their city and county attorneys and our county judge today we're kicking out this series with the city of oak dale's police chief bill s are raised have their own families now and so it's been quite an experience it's turned into a lifetime it has indeed and you also teach don't you i do i teach at metropolitan state university and when i also teach for northwestern university  at metro state i teach a community policing class and an organization in the ministration criminal justice corps he really exist up for other policemen or is it it's college students that are interested in law enforcement take it as part of our college curriculum how do you like that law but it's got to be fired as a lot of fun ok anyway ok comfort about your department on how big is your staff and how many departments we have thirty one licensed officers many police officers and another ten or twelve civilian staff the department has is probably as large as it's going to get because the city for all intents and purposes is fully developed and we're organized into three basic divisions  for the purpose of getting the work done and that's patrol investigations and administration folks assigning those roles to do a terrific job and i think the citizens are well served you well so these thirty one people are scattered through this these three departments yet they crack you up they'll be scattered through the bulk of them will be on patrol obviously the uniformed services for the first month receiving the calls and responding to people's homes and that sort of thing so it stands to reason that the majority will be there so you're saying that because ok it was probably growing about as far as it's going to grow at that you're going to be needing more is this going to be good for finances for the taxpayers yes i think it probably is say in fact one of the one of the issues i think for taxpayers as the years go on and in the metro area here is even going could be whether there's some consolidation of services it wouldn't surprise me and a lot of smaller communities to see more and more of that occurring because you just can't afford to finance all of your own services and say we will be talking for example not that it's even mentioned but lake alamo which is a very small community relatively speaking right and possibly local could be helping them well i think that you like for example for police services like elmo currently contract with the sheriff's office but there are lots of other city services that i think communities are doing a much better job sharing resources with one another either the skills or the equipment or whatever it might be and in some cases i think you'll actually see literal mergers or consolidations of the government because you just don't need to have so many smaller units absolutely now i think paul said he wanted trucks repairing our water main yes  you're the federal government has outlined a program to try to standardize the collection of crime data so that from one jurisdiction to another doesn't vary so dramatically so they fundamentally divide into part one  two offenses part one being the more serious kind of crimes burglary in arson and homicide that sort of thing and part two being the less serious simple or simple assault some and drunk driving that kind of thing so for the purpose that's it trying to figure out exactly how much crime there is what trends are are that sort of thing we get very detailed analysis of the stuff the ages of people involved in the you know locations of lots of different kinds of information we can extract from that data ok now i saw some statistics on crime in oakdale and i just was one could you summarize and tell us where we going compared to where we've been in terms of crime well it's really interesting because it's almost counterintuitive that for the most part over the last several years we've had a decrease in activity some of that is literal reduction in activity some of it's different record keeping and that sort of thing but most departments in the area are experiencing the same phenomenon you think with the economy and all the other problems that are going on you might actually have an increase in crime but we're not and it's very difficult to explain and i certainly don't want to take credit because you then you get the blame  have some point the future but i think our activity levels right now are very manageable communities very safe to live in and we're pleased with that so you haven't noticed an increase in violent crimes necessarily or burglaries or in our new tactics on the subject of burglary or burglaries are way down this year compared to what they were last year why is that do you think i don't know i just don't know the answer that for sure hot and i were tom up that the other day because he had contacted us fats it's a civilian position and what happens is as the program is overwhelmingly juveniles are involved in it although we have gone to adult version as well and the idea is for simple nonviolent kind of offen is involved in shoplifting that of a prior francis what we'll do is still sort of work out with the family to to provide restitution back to the business perhaps community service hours as a form of punishment for the offense rather than going through the court system and don't have a success have you had what we we have very little recidivism in terms of people coming back through the program again for the most part most kids will make a mistake one time learn from it between them and their families they move on and don't have additional problems and that's that's when those are the groups that we really want to reach is to say let's keep you out of the criminal justice system so you don't have that record so to speak here but still  with you know you'll see some younger people who are not as intimidated by the system or by the police but for the most part most of the kids that we deal with in oakdale are good kids from good families and they are concerned about it  ok can you take us through up the process of a crime investigation arrest in the court system well fundamentally what will happen is will end up with a call for service for the most part we're notified of events it's kind of a misconception from television that the police are right around discovering all these things because for the most part that doesn't happen will be contacted the officers will investigate the incident they'll compile all that information and they'll submit it to the prosecuting authority whether that's a city attorney or county attorney the county attorney will then look at and decide if there's enough for a formal complaint for formal charging and then at that point time it'll end of the system the court system and that can take a considerable period of time other misconception probably from a lot order something if it all happens in an hour or it may take as much as a year sometimes even more to work its way through the entire system if we're on scene there are certain situations we can make an arrest after the incident if the suspects are there other occasions we look for formal complaints from the prosecutors but it kind of the balls everybody has their own role in the system do we have a holding cell where we did and we got rid of that we did what we did is we the requirements for maintaining those kinds of facilities are so extraordinary that it didn't make sense for us to be wasting resources anymore doing that so what he's saying you have to feed him and well years and how they're held there and how long they're held there and how they're monitored and all those other sorts of things for us it's far more efficient to simply transport somebody right to stillwater really county jail really good programming in place to help address to stay ahead of the issues michel stark our community affairs officer does an extraordinarily job working with community groups and apartment complexes sector sergeants are responsible for interesting that and you you've been in law enforcement for so many years and nothing to change your preemptive programs more than just waiting for a crime they happen to go arrested and thrown in jail isn't that correct oh absolutely yeah way back in the day when i started you just kept adding more cops and made more arrests and now and we realize of that's not only is that not pragmatic but it's not affordable either and so we need to do a better job of staying ahead of the trends and that sort of thing that's great so are we going to expect to have you run for another twenty four years well i probably will take me that long to pay off everything but we'll be around for a while well thank you so much for being here and i just want to thank you for your service to this community i've known you for twenty four years at least i think at all now you're doing just a wonderful job thank you thank you very well thank you it's now time for a defining development segment each month we profile a different business in our community here's a look at our new  owner oscar bender was on hand as were various city officials venturing to other mcdonald's franchises in the area and is excited to serve customers in oakdale oh i hope that you are you expect fast service that's the only way you can go or you can mcdonald's is located off highway five and six ninety four near target in oakdale it's time for a short break but first here is this month's trivia question the oakdale lake  historical society held its seventh annual ice cream social at the restored one room schoolhouse located at the oakdale discovery center on sunday september eleventh the starkest society holds an ice cream social on the second  the answer later in the show we'll be right back with more oakdale update in just a minute for seven years now and i deal with trees and horticulture and pretty much anything to do with the natural environment and what is your educational background i have a bachelor of science and urban forestry and  is was initially discovered in two thousand and two in michigan and it has killed millions and millions of ass trees and it spread i think there's a vault sixteen states and a couple canadian provinces now and  kills all ash trees and are there been any confirmed sightings in oakdale yet there have been no confirmed sightings in oakdale and we've been monitoring for emerald ash bore for about four years now ok do they do they specifically attack just  on a large scale there isn't a whole lot you can do but on personal trees and special historic trees they can be chemically treated with either which is a eye on it or well well you know what we've done here in oakdale as we've we had a grant from the minnesota department of agriculture and we chemically treated one hundred one of our highest condition and that will give protection for up to three years as well as we removed our kind of lower condition ones we're hoping to spread out the cost of the it's pretty much imminent that we'll have em all dashboard here at some point heights and we're within about ten miles of the new year's infestation so how would you get transported here just by the wind or are natural spread the beetle going to spread about two to four miles per year but the biggest way eat over three hundred different species of plants so so when they got here back in one thousand nine hundred fifteen and they i think they showed up in new jersey and they quickly spread throughout the country all mainly from the midwest lay their eggs in the grass and then the larvae will feed on the turf roots and they spend most of their life cycle usually from september all the way until the end of june underground during winter all through the winners  mixed results on whether that's effective or not and there's some chemicals too that you can use to treat a girl and this time years of very effective time because a grub is really small and that's  probably the most effective way to treat large population or would you go to a garden center and get this i think some of the chemical names are mach two and grow back and that that's one phase mature now a lot of people are using traps when you think of the tracks i think the traps there are mainly useful early on to detect whether you're going to have all arch population of beetles but i wouldn't personally put them in my yard because they're very effective at drawing in the japanese beetle which they drawn more than they can actually capture in the bag and you could sit there and cycle through bags but you'll actually hole and so  be effective like early on the used to gauge whether controls are going to need to use like a general knock down spray on the adults or or whether you're going to be able you know it seems like there's not too many the whole peninsula and there's a lot of native understory shrubs or we're going to this is a no kill park ok and we have a curbside collection coming up too and the dates are september twentieth october fourth in october eighteenth and there's just a simple park you'll find a giant selection of large inflatables for bouncing slighting and exploring the best knows it it's all free you can pack a lunch or buy concessions at the park once again the  is saturday september twenty fourth from ten am to five pm at walton park no registration is needed we're almost out of time but first let's answer it to read a question we asked you what year was the schoolhouse originally built the correct answer was a the original school house who built an eight hundred eighty eight for the cost of four hundred dollars the school house was moved to oakdale park in two thousand and two and fully restored in two thousand and four through volunteer efforts and contributions the schoolhouse is also open to the public the second and fourth sunday from two to four throughout the summer group tours can be scheduled through the recreation department at six five one seven four seven three eight six why that's all we have time for for we want the city of oakdale thanks for watching