coming up on oakdale update we'll continue our local law enforcement series with a visit from county attorney pete or port mayor carm ceroc will stop by to give us his thoughts on this past year for the city of old deal and will visit a new business in the continue that series with county attorney pete or part p thanks for joining us i hope dale update thanks for having me frank i really appreciate the help so let's give me a little bit of your background just some of the history sure i grew up in s paul i graduated from high school i wanted to attend college so i came from a big family we didn't have the money so i joined the marine corps after i did my marine corps stand used to v a benefits to go to the university of minnesota i became a high school teacher for about four years and after a number of layoffs i decided to attend law school while in law school i worked in a ramsey county attorney's office where i decided i wanted to be a prosecutor and i've been one ever since and so by the one nine hundred eighty eight good for you so you've got a lot of background dealing with your job now and i've been doing it for quite a few years including seven years here in washington county back in the ninety's and ok now you are the county attorney as compared to a district attorney what's the difference well a number of states have different names they call us most folks think of the county attorney as from t v as district attorney but they're called commonwealth attorney state's attorney prosecuting attorney in minnesota it's county attorney but it's the chief prosecutor for the co ok so you've been for about a year now i would think is not yes or almost a year i was elected in january ok and how do you like the job so i love it it's everything i was hoping it would be and it's just a wonderful opportunity to really push our public safety agenda for the people good ok now your department out there your job how many staff members do you have we have forty four folks in total which is twenty two lawyers and twenty two support staff which includes victim witness advocates secretaries if you will office manager pretty diverse group ok now last week or last month i entered our city attorney and what is the difference between for prosecution purposes and for purposes what's the difference between him and you but i'm sorry friend that's a great question city attorneys handle misdemeanor and petty misdemeanor offenses within the city the county attorney handles all felonies committed throughout the county as well as all juvenile cases regardless of misdemeanor or felony and the unincorporated parts of the county we handle the misdemeanors to but for oakdale your city attorney handles misdemeanors and patti's and we handle felonies ok now you mentioned before about the district attorneys on t v and that sort of thing how is the hour long special on order and all the rest when that can get everything accomplished in an hour how does that affect your job well i'll tell you that's what people expect when they watch t v and they expect us to be like they see on t v i like law and order it's a pretty accurate show it's based on real cases i've got a lot of new york prosecutor friends that have been involved in it the show that causes me a little problem is c s i and those cases jurors are now come to expect a great deal of scientific evidence that's never real we don't get d n a very often and it's  very rare case we get fingerprints despite the great job my crime folks do my crime scene team but it it puts some false notions in jurors minds that everything's cut and dry and there are no ambiguity and that's not the way life works i remember interviewing a forensic side france again to apologise from hamelin university who has testified in court but she said the same thing yours expect they absolutely expect that information is there in  and why don't you have it if you don't have it right yeah and it's not that simple jurors have to make up their own minds about the evidence and credibility and that's almost always what trials come down to who are you going to believe here ok well now there's your didn't charge three in the county we represent the counties interests everything from pollution cases to tax cases tax appeals we have seven hundred of them going right now civil commitments of folks who are mentally ill mentally ill and dangerous that we do child support and paternity as a matter of fact we have the best child support enforcement unit in the entire metro area and one of the top in the state for every dollar spent on our costs we bring in seven dollars and thirty cents the metro averages bring in four dollars i'm very proud of the work they do good for you it's a civil division ok now how about the criminal division while the criminal division is made up of seven prosecutors and a criminal division chief from i just brought in in may that's got thirty six years experience i'm really grateful for his work there we do all the felony cases and some misdemeanors that are in areas of the county that are unincorporated townships that type of thing we handle about fifteen hundred felonies this year we've done one hundred thirty one o p l felony cases and it's keeping us in very busy trial lot of lawsuits so let's let's take a  hypothetical situation where there's a murder committed in oakdale the person is arrested for potential arrest and then he comes to the county jail and then what happens to the first step is that person would be charged and they if they're in custody they have to be charged within thirty six hours and that's why i have a duty attorney on standby twenty four seven come in on the weekends we take the police reports we generate what's called a complaint  against the person anough to where a judge will believe there is strong evidence to hold the person to trial they come to their first appearance they generally enter a not guilty plea they are appointed a lawyer if they can afford one or they have their own private attorney talk about conditions are released pending trial how much bail should be sad or other conditions no contact with the victim those sorts of things and then they choose and i mean of this hearing date the omnibus hearing is where the defense gets a chance to argue there isn't enough evidence to hold that person to a trial which can be months later and we have that argument if there are constitutional issues that they want to challenge they'll get a separate hearing and that way i'll bring in the witnesses to rebut any constitutional challenge then it's a pretrial conference where you talk about settling the case whether the defendant wants to admit or not and if they don't then we set a fair trial and try the case what is the grand jury words that come  grand jury comes in it's a special hybrid instead of charging the case we present the case to twenty three citizens who decide whether there is probable cause to bind them matter over for a jury trial unlike asking a judge to hearing the grand jury gets to it has to be a majority decision in other words at least twelve grand jurors have to agree to indict and we cannot charge a first degree murder premeditated murder if you will it has to be done by a grand jury we can use those for cases that seem dicey that it could go either way and we'd like to present it to the citizens to go should this be charged or not typically those are done in allegations of voter fraud or stuff or things like that but really i've done a number of grand juries when i'm seeking a first degree murder indictment where that's interesting you did you do you actually attend these hearings and like that yes in fact we're about to schedule a grand jury there are also used in police involved shootings where a police officer may shoot and perhaps kill an individual we want the grand jury to hear that evidence and invariably decide that was a legitimate use of force by the police officer we have one of those we'll be bringing shortly based on a case that happened in woodbury here and i know you mentioned about public defenders yes i was a little bit about that is that it that your department no it's actually it's run by the state the state provides constitutionally is mandated to provide free counsel for anyone who can afford a lawyer and the public defender's office in washington county has about half a dozen full time attorneys and a number of part time and they're the ones that represent folks who can't afford to hire their own attorney interesting is that the budget wise is how much does that cost about well i don't know what washington counties public defenders charge it's several million dollars at the state level they're continually every year going before the legislature saying they need more resources of course we all do so i'm not familiar with their budget mine is a little under four point eight million it was four point eight million in two thousand and eleven it'll be four point seven seven for two thousand and twelve so we've actually dropped about twenty thousand dollars going to see that later but is that budget cuts how is that affecting your your what what what it means frank is in this day where you know money is an issue for all of us both me as a citizen and person raising my family but as a government official it means we have to work smarter i know how to work be tough on crime i've done that my whole career i'm now interested in being smart on crime and if we're smart on crime we can meet our budget needs and we have i'm very confident i can keep the people who discount the safe with the budget given to me by the company board glad to hear that ok now we are the division is a juvenile yes or talk about that of it well in juvenile again they handle all cases from petty misdemeanors up to felonies throughout the county and their kids up to eighteen years old i have a staff of five attorneys there plus i have an attorney assigned that i recently assigned just to go to the schools to work on truancy you were really pushing the truancy initiative it's our belief that if we don't educate we'll end up incarcerating and so we get these kids that drop out and it's not a good idea the either become crime victims or perpetrators of crime when they're sitting at home or look  to you know for some excitement so we're putting a lot of emphasis on that right now but we do child protection issues terminations of parental rights which we've had a number of those lately where we find that the lately i think are probably always been a problem but you have young people killing people fifteen fourteen thirteen twelve whatever and what do you do with them and how do you prosecute that's a great question if they're sixteen or older and they commit a homicide they're automatically certified to stand trial as an adult if they're yes and then they get an adultery trial typically a juvenile go before a juvenile court judge and they don't get a right to a jury trial but with very violent crimes we can either move to certify them to stand trials an adult or they're automatically certified or we can move to have them considered extended juvenile jurisdiction where instead of getting off juvenile court probation at the age of eighteen or nineteen we can keep them on the twenty three if they violate conditions they get an adult sentence so sort of halfway between juvenile court and a full adult certification we've got a number of those but it is getting serious and it is  kid that kids these days are prone to violence we haven't seen a lot of it here in washington county think the lord but i've dealt with a lot of them very violent kids and fortunately ok now the victim witness protection program or witness program yeah thanks for asking that we have for victim advocates or coordinators if you will we redesigned that program this year where they were a stand alone unit was separate offices away from our prosecutors and we moved them literally moved their offices in with our criminal prosecutors and the way they work is their our contact with our victims it's very important to us that we get victim in put on our cases either preparing them to go to trial and testify or asking them if the offer to plead guilty and the offered sentence is fair to them we also do rest collection that keeps us very very busy with that getting the money from the perpetrators i have four of them there one in assigned to juvenile and three in criminal never very busy folks very committed i'm so grateful to have a cure but we've got about thirty seconds left here but when you just give us a real quick on the scent theme part of what you deal with plea agreements plea bargaining people i think there's nothing that irritates people more than the see somebody get in my pain or their could frequently people will accept responsibility for their behavior then the question is what's an appropriate sentence to recommend to the judge and judges do the sentencing sometimes against our wishes but they always ask us for our input for us for my office victim impact is very important we want the victims to come to court to hear about the offer to plead guilty and allow them an opportunity to tell the judge what this crime is meant to them i think that's very cathartic for absolutely i think that's wonderful but i understand that you know it's a money situation type situation and there isn't enough room in the prisons to put everybody in for all the things they do is it correct that is correct there's one thousand three hundred  mates in prison they get there through the minnesota sentencing guidelines which determines which cases go to prison and a lot of folks think any felonies going to result in a prison sentence that's just not true under our guidelines system ok pete i am sorry but we are out of time so i the time and way over but it was so interesting having you here and i hope that we can get you back another time and do this again i would just love the really great are doing a pretty good job out there today who i don't hear anything negative thanks we're doing you're doing fine i really appreciate the effort of you thank you thank you it's now time for a defining development segment each month we profile a different business in our park where people can come in here and jump on our two and get a nice little fitness get a workout kind of healthy workout if you will jump off my walls get tired out and head on home with a good smile on your face and a good workout in your back pocket sky zone has a wide array of trampolines and includes areas for dodgeball basketball dunking and even a large foam we've got an open jump which is every day from tuesday through sunday we have other activities for different age groups on friday nights for eleven to fifteen year old located at five diaby five halo avenue in oakdale for more information visit their website at st paul dot sky zone sports dot com it's time for a short break but first here's this month's trivia question in our last show the oakdale fire chief explained the code red emergency notification system oakdale fire department has serve the community as a volunteer fire department since it first began welcome back door bell update with me now to give us a recap of the year twenty eleven in oakdale is our mayor carm cirrhotic current thanks for joining us i hope they'll update well thank you frank for him the well here we are at the end of the year already and it's time to do our annual update see how did things going to be ok ok erik so again let's go back how long have you been the mayor will do and the mayor will still for thirteen years on the console for twenty one thirteen years that means i've been doing the show for isn't a state award or local org it's a national ward and a lot of it had to do with his mentoring young people out there and it's putting on him turns and mentoring them and he good for all concerned and then he's been doing this for years and some of them the people that he's had before they're gone on to be very successful in the field evidence and i don't know if you probably know this but he's a doctor ye how large this site without the asphalt without the building it's a huge piece of property isn't it oh it is definitely and we have to developers that are pushing the property and so hopefully when we're done a look a lot like about that yeah we had over five hundred people there last year that skyview and we have it in march and and it's just it's gotten bigger and bigger and bigger so we're really proud of that  hopefully it helps the people of the community here in the contractors come in and write and so i have it for everybody you know ok now the other thing the state of art water meters were installed in all the homes and businesses in oakdale tell us about that in  reading there is no the meter reader does not have to come into your business or house to do it so it saves time and money and and it's very accurate so does that mean we have less meter readers because they don't have to go house to house is that how it works yeah it's at the time consumed consumption was huge you know and you've got to go down basement and look at it meter you know and hopefully they're home or else they somebody and the administrative ok so we moved to the we want to move it out of tanner's lake area because of the concern just in there and the police and fire department were very concerned that something would happen down there and they could get their fire  trucks through the roads on or because of all the cars or ambulances if ambulance so we moved up the walton park figuring this would be a great location for the fireworks you know we have the facilities we have the parking we you know and we had no idea we figured a few thousand people would show up they had over ten thousand people that are on bill it was unbelievable we had a rock in hollywood it was sort of a perfect storm was on a week now the red all preserved development up on fiftieth street in oakdale that used to be a trailer court that is just a wonderful setting you want to tell us a little bit about that right now as you know it used to be a mobile home park that was really run down very dangerous area and so we cleaned up the mobile home park and the rattle preserve up there is a mixture of housing single family homes rent though town homes senior apartments and it's fully developed if you ever get a chance go up there at it turned out just fabulous absolutely i happened to drive through it yesterday and i thought i mean i check it every once in a while and  the city is experience a decrease in number of foreclosures foreclosed properties now that's a pretty good deal isn't it right we have a very stable community here frank so so that does not surprise me our houses are affordable people living in the houses are mainly middle class people that could afford their houses to begin with and i think gives you really seen a drop in the foreclosures you know i don't think you'll see many in year was the oakdale fire department established the correct answer is a the department was stablished in one thousand nine hundred sixty four with a total of thirteen volunteer members today the city has two fire stations that are operated eight full time and thirty seven volunteer firefighters that's all we have time for for everyone at the city of all dale thanks for watching