new chief we'll talk with her about her plans for the police department on this half hour nearly two thousand people took the plunge during frigid conditions will bring you the chilling details  almost two thousand people jumping into the freezing cold waters so we're preparing today to get to everything ready what's kind of funny about it is it takes us about three days to set up for a plunge like this and it takes us about four hours to tear it down you know so i it's kind of interesting in that respect but we do it because we do it for the right reasons for the athletes of special  it's cold it's cold this is the worst part is walking to the bus in the water's fine then you're standing on the platform as like well you can't back out now but yeah jumping in the water come on and i was definitely this year i was definitely doing one of the  this particular cause i suffer well i think it's worth it i think special olympics is just you know just a great program after thirty years of fire service paul paul two years retiring he spent his career with the wiper like fire department and has been featured on the shelf throughout the years firefighting isn't the peltier family blood his father brother and nephew all served or currently serve the white bear lake fire department we're going to take a break but when we come back we'll talk with the new ch she's been with the wiper like place department for thirteen years working as a patrol officer sergeant and most recently captain and now she's the new chief of police while come to the soldier boy thank you so all let's hear about it started crime prevention which is a civilian position with this city of st paul back in the early ninety's right out of college i had gone to school to be a social worker and decided i really didn't want to be a social worker so i got a job with the district five planning council which is a nonprofit community council within st paul after that i worked there for a few years but it was grant funded and i was able to move to the fairly police department and do the same thing organizing neighborhood crime watch and  block watches for the for the police department and while there i decided to go back to school to become a licensed police officer so i finished school there to get a law enforcement degree and then landed a job with the ramsey county sheriff's department as a sheriff step deputy and i worked primarily in the jail there and while i was there it was a great job but you spend a lot of time in the jail usually nine years in the jail before going out on patrol so i was kind of keeping my eyes open i in a place officer nope she never had they worked in the schools for a couple of years and did the dare and i must have sheltered her a little that's really good so she got an eye opener we had a stolen car that night and had to take somebody to jail and it was not somebody who was happy about going to jail so that was an eye opener in she didn't come back now so i want to ask you what at what point in your career i guess maybe what i want to ask and then when i started at white bear the first thing i thought is i wanted to be a school resource officer and so it seems like every time i see started a job i kind of set sights differently and as a school resource officer i did that for three years and then went back to patrol and we had the sergeants opening so i tested for that and it really wasn't until i became a captain that i thought about becoming the chief just partially because timing was right and i saw what the job entailed in the just there was some opportunities to take over some projects that made our jobs easier as a police officer so if that's really what piqued my interest was the ability to make decisions that made our jobs easier or more fun or more interesting to advance the department and be part of those decisions so at that point  a as a captain and you're thinking you know this might be something i wanted to achieve where use those or anything that i mean you know look at your resume and where there are things that were missing from that that you needed to get in order to be eligible to apply do you think yeah when i was a sergeant i knew that if i wanted to become a captain i had to get my master's degree and part of that was because my previous boss had marked me down on a performance evaluation right not having more education to advance myself so the stubborn side of me went back to school and got a master's and then when i was a captain i knew that i would need to goal to one of the leadership academies and i was lucky to have opportunity of minutes of the opportunity that the department gave me and i went to the f b i academy and you know for ten weeks and that was tough it was hard being away for ten weeks it was really twelve weeks in the end with having kids at home and kids at college and being kind of the overprotective mom thinking that the place would not be ok with me being gone and my husband did just fine now it's been i don't know when not in recent history that we've ever promoted a chief from within so this is kind of a unique thing especially to have somebody that started off as an officer and move through every you know position within the department but you also have a unique either problem or opportunity in that you don't have any other command staff with you right need to hire some with some command staff because of retirements or promotions you don't have anybody so you're you're kind of starting fresh is there something that you're looking for as far as your command staff or the you know all the officers when you know when admins away we say when you know when i'm chief i'm going to make this happen as or anything like that they that you've said throughout your your years here that you wanted to do and now you have the opportunity to do it that's a great question eight we are going to be hiring right away one captain we have two positions but they have posted the position and are looking for one and my biggest desire is for that person to be part of that cohesive group as you guys know we have a very cohesive department a very fine department with great people and that person is going to need to fit in and also want to take the department to new to new levels that we need to advance and some things with technology and  i want to provide opportunities to the officers to be able to do some of the training or specialties that they want to do that are an interest because you want to keep people's interest for the next twenty years so that person will have to come in and be a fit to that and want to give the officers and the staff some leeway to to try some new ideas because some of the best ideas we've had have come from within and also be a fit to have fun and enjoy everybody that's there  y projects for the community or are there any particular projects that that are currently going on related to the community and the police that you're going to offer for continue and is there anything new and mine still kind of evaluating the new things we do ever citizens police academy coming up but skinner runs parallel with the citizens fire academy i think that's a fine opportunity for us to engage a community there are those the citizens in the community and it's a good chance for a lot of the police officers to interact with the community in a fun environment so that's definitely going to stay our national night out involvement i'd like to see we have a great participation everybody in the department participates in that i'm just hoping we can engage the community a little bit more so that we have more parties to go to and have more opportunity to get out into the community and just breathe we revive our neighborhood watch groups and our community meetings with people and we're running out of time but real quick what has been the reaction of your coworkers of people city hall your friends family people in the community you what kind of reaction have you gotten since you got the promotion fortunately people are excited as opposed to what they could be but my family's very excited my friends and coworkers are it's been nice kind of humbling to i don't know that i have quite taken it all in yet but people are excited i think my family is probably glad that i'm done with school i'm done going away and sort of settling down into something for a while just because there has been a lot of changes but they're excited you know we live in the community and the kids go to school in the community so it's i think they're excited and they are faced with it quite a bit so thank you all right thank you for being here and taking time out of your da lot of stuff so i know your value yes thank you february is the month of love but more importantly it's a month to remind people about heart health one in three women die of heart disease but there's a lot you can do to prevent it here's a story of a young heart attack survivor who is spreading the word about heart disease i had a feeling there was something wrong with my heart but i wouldn't have believed that i was actually having a heart attack in two thousand and nine jennifer marine th thirty eight on her way home from a ski trip with their parents and husband pulled into a wyoming truck stop after blizzard conditions caused highways to close that's when she says she felt extreme pressure in her chest like elephants sitting on top of her i said guys i think something's wrong with me my heart pounding hapless pressure as luck would have it there was a hospital in town the dr did blood tests and suggested she stay overnight since the highways were closed jennifer stayed which turned out to be a blessing test revealed she'd suffered a heart attack she was flown to a bigger hospital with a cardiac unit where doctors put four stones to repair a torn artery at first  just i thought why to this happen to me why do i have to have a heart attack you know thirty eight this isn't right you know that i'm told not to have kids after that and you know there seem to be a fair about a loss and then one day i thought well why not me i mean these things happen to anyone and it was a pretty cool revelation you know just to think it's ok i mean life goes on about a month after jennifer returned home she woke up one morning with those overwhelming chest pains and anxiety once again her torn artery from the heart attack had torn even further and another stent was administered that's  doctors discovered she had something called scad son coronary artery destruction after getting a second opinion at the mayo clinic doctors also diagnosed her with fiber muscular dysplasia a condition that makes  weak thin and bumpy like a string of beads so it was a really overwhelming and extremely scary you know because i just felt so alone and so like a landmine i mean i felt like my body was just going to explode but jennifer wi support from her family went on with life in continued working and then just days after celebrating one year since her heart attack that same torn artery tore even more and she had a six ten put in not only did it make me realize that all the days are precious but i have a responsibility to do something with a life and so jennifer went to work she started to facebook page for scout survivors in contacted the american heart association of all volunteering the organization's mission is to educate women on heart disease and risk factors heart disease is a broad range terminal lot of people don't realize that a lot of things a compass heart disease diabetes high cholesterol atherosclerosis where your arteries  clogged peripheral arterial disease where you have circulation problems in your legs stroke high blood pressure all of these things are all part of heart disease chris says heart disease kills more women than the next five causes of de combined including all forms of cancer it's also largely preventable you know we remind women that too often we put ourselves last you know we're taking care of our husbands our dogs our kids our parents and we're like i'll get to myself later i'll do exercise next week all you know i got to i got to do laundry i got to go grocery shopping i pick the kids up and but you won't be able to do any of those things you won't be able to take care of your family if you're not there for them if you don't if you don't live if you don't take care of yourself with the american heart association has helped save over six hundred thousand lives and there go read campaigns have raised more than three hundred million dollars for research and education it's one of those things you think heart diseases and i my family and then when you stop and think about it it is it really touches you and have it touches everyone in some way there's usually somebody in your family or friends that's been affected or soon enough they will be jennifer marina's healthy in working on a memoir titled i lived in despite her difficult journey she says she wouldn't have it any other way you know i don't know if i could change the story i don't know if i would you know i mean that's the positive check out the american heart association's web site where they have a lot more information when we come back we'll tell you how you can check out the wiper like fire department made for police officers took an icy plunge all in the name of charity i'm carrie crowding and i'm one big law enforcement raise money for the special olympics and the story will have the highlights plus have behind the scenes footage in preparing for this event congratulations on your new promotion you you just got promoted about a week ago we were promoted to one of the four assistant for your chief so it's a very privileged position and i'm honored and humbled to be part of the leadership team so thank you very good or we're going to be talking about the citizens fire academy so can you give us just maybe or a video of what the citizens fire academy is all about the citizens fire academy has been conducted by the fire department for the last few years we're going to start on march fifth and run through my may fourteenth every wednesday evening from six to six thirty to nine p m and what they'll find is a fine and enthusiastic bunch of firefighters and people involved in not only the fire department but the amassed portion of our fire department and teaching them what the fire department does and what services we provide to our community through through the department so who can join citizens fire academy do you have to live in a particular area or are you limiting who you're letting in first of all you have to be eighteen years of age and would like to look first look at residents of white bear lake obviously but if there are people that are close to the area or have a some type of connection either through a relative or or whatever we're certainly open to look at their application we're looking for about fifteen folks to to join us so the fire department has got a lot of different aspects special or rescue or your mouse emergency medical services is a big part of our department and firefighting so it sounds like huge week is going to be a little taste of something different as  on i think it's going to be a real rewarding experience for people to put participate in so is this going to be for people that are just interested in working on the fire department are is this anybody who what type of person should sign up for and just anybody who lives here is curious about it or is it going to be more technical and caring for people that want a career and the fire department i think it's all of their tracy i think it's people that have always had an interest about what what happens behind the  g garage doors at the fire station or what happens but behind the scenes of an apple ambulance going down the road or a fire truck we do have we have had a couple people in the last class actually join one person join the m s side of the department one joined as a firefighter so it's all of that what you've described is anybody that curious anybody that wants to even look at possibly pursuing a job in the fire service or even a service so yeah it's it's going to be very interesting for folks and i think we're going to present a very nice city i mean to people and on in previous years we have had a very wide range of ages and people the reason for them joining the citizens fire academy and everywhere from people that are twenty years old the people that are in their fifty's sixty's and beyond actually some that have had no desire to get on the department whatsoever but they got a lot out of the academy can you talk a little bit about the citizens fire academy a lot yeah that's so i never knew there was an alumni and i guess there are several across the the metro  area it's a group of folks that have gone through the the academy in the past years and they meet monthly and they've done some projects for us to help raise money for rehab chairs and they helped with the motorcycle ride this past year to for the tribute for nine eleven they've actually we've actually had them participate in the planning of this year's i cademy we asked them what worked what didn't work what was very interesting what was wasn't so interesting so and that's one of the reasons why we expanded to from ten to eleven weeks and there is no cost and what can people do to either learn more about it or to the loud application they can go  to our facebook page which has become a way for for photo we have some postings on there the city's website there's actually an application on the city's website that they can download and fill out and send in so if you if you're thinking about them common sense really needs to rule if you're uncomfortable being outside there's a good chance your dog and we're talking about dogs primarily there's a really good chance that your dog is uncomfortable as well it's been a cold winter with subzero temperatures hitting last month and causing schools to shut down for several days with air temperatures that low exposed skin can become frostbitten in five minutes and like humans our pets can suffer from hypothermia and frostbite we definitely are seeing oftentimes cats that outdoors depends on their activity level and their coats larger dogs built for the cold can withstand longer periods outside and for arctic breeds or water dogs the colder the better if your dog is like mine and loves coming to the dog park no matter how low the temperature drops you may have discovered he also loves to pick up and eat something another dog had left behind and there's definitely the potential for him to contract intestinal parasites by doing that you know why did dogs do that it's an age old problem i think there's a combination of the unfortunate just like the flavor they like the taste i always thought nature had taken care of that but apparently not and i think there's an aspect of play you'll see some dogs that will grab these frozen stools and i'll toss them and play in a role on  another danger to pets is antifreeze which contains a chemical called ethylene glycol it is a sweet flavor that appeals to dogs and children make sure to clean up all spills and store the product out of reach even a small amount can cause kidney failure community postle wash and dry them after they've been outside and finally pets rely on humans to care for them so when their owners fail it's our responsibility to help them it's one of those things i think people worry about what's a going to do to change your relations with your neighbors and things like that and so everybody has to make individual judgments but there certainly are such circumstances where the reporting was warranted in the best interest of the animal we'd like to let people know that suburban cable c