Police Powers of a Municipality

The sovereign power of a state or city includes protection of safety, health, morals, prosperity, comfort, convenience and welfare of the public. Police power does not specifically refer to the right of state and local governments to create police forces. The exercise of police power can be in the form of making:

• laws, compelling obedience to those laws through physical means with the aim of removing liberty;
• legal sanctions; or
• other forms of coercion and inducements.

Police powers of a municipality are a major function among various governmental functions. Police power extends to all appropriate ordinances for the protection of peace, safety, health, and good morals of the people. General welfare is a generic term to describe police power.

More Duties

The City Council is the legislative body; its members are the community’s decision makers. Power is centralized in the elected City Council collectively and not in individual members of the Council. The City Council approves the budget and determines the public services to be provided and the taxes, fees and assessments to pay for these public services. It focuses on the community’s goals, major projects and such long term considerations as community growth, General Plan and land use, development standards, capital improvements, financing and strategic planning.

Council Duties

Requests for a City representative at ceremonial events will be handled by the Council President. The Council President will serve as the designated City representative. If the Council President is unavailable, then the Council President will determine if event organizers would like another representative from the Council. If yes, then the Council President will recommend which Councilmember should be asked to serve as a substitute. Invitations received at City Hall are presumed to be for official City representation. Invitations addressed to Councilmembers at their homes are presumed to be for unofficial, personal consideration.

 

The City Manager represents the administrative side of the local government and if requested will attend ceremonial events after first deferring to the Council President.

 

Public recognition is a City Council activity and each Council member should feel the right and responsibility to recognize the residents and businesses for their accomplishments either through a statement at the Council meeting or sponsoring of a resolution.

Attitude

I read an article by David J. Dunn today and saw myself. It was pretty enlightening and I want to be graceful. The myth of the 47% rings true to me.

COMPREHENSIVE PLAN INFORMATION

The City of Lake Mills Comprehensive Plan (2008) noted that the City had extraterritorial zoning of the Gundlach site as “Planned Business” and recommended that upon annexation the area is appropriate for “Planned Business” use. The Plan Commission is reviewing the change in zoning from PB – Planned Business District (ETZ) to PB – Planned Business District and will make a recommendation to the Council. The Comprehensive Plan also states that the City will direct intensive commercial and industrial uses to locations near existing and planned arterial roads such as the Interstate Highway 94 corridor, the STH 89 corridor north of Interstate Highway 94, Tyranena Road, and CP Avenue; allow new uses in this future land use category as the City provides appropriate sites for additional commercial and industrial development near Interstate 94 and other major transportation corridors that maximize the benefit of the City’s location within the region and minimize the impact of traffic and other externalities on residential and natural resource areas of the community in accordance with recommendations of this Plan

The Comprehensive Plan identifies three primary areas for economic development and the I-94/STH 89 Interchange is one of the areas. This large area includes much of the land between Tyranena Road and Interstate 94, and some land south of Tyranena Road. The property includes existing commercial uses, redevelopment sites, undeveloped parcels, and residential areas that will transition to commercial use.

The property has municipal sewer and water service available.  The property is also within the City’s Urban Service Area, meaning that all development is eligible to receive the full range of services provided by the City.  

2005 Council Information memo

The state of volunteer emergency services in some areas of the United States is rapidly approaching crisis proportions.  In other places the crisis may have already arrived.  If it is true that the level of protection is dropping drastically because of a shortage of volunteers in fire, then there will be a need to have full-time, professional staffing of these departments. This would be intolerably expensive and result in a dramatic increase in government’s only source of locally generated tax revenue: the real property tax.

Most fire departments employ volunteer firefighters, they provide a public resource estimated to save residents more than 36.8 billion dollars annually[1]. Municipalities should anticipate that volunteer firefighter careers will be shorter than full-time personnel and as a result they need strong recruiting and retention programs in place.

Recruiting is an investment in the future. Retention is the ability to maximize that investment. Successful organizations are those with a strong organizational philosophy about volunteers. It is vital that adequate and appropriate resources be committed to the recruitment and retention of suitable volunteer firefighters. Satisfied volunteer firefighters enhance a community's impression of a fire department making recruitment and retention much easier.

Public officials and Fire department managers need to help volunteer firefighters achieve their goals with the organization, provide the things necessary to make volunteers feel like part of the organization, and help volunteers to impact and influence positively. They have many competing community/individual interests. Make the volunteers experience at the fire department as positive as possible.

Recruitment and retention of Volunteer Firefighters is one of the key issues being addressed jointly by the NVFC and U.S. Fire Administration. The NVFC and USFA have released a report entitled Recruitment and Retention in the Volunteer Fire Service: Problems and Solutions.

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[1] Fire Protection in Rural America: A Challenge for the Future. National Association of State Foresters, 1993.

Day to Day

It is actually not material to day-to-day operations of the City under the Council/Manager form of government which personality occupies the offices of Council President and Council members because elected officials establish policy through their collective, official actions which are then implemented. City government is dictated by ordinances, resolutions, and policies, not personalities. The Charter of the City of Lake Mills sought to avoid the impacts of strong personality-driven systems involving party politics, ward representation, precinct captains, or a strong mayor form of government. It is the collective will of the majority of the Council which governs policy.