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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1993.04.21 CITY COUNCIL MINUTES/./~' 1 City Council 4/21/93 7:00 P.M. State of Idaho) County of Madison( ss City of Rexburg) Those Present: Mayor: Council Members: Excused: City Clerk: Attorney: Finance Officer: Pledge to the Flag. Nile Boyle Farrell Young Brad Liljenquist Glen Pond Bruce Sutherland Nyle Fullmer Jim Flamm Rose Bagley J. D. Hancock Richard Horner A motion was made by Bruce Sutherland to approve the minutes as corrected. Seconded by Nyle Fullmer All Aye RE: BUSINESS FOR WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANT Ted Hendricks was at the meeting to conduct some business related to the Wastewater Treatment Plant. RE: RESOLUTION 93.7 PASSED AUTHORIZING SIGNATURES FOR LOAN AGREEMENTS We have received notification from the Division of Environmental Quality, that a loan offer is forthcoming. Before the city can accept that loan offer, they need to pass a Resolution authorizing the mayor and Richard Horner to sign all the documents pertaining to the receiving of the loan. Resolution 93.7 A RESOLUTION BY THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF REXBURG, IDAHO, AUTHORIZING NILE BOYLE OR RICHARD HORNER TO SIGN ALL APPLICATIONS, LOAN AGREEMENTS AND AMENDMENTS, AND OTHER DOCUMENTS RELATING TO THE WASTEWATER CONSTRUCTION AND STATE REVOLVING LOAN FUND A motion was made by by Brad Liljenquist and seconded by Farrell Young to pass resolution 93.7 All Aye RE: RESOLUTION 93.8 PASSED ADOPTING POLICY PROHIBITING EXCESSIVE FORCE, ETC. (CIVIL RIGHTS.) For the. Community Block Grant, they have sent over a contract authorizing the issue of $500,000 Grant to the City of Rexburg. The City needs to pass Resolution 93.8 A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF REXBURG, IDAHO, ADOPTING A POLICY PROHIBITING THE USE OF EXCESSIVE FORCE AGAINST NON-VIOLENT CIVIL RIGHTS DEMONSTRATORS. A motion was made by Nyle Fullmer and seconded by Bruce Sutherland to pass 93.8. All Aye We also have certification regarding lobbying which the mayor has executed, which states that we won't use federal funds to lobby for funds for any other federal grant. The Grant agreement from the State is authorizing the Grant to be received by the City of Rexburg from the Department of Commerce, which is contingent upon the items we are passing tonight. Boise has everything ready to proceed and are waiting for Henry Moran's office's concurrence on the bid documents, as well as the plans and specifications before they will award the contract to the apparent low bidder. RE: MOTION PASSED TO APPROVE THE LOAN AGREEMENT FOR THE WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANT Henry Moran, representing DEQ was at the meeting to present some business. We were successful in getting money for 4~ instead of 4 1/2~. He had with him the Loan offer in the amount of five million dollars at 4~ for 15 years. He had four copies and one copy to be signed and returned to the office in Boise and return one copy to DEQ in Pocatello. The other copies are for the City's files. 1~'~ Glen Pond made a motion that we approve the loan agreement and authorize the mayor and Richard to execute the loan agreement based on our attorney's review and approval of it. Seconded by Nyle Fullmer. All Aye RE: SEWER RATES SET The mayor told the council we need to set the sewer rates. He read Resolution 93-9 PURSUANT TO CITY ORDINANCE NO. 638, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE REXBURG CITY COUNCIL, EFFECTIVE MAY 1, 1993, THE SEWER RATE TO BE CHARGED SHALL BE A MINIMUM OF $3.50 BASIC MONTHLY CHARGE FOR EACH EQUIVALENT 3/4" WATER METER PLUS $1.20 PER EACH THOUSAND GALLONS USED BASED UPON THE AVERAGE MONTHLY WINTER WATER USAGE. A motion was made by Nyle Fullmer and seconded by Glen Pond to approve Resolution 93-9. All Aye RE: REVIEW OF QUALIFICATIONS TO AWARD THE CONTRACT FOR THE WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANT Henry Moran stated that we could not award the contract, until the plans and specifications have been approved and a bid review was done and DEQ had given authorization to award. John Millar recommended that the council authorize the mayor to sign the notice of award when Henry's qualifications are met. A motion was made by Nyle Fullmer and seconded by Bruce Sutherland to sign to award the bid after we get the approval from Henry Moran of DEQ and Forsgren Associates. All Aye RE: BRAD WRIGHT REVIEWED THE STROBEL CASE FOR THE STROBEL FAMILY The Strobel Family and their attorney, Brad Wright, were at the meeting. Brad Wright discussed some things he had found about the death of Joshua Strobel. He stated he was speaking on behalf of the Strobel family and the members of this community, to point out several disturbing facts regarding the investigation to this killing and regarding the presentation of the evidence to the court by the Rexburg City Police Department during the Sentencing Hearing. (1) We understand that Officer Herb Gee "from the Madison County Sheriff's Department was second on the crime screen and was the first Law Enforcement Officer to talk to James Walters at that time. We also understand that Officer Gee was also present when Mr Walters was apprehended and arrested. After speaking with Officer Gee, we asked him why his report was not included within the Police report they had been given? He indicated that he had volunteered to submit a report, but was informed by the Rexburg City Police, that his report would not be necessary. It is very difficult for any of us to understand, how an officer who is second on the scene, first to speak directly to the defendant, and who is eventually one of the arresting officers, could not have information of significant importance to be included in the police report., (2) The family understands that the Walters parents were called in to speak with Law Enforcement Officials and the County Prosecutor even before a representative of the Strobel family had been contacted and that evidence was allowed to be removed from Mr Walters vehicle by his father as Mr Walters was being arrested. The Strobels realize that in a small town the size of Rexburg, family relations and personal friendships complicate many police investigations and they have no problem with Mr Walters family being notified of the incident involving their son; however, it seems extremely bad judgement to include Mr Walters parents with discussions with the law enforcement officials while a determination is being made as to what charges will be brought against their son. As to the removal of that evidence, who is to eay that it would not have had an impact upon the charges brought against Mr Walters. What if there were pieces of evidence that could have supported the theory that Mr Walters had reloaded the gun sometime after arriving in town, prior to the shooting? (3) Within a few hours of the incident, Law Enforcement authorities had concluded that Mr Walters did not know that the gun was loaded and there was no possibility of malice and that Mr Walters conduct was accidental. These conclusions were made despite of eye witness ,( ' ~~ statements to the contrary and despite a police drawing which shows that Mr Walters had to be pointing the gun directly at Joshua. (copy given to council and on file) Giving his conclusion of the drawing, that Mr Walters had to not only be pointing the gun at Joshua, but leaning forward in the cab of the truck to do so. (4) The statement of Jackie Freeman, a witness who was near Mr Walters when the gun went off, indicated that she saw the open cylinder of the gun before the shooting and "thought she could see light through what she thought was empty cylinders." Obviously if she saw an empty cylinder before the shooting occurred and the gun was later found to be full of empty casings, then the gun must have been loaded prior to Joshua's shooting. Unfortunately, rather than explore this important lead, Law Enforcement Officials immediately challenged Ms Freeman's recollection and vision until she abandoned her initial statement. The decision of Law Enforcement Officials to attack rather than investigate Ms Freemans initial statement is very disconcerting to the family. (5) For reasons yet to be explained, Law Enforcement Authorities did not follow up on several logical leads given to them in the first few days of the incident, including, but not limited to the following (a) a concerned citizen called and talked with authorities indicating that her brother had been with Mr Walters earlier when he had fired a loaded pistol at or into the McDonald's Restaurant in Rexburg. (b) the Rexburg Police Department had not even interviewed or talked to Joshua's friends who were with him that night to see if Joshua had any prior confrontation with Mr Walters that evening or any time prior. (c) No one investigated whether Mr Walters harbors any violent tendencies which may reflect onto his state of mind at the time of the shooting, including any prior threats to shoot, kill or to harm others. (d) For those witnesses that came forward with any perpetual information in this area, Law Enforcement Authorities chose to attack the credibility of those witnesses rather than investigate the leads provided by them. (e) There was significant differences between the police investigation and what was offered as police testimony at the sentencing hearing of Mr Walters. At that hearing there was much discussion on how Mr Walters was holding that gun when it discharged. Reading from page 6 of the police report from what Brad Hoopes stated. Presuming the prosecutor had read the police report, he had to know that statement was incorrect. Personally Mr Wright had struggled with what was actually occurring before the court in the pre-sentencing hearing. The prosecutor specifically asked about any contradictions between Mr Walters story and those of other witnesses. "After you had a chance to discuss with other officers the statement of Brad Hoopes and Jackie Freeman, the two eye witnesses, did they basically confirm what James had told you or did they contradict him? -Answer- There weren't any contradictions, there were slight differences but there were not major contradictions at all. Basically the stories were the same." Mr Wright stated that once again the police report tells us to the contrary. (referring to the police report questions and answers) Based on these concerns Mr Wright and the Strobels have prepared seven suggestions to present to the City Council for implementation to insure that the problems of this investigation are never repeated. (1) First and foremost, the City must address the difficult conflict-of-interest problem frequently encountered by law enforcement authorities in small communities such as this. (2) Second, the City must insist that all officers of whatever law enforcement agency, who come to and participate in the investigation by the city police department of any crime scene, be required to include a written report of their investigation, etc. (3) Third, the City must demand closer scrutiny of the investigative officers' determination of what evidence will be removed from a crime scene. (4) Fourth, the City should require that all investigation interviews be taped so as to preserve the actual interview for scrutiny by third parties. (5) Fifth, the City should consider establishing some type of liaison between law enforcement authorities and the victim's family to ensure better communication and better access to the information resulting from the investigation. ~~ (6) Sixth, the City should also ask law enforcement officials to keep some type of log of calls from citizens regarding potential leads pertinent to the investigation. (7) Seventh, the City must have some way to insure that the testimony offered by its police officers is consistent with their investigation. Despite some of the amazingly callused and insensitive remarks to the press to the contrary, we are not talking about a football game, we are talking about the life of a young man that was prematurely ended because of the criminal actions of another. The Strobel effort is to see that their son and brother did not die in vain. They asked the City Council to stop the pattern of denial which the family has endured thus far. Please investigate these matters as if your own son and daughter were the one that had been ripped from your side. Justice and the good people of this community demand nothing less. Mr Strobel - When the police investigate, I think they should contact the parents. This was never done, never once were we contacted by the police department. We thought we would be contacted by the prosecutor, but did not, we had to contact the prosecutor after we learned a hearing was held and was not notified. We feel this is in violation to our Civil Rights. Let us have a zone of safety in this community. Thousands of parents send their young kids to go to college in this community. He advocated that highest paid employee of the City of Rexburg should be the Chief of Police and the next highest should be the Fire Department. He advocated that all of the policemen should be paid a living wage at least equal to that paid on the hill with good benefits. He said he believed that the Chief of Police should be college trained, just like the city engineer. He should have a degree in Law Enforcement and Criminology. When Policemen are hired, they should have no prior criminal records, they should have good grades in high school and should work toward a system that they have at least a minimum of a Junior College degree. The community deserves this. Policemen should have never used alcohol or drugs and should be willing to enforce the alcohol, drugs and tobacco laws of the state. They should not be sympathetic to the criminal classes. The prosecutors, city attorneys and police department should investigate where these people are getting their illegal drugs. He would like to see the police report as to where James Walters got his alcohol and drugs from. No mercy to the criminal class unless they reveal. He and his wife had suffered and they want something positive to come out of his death. The public needs to be protected. Something must be done. He asked the council to see that the laws would be enforced and no longer drunks would be permitted to have licenses. No department of any city can't stand improvement. Reed Hill - 279 Rodney Drive - He is acquainted with both the Strobel Family and the Walters Family. As he reviewed the report of the way the police handled the shooting of Joshua Strobel, he was amazed and concerned at how rapidly they handled the investigation and concluded within hours after the incident that it was conclusively accidental that took the life of an innocent boy. In comparison with the murder that took place in the Millhollow Trailer Court, in which Mr Luna was charged with murder and held without bail with murder charges while the investigation continued for several weeks. He did realize under protection of the 5th Amendment, Mr Walters is a free man. Was Mr Luna given the same chance to plea to a lesser charge of involuntary man slaughter? Was Patrick Hall, ten years ago, given this same privilege? It appears that our police department may have pushed the Strobel shooting investigation and charges too hastily, knowing that Walters would plea guilt to involuntary manslaughter, knowing that a jury would never have a chance to hear the facts, and the testimony of witnesses. He felt there were too many inconsistencies. I feel that a Grand Jury investigation would be in order to be conducted on the evidence of shootings and someone should be accountable for the improprieties of this investigation. Brad Liljenquist stated he would like the Strobel family and the Walters family to know that the council is sympathetic to the situation. We are glad you are here tonight and we appreciate the information you have given us. Procedures will be looked at and he felt something good could come out of this. i ,~ ~,. 1 {~- ~,,' Mayor Boyle told them that the city has no jurisdiction at all in any felony. The only thing we have control over is the police department and the procedures and they will be reviewed. Glen Pond commented that relative to Mr Wright's suggestions, he would hope that we would take all of those seriously. Probably we should have been doing those all the time and if we are not doing those, we should review the circumstances as to why those things are not being followed. If there are things we need to do in the city and within the department, we need to take those actions. Hopefully positive things can come. He did not think that the council thought that we have a perfect police department. There is room for improvement and hopefully we will find the ways to make a good department. It was suggested that we hire college graduates, and it would be nice to do that. Unfortunately we work under severe budget constraints and we work toward finding adequate funding to hire good people and hopefully we have good people on the force. They are young and we realize that and they are always in training because there are better paying jobs that are available when you get better trained employees. We will continually try to train, so that our police department is the best in the state. Mr Strobel asked, if the council would promise that if someone else is killed in this community, that the police will contact the victim's parents. He apologized for the city and felt that was an error. He thought they had thought Ed Strobel had been contacted through his family and did not pursue that directly with you. In all fairness they should have addressed Ed Strobel personally, and that should be a part of our policy. Lisa Strobel stated that they had been contacted by the hospital at 12:50 and 1:10 A. M. but not by the police. They could not find Ed and Shawna, they were in Utah. She did not get a call from the police department until 4:00 A.M. and David Walters had been called at 2:00 A.M. Nyle Fullmer - He would take responsibility for the Police Department, because he believed that we have the best one in the State. We have good officers and they try hard. Recognize that they have on going training all the time. They try the very best they can. He believed that they are honest conscientious people and he believed that their leadership is good. There has been incurrence that we have mislead or have tainted evidence and that improprieties were done intentionally, and he did not believe that is the case. There is always room for improvement. In every walk of life that is the case. Recognizing that we have probably fewer homicides in our community than probably any place else in the state. It is a difficult and rare opportunity and he believed they did the best that they could but possibly there was room for improvement, obviously. He told them they had his personal guarantee, as the Police Commissioner, that the council will review everything that has been said tonight and if policy needs to be changed, it will be changed and it will be gone over in depth and detail with the Chief and the rest of the leadership of the Police Department. Our hearts go out to you as a Strobel Family and to the Walters Family. It bothers me to have anyone think that anyone intentionally mislead or tried to do something illegal or dishonest, because he did not believe it happened. He believed that we are all trying to work together in the community to make it a better place and to improve the situation for all of us. Marsha Sparhawk - 37 South 3rd East - She believed that the Strobel case is the worst case scenario of what we have seen take place in Rexburg. You could go down a list of cases that have been handled very very badly by the police department to the point that they have been on the Tonight Show. She thought the police department was a disgrace. It isn't what you know, but who you know. She thought the police department should be completely and thoroughly investigated. There is a lot of wrong doing here and all the focus is on the Strobel case and they are at the meeting in support of the Strobel family, but the city council needs to go back and look at a lot of the cases that have come before the City of Rexburg and they are a disgrace to the community. Roger Hoopes - He thought it might be appropriate if you heard something from the Police Department's point of view. At the time the Strobel case came about, he was the Deputy Prosecutor, Chief Trial Deputy, in charge of prosecuting the case. He wanted to make a few comments. First to give his sympathy to the Strobel Family. He had expressed this to them before during the course of the investigation and in the course of the proceedings. He had met with several members of the family. It was a tragedy and senseless and cannot really be explained. He realized that no one's opinion would be changed. He felt the City Council should be allowed to hear both sides. If the only thing he knew about this case is what he had read in the newspaper or what he had heard on the street, he too would be shocked and would wonder why our police department did some of the things they did. The police department's side has never been published and never been heard. The reason is because he would never prosecute a case or litigate a case in the newspaper. The Police Department, being a professional group of policemen, have the same attitude. They are not going to publish the facts; and they are not going to answer the innuendos and speak and have this case litigated in the newspaper. Hence, all that we have heard has been one sided - the part that has been accepted and published by the news media. He briefly told the council what took place in this matter. When a tragedy like this occurs, there are a lot of things going on all at once. On that night of the early morning hours, the police department was notified of a drive-by shooting. There were two officers in the city on duty at that time and there was one Madison County deputy on duty. They went immediately to the scene of the crime. Because it was reported as a drive-by shooting, the State Police notified, people were coming from Idaho Falls and when the police arrived at the scene, there was a young man severely injured and the police followed the proper procedure. The very first thing they need to do in all cases, is take care of the victim. The second priority is to secure the scene of the crime. The police went to work on that immediately. In the mean time the two policemen on duty are junior officers and they immediately got in touch with their Sergeant. Both Sergeants of the police department were called. Immediately they called the Lieutenant and the Lieutenant immediately called the captain. All of this is taking place within the matter of seconds. It is unfortunate that Strobel family wasn't contacted, if in fact it occurred as being stated to you tonight. One of the police sergeants, Sergeant Haderlie, when the Captain got there, he assigned Sergeant to take care of the family and take care of Joshua to go to the hospital and follow the E.M.T. to make sure the family was notified. Officer left the scene with the ambulance and goes to the hospital, while the other officers are back at the scene securing the scene and starting an investigation. Officer Haderlie arrives at the hospital with the ambulance, and tells the personnel that he needs to notify the family - that they need to find identification. Someone at the hospital told him, they know who he is and will notify the family. What we would like you to do is to go out and get the parking lot cleared because Life Flight is coming in and we have got to have a place for it to land. He immediately goes out and clears the parking lot so Life Flight can come in. As he comes back into the hospital, waiting for Life Flight to come, he is met by the victim's brother, the victim's bishop who had been notified, and learns that the victim's parents are in Salt Lake and cannot be notified. He then follows the victim and to his knowledge the notification of the family had been done. As he had indicated, there was one officer from the Sheriff's department that was on duty. He assisted initially in securing the scene of the crime. Mr Wright is correct, Herb Gee did not file a report, because this occurred in the City jurisdiction, it was a city case, and the city was in charge. He was assisting the best he could. As the officers were arriving and someone was taking care of the victim the best they could, he assisted the best he could and asked people to move out of the way, move back, move your vehicles, he confronted James Walters. At that time James Walters was just one of the 50 or 60 people standing around. That was his contact with James Walters. The Walters family does not live in the City limits. As the investigation continues, they became aware that James was a suspect, mostly because f~/4~ el \ Brad Hoopes, Jackie Freeman and Lance Turman had returned to tell the police what happened and it became apparent that James was a suspect and his family living outside of the city, Deputy Gee took it upon himself to go up to the Walters home to see if James was there, because he was a suspect. That is how Mr Walters first became aware that his son was a suspect or involved in it. The police called Roger at approximately 2:00 A. M. in the morning and discussed with him what had happened. He spent over an hour with him on the telephone but did not go down to the police station until early that morning 5:30 or 6:00 A.M. He did not meet personally with Mr Walters that evening or the next day or never did meet with him personally about this matter. After Mr Walters was awakened by the deputy and found that his son was a suspect, he apparently went down to the courthouse. Mr Hoopes understood that he waited in dispatch area in the Sheriff's department for a considerable amount of time. It was only after James had been apprehended and made a confession and they had made a determination that they were not going to release him, and were going to make an arrest that night and as he was brought over to the jail that is the first time the police had any contact with Mr Walters. Mr Hoopes was not there but he understood from the Captain that informed Mr Walters that they were placing his son under arrest and were going to incarcerate him and that they thought it would be best for his interest and everyone's interest if he stayed in jail that night. Mr Walter's response was he should be in jail and I don't intend to take him home or try to. That was the sum total of the police's conversation with Mr Walters. The cooler was taken from the pickup at the time of the arrest. Sergeant Haderlie was back from the hospital now and the arrest took place at Circle K. As is standard procedure, after Mr Walters was taken from his vehicle, the police did not just leave the vehicle in the parking lot and walk away from it. In a case like this it needs to have an initial search and inventory of the vehicle and then it was impounded. Office Haderlie found in the vehicle at the time he searched it the weapon which was taken down to the police department. He found a cooler, which contained perishable food items that you would take on a hunting trip. There was nothing that was apparently involved in the crime. The police did not want to be responsible maintaining perishable items. They looked through it carefully and there was nothing that was pertinent to the crime. It was taken from the vehicle into the patrol car by Office Haderlie and at the time James was incarcerated it was given to the father. Roger later inquired if there was anything that was remotely associated with the crime in the cooler. There was not, it was simply perishable food items. At the time the first officer arrived and he was securing the body and securing the scene and taking care of the victim, two young men approached him. Those young men, we later found out, were the friends of Joshua that were with him that night. They approached the officer and said they were with Joshua and needed to talk to him. At that time, all of the police officers had not arrived. This young officer was trying to secure the scene and trying to do his duty. He said, "I want to talk to you young men, I am terribly busy, if you will wait around a few minutes until I get things settled down". That happened within the first few minutes of the crime. Later after Joshua had left in the ambulance, these two young men went up to the same officer and asked him if they could go to the hospital with their friend Joshua and the officer said yes but if you have anything that we should talk about, please come back and get in touch with me and then they left to go to the hospital. He never did see them after that. As the investigation continued, within 2 or 3 hours or less than that, they had found James Walters and found the weapon and they had received from Mr Walters a confession. There were three people that had the most pertinent information. They were the individuals standing around James at the time the shooting occurred - Jackie Freeman, Bard Hoopes and Lance Turman. After the shooting occurred those individuals left the scene of the crime, but they all came back to the police and talked to the the police because they had pertinent information. Neither of these two young men did ever come back and talk to them. I would assume that if they had pertinent information that they would have done so or that their parents would have brought them in. The policemen / ,,., ~~; I .+~ w~...~ have been accused in the newspaper of not following up on those leads. The policemen have been accused tonight of not following up on those two leads. Even with all the publicity which has taken place with regard to those people, they have never come forward, and no one has ever said that they had anything pertinent to say. By the time they were back the police had obtained a confession. The police had obtained a weapon and they had a suspect in custody. It has been reported that the police did not follow up on a shooting at McDonald's. That is not true, they did. Roger was the one that learned about that. A member of the Strobel family mentioned that when we spent three hours with the larger group. That afternoon, immediately after the meeting, he had gone to the police department and asked them about that shooting. They said they did not recall anything about it but would certainly check it out. They looked through the police records, there was nothing in their records indicating that James Walters had been involved in that. Not being satisfied, they looked through the court records to see if anything had gone through the sheriff's department. There was nothing there. They then went down to McDonald's and talked to the proprietor to that business and asked him if their window or sign was shoot at or anything. He told him he had been there 3 1/2 years and he did not recall anything about that incident. We looked, we checked, we tried, we had no record of it. The only comment he had at that point is that things that have been heard tonight are not new to us. Mr Wright has filed a report to the Attorney General's office. In that report was included a police drawing that we have seen tonight. All of the police investigation reports and all of the matters were reviewed by the Attorney General and responded to Mr Wright (letter on file). Suggestions have been made that certain changes need to be made in the Police Department and all of those suggestions are not without merit. I am sure the council will look into it. Our criminal justice system and police department are certainly not perfect. There is always room for improvement. On this occasion and this investigation has been reviewed by a lot of people and reviewed by the Attorney General's Office and has not been found lacking. Your Police Department did an outstanding job. With regard to what Mr Hill said, regarding the Luna case. Mr Luna is not in prison. He is in the county jail awaiting sentencing. His sentencing is scheduled for next month and consistent with Roger's policy, he is not going to comment on that case any further because it has not gone through the Judicial System. Only the people who don't understand the two cases can compare them because when the police reports are read and the facts are understood, those two cases are as different as night and day. Dirk Strobel - Cindy Boyle called up about the drive-by shooting. Walters did shoot at the sign and probably did not hit it. Andrew Wolford - He was with Joshua. He had talked to Haderlie after the shooting and he waited to talk to him for about one hour. He felt it was the police's responsibility to call him. Ed Strobel - He wanted to remind the City Council that there were 60 or 70 people there to witness the shooting and not one witness was called to that hearing. All is not well in the City of Rexburg. Merle Jeppesen- He had talked to Herb Gee. He said he was the second person there and stayed there. He is a good friend of Walters and talked to him for about 30 minutes. Walters talked like nothing happened and had no sorrow. He said there was nothing he could do, so he went home. He felt the police sure left out a lot of information, if they would have taken the time to investigate before they made the ruling, so nothing else could be done. What Strobels want and the Community wants is not to have it happen again and for the police to be aware of it and the investigators to check a little more thoroughly. Nyle Fullmer told them we would follow through with it and take all of the suggestions. He encouraged them to take it to the County Commissioners. ~'`? ~~ RE: LIFE INSURANCE WITH THE NEW MEDICAL PLAN EXPLAINED Richard asked the council about the Life Insurance that comes with our new Medical plan. It is just for the employee. We already have a plan with the employee and the family we are getting for a small fee. It was decided to keep both plans for the present time. Discussion on the new medical insurance. RE: TIME CHANGED FOR CITY COUNCIL MAY 19TH It was decided that the second meeting in May be held at 7:00 A. M. because of Seminary Graduation. After a discussion Glen Pond recommended we give the employees Recreation Coupons worth $25.00 this year. RE: DISCUSSION OF PUTTING A USED ARMY TANK IN A CITY PARK The mayor told the council the Veterans want to give us a used army tank to put in the park. It was decided to table a decision until the next meeting. RE: LIONS CLUB TO BUILD ANOTHER SHELTER IN PORTER PARK The Rexburg Lions Club want to build another shelter in Porter Park. A motion was made by Nyle Fullmer to approve them putting it in the park, but they need to coordinate it with Farrell and Clair, seconded by Bruce Sutherland. All Aye RE: STOP LIGHT BY WAL MART The mayor discussed the Stop Light. We have had a call from Arbys. If we know they are in the process of putting in the light we will let Arbys build. J. D. talked to the attorney of Western Land Holdings. They have asked Wal Mart to send a copy of the plans for the light to Western Land Holdings so they could review it and then they are going to ask Forsgren to get two more bids on alternate designs. They think the $200,000 is far too expensive and they do not want to pay their 9~. He had told him that until we have something in writing saying the stop light will be underway by a certain date, he did not think the city council would change their mind. Brad reported on the Golf Course meeting. The high bid for the trailer was $3395. RE: ORDINANCE 744 CHANGING THE ZONING FOR BEEHIVE CREDIT UNION TO BE LOCATED OFF OF CENTER AND 1ST SOUTH Mayor Boyle read Ordinance 744 changing the zoning for Beehive Credit Union to be located off of Center and 1st South AN ORDINANCE AMENDING AND CHANGING THE ZONING MAP OF THE CITY OF REXBURG, IDAHO, AND PROVIDING THAT THE ZONED DESIGNATION OF THAT CERTAIN PROPERTY HEREINAFTER DESCRIBED, SITUATE IN REXBURG, MADISON COUNTY, IDAHO, BE CHANGED AS HEREINAFTER DESIGNATED; AND PROVIDED WHEN THIS ORDINANCE SHALL BECOME EFFECTIVE. A motion was made by councilman Bruce Sutherland and seconded by Nyle Fullmer that the rules requiring an ordinance of a general and permanent nature to be read on three occasions be dispensed with and that said ordinance be numbered 744. Those voting aye: Farrell Young Brad Liljenquist Glen Pond Nyle Fullmer Bruce Sutherland Those voting nay: none Ordinance 744 was then placed before the council. The mayor then called for the voting for final passage of the ordinance, and the motion was made by Bruce Sutherland and seconded by Brad Liljenquist that ordinance 744 be passed. Those voting aye: Farrell Young I ~. Brad Liljenquist Glen Pond Nyle Fullmer Bruce Sutherland The roll showed all councilman present voting "Aye" carried, the mayor declared that the majority of all the members of the city council had voted for the passage of said ordinance was duly and regularly passed. Mayor declared the motion carried. A motion was made by Nyle Fullmer and seconded by Bruce Sutherland to pay the bills. All Aye A motion was made by Nyle Fullmer to adjourn, seconded by Glen Pond. All Aye. -~ Mayor, Nil L. Boyle , City Cler Rose gl III [1