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Regular City Council Meeting Monday, November 14,2011 Page 5 Discussion included minimal savings for 2011 projects (Dale Street and some mill and overlay projects), but most within engineer's estimates; costs for asphalt and fuel currently stabilized but not anticipated to be long-term savings areas; comple- tion date of the Fairview Corridor project anticipated by the end of summer 2012, with refined scheduling required due to Ramsey County's delay of the proposed County Road B-2 project; and impacts continuing to be felt from the state gov- ernment shutdown during the summer of 2011. At the request of City Manager Malinen, Mr. Schwartz reviewed potential as- sessment project areas to benefiting properties, with some potentially on County Road B-2 from Snelling to Fairview Avenues, and Snelling Avenue from Transit Avenue to County Road C-2. Johnson moved, Pust seconded, approval of the 2012 Public Works Work Plan as presented. Roll Call Ayes: Willmus; Pust; Johnson; McGehee; and Roe. Nays: None. 8. Consider Items Removed from Consent f. Authorize Police Department to Accept an Auto Theft Prevention Program Grant At the request of Mayor Roe, City Manager Malinen briefly summarized the re- quest as detailed in the RCA dated November 14, 2011. Mr. Malinen noted that the requested action was amended to authorize the City Manager and Mayor to executive the documents; and advised that there would be no in-kind cost to the City with this grant. Police Chief Mathwig responded to individual City Councilmember questions and provided a visual sample of one such cameras recently mounted on the exterior of squads in the City of Maplewood to scan license plates and automatically run them through the data base for stolen vehicles, warrant arrests, driving after revo- cation and other violations, and if found, it would audibly alert an officer of the vehicle. Chief Mathwig noted that officers currently manually scanned vehicles, and this would allow them to be more efficient and be alert for other areas of con- cern in the community while the camera scanned vehicles. Councilmember McGehee expressed concern an officer would not be paying at- tention to their driving, but instead looking at their laptop rather than the road; and expressed further concern about subsequent high speed vehicle chases, citing recent examples. Chief Mathwig noted that the camera simply took the place of the officer manual- ly scanning vehicles and advised that the City had in place a restricted chase poll.-