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Mr. Culver explained that, as a representative of the City Engineers Association of <br />Minnesota, he actually testified against the 2019 bill that passed. The language that <br />finally ended up in Statute was actually a combination of a couple of bills that had <br />been introduced in the proper course of time through the process. There were <br />several hearings about it over the House and Senate committees. The feedback he <br />got when he was there from his own representative was that they were tired of <br />listening to engineers asking them to let the engineers study it again. His testimony <br />at the time was they should really give the engineers a chance to reconnect as a <br />group, as an industry and with the special interest groups to talk about what the <br />statutory stream of it should be, because the cities felt very strongly and counties <br />feel the same way about the fill that talks about the counties setting the speed limits <br />on their roads. This is not something that should be done piecemeal. This is not <br />something that one county or city should have a different set of speed limits than <br />the city or county next to them because it gets away from uniformity of the law <br />which then there really is confusion out there and people do not know what the <br />speed limit is if the person happens to not to see the sign, for whatever reason. That <br />was their major concern and he was told in very blunt words that the Legislature is <br />just tired of listening to the engineers and that the Legislatures were going to fix <br />the problem and this was their way of fixing the problem. He appreciated Mr. <br />Kysylyczyn coming done to discuss this. <br />Mr. Culver indicated that enforcement is going to be the biggest issue and how will <br />the City enforce this and when will it be enforced. How will the City get the police <br />officers to embrace some targeted enforcement in that and will clearly have to be a <br />part of the whole picture if the City is going to make the speed limit actually <br />effective. <br />Member Cicha thought it sounds like this is something the Commission should at <br />least hear from the Police Chief about because as he understood it, the Police <br />Department is against this and he would like to hear their reason why. He thought <br />hearing from the Police Chief would help in making a recommendation. <br />Chair Ficek wondered if this would be a good opportunity to collaborate with the <br />Police Department Commission on. He indicated he did not have any idea on what <br />that might look like though. <br />Mr. Culver explained the only thing he will say regarding the Police Commission <br />is that he is not exactly sure what their prevue is on that Commission and what their <br />official task is. <br />Vice Chair Joyce asked if the 2021 speed study includes traffic flow, traffic timing, <br />and other things come into play. <br />Mr. Freihammer explained the data the City collected, most of it was done in 2017 <br />and it was updated in 2020, which was during COVID, and may be the reason why <br />Page 3 of 6 <br />