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As the City of Wyoming strides into 2024 the city leaders met to assign city council members to posts and adopt fees and handle a host of other city organizational measures, January 2.  Council meetings remain the first and third Tuesdays at 7 p.m. and Claire Luger continues as vice mayor for another term in the event Mayor Lisa Iverson has a conflict.

The council was happy to be able to sign-off on a recommended hire of a police officer to fill a vacant slot on the department roster since December 2022.  Christopher Hirsch has some law enforcement experience and he comes on at $31.17 an hour.  He starts in mid-January.  There’s still one vacancy for a Wyoming officer.

Police Chief Neil Bauer shared details of a new outreach effort starting in Wyoming as a “multi-cultural advisory committee.”

The city council voiced their support of Bauer after hearing the idea is to be pro-active,  and engage an evolving community through improved face-to-face communication and learn of civilian concerns while connect-

ing with groups.  Chief Bauer applauded the Forest Lake School District Superintendent for cooperating on Wyoming Elementary demographics data sharing, helping with introductions and creating the committee.  The first official meeting should be sometime later this month.

Council member Dennis Schilling said the council will watch and see how things progress and what is learned.

Bauer added that at the ‘Night to Unite’ events he has seen little diversity in attendees— yet he knows the make-up of the cultural foundations locally are changing.  The elementary school, for example, has some 14 percent black, indigenous, and people-of-color (BIPOC) self identified registered families. Creating opportunities to have conversations can only be beneficial to decision-makers, Bauer added.

The time commitment so far has mostly been Bauer’s and he said he will report back once committee members have a chance to layout a schedule and outline of topics the community needs to engage in.

Council member Linda Nanko Yeager asked about measuring outcomes and how will the council determine if this is a success.  

Bauer responded the effort is more about quality of law enforcement, and not gathering quantitative information like what a survey might collect. Through the committee the city will ask for input and the committee participants will learn more about law enforcement’s reasoning and justification behind tools and tactics.

Council also gladly acknowledged a $1,000 donation from Maranatha Church designated for the public safety fund, which is used for police/fire employee recognition, staff events, etc.

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