Waite Park City Council Approves SRO Removal, Lobbying Help at Short Monday Night Meeting

(KNSI) — The Waite Park City Council held a 12-minute meeting on Monday night, breezing through five consent agenda items, including a request from staff and the police department to terminate the Joint Powers Agreement held with St. Cloud Area School District 742 requiring school resource officers at buildings located within the city, such as Discovery Community School and the McKinley Alternative Learning Center.

The city says it was advised by its civil attorney and the League of Minnesota Cities to take the action due to increased liability to the department’s officers, as well as the city as a whole, from a recent change in state law.

As part of the new education bill, student discipline laws were altered, preventing a school resource officer from placing students in the prone position or using “comprehensive restraint on the head, neck and across most of the torso.”

Jeff Potts, executive director of the Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association, wrote a letter to the governor voicing his concerns saying, “Prohibiting the most basic measure of safely restraining and controlling the aggressor in a fight severely impacts the SRO’s ability to intervene, stop the altercation, and protect everyone’s safety.”

Other departments suspending SRO programs include St. Cloud and St. Joseph.

The council also approved contracting with Flaherty and Hood, P.A. for legislative services in 2024. The agency will help lobby the Minnesota State Legislature to fund improvements at the Ledge Amphitheater.

The 6,000-seat venue is trying to make parking lot improvements and add concession and restroom facilities. Flaherty and Hood helped lobby for bonding money for the primary construction. The city got $5 million in Phase I and $2.5 million of the $7.9 million it asked for last year in Phase II.

The amphitheater has been using food trucks to supplement the limited concession space it does have. It had been leasing vacant land from a car dealership for overflow parking.

The Ledge has proven to be a great success as it nears the end of its second full season. City officials had initially estimated it would get around 80,000 visitors per year. It will likely come close to that as early as 2026, just from concerts put on by National Events.

Waite Park will pay Flaherty and Hood $17,500 for the upcoming work.

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