“Michael, somebody needs to explain this to me,” said Tony Thomas with a smile. He had been huddling with fellow Aldermen Mary Ellen Sprague and Larry Stuber going over item number 13 on this week’s agenda:

 

 

Thomas’ question to City Manager Michael Brown about the “expensive blanket” was the source of much amusement around the conference table during council’s pre meeting today prompting one staffer to explain, “Maybe we shouldn’t call it a blanket.”

 

That’s because it is actually a bullet resistant fabric shield or as Major Gerry Long puts it, “For clarification, this is a piece of equipment that is requested by our SWAT team and it is in fact a ballistic blanket that deflects rounds.” Long says the shield can be used to protect several people in rescues and other operations while officers are being shot at and is being paid for with a state grant.

 

In the end, City Council signed off on the purchase.

 

 

Council also agreed to spend $42,000 for a company to come up with a master plan for how police should use their buildings and resources. The department is expanding into a former USDA site off 52^nd Street and the report will look at what will be deployed from there and at each of the department’s precincts and other buildings.

 

The report should be done this summer.

 

 

It will be summertime before restaurants that act like bars will have to comply with a new law designed to keep booze and people under 21 separate.

 

City Council was expected to have a first draft of the new restaurant rules for their meeting today but staff says it’s not written yet. They know what they want to do; require restaurants that exhibit bar-like behavior to make sure they keep underage folks out but just how they’ll do that they still don’t know.

 

They plan to have more meetings with businesses and actually write the ordinance before it comes back to council in June.