Police Commission Minutes 12/01/04

The Rochester Police Commission held their regular monthly meeting on December 1, 2004. Present at this meeting was Chairman Dumont, Comm. Flanagan, Comm. Stenhouse, Capt. Pease, Capt. Allen, Capt. Taylor, Lt. Gould, Lt. Dumas, Lt. Callaghan, Attorney Grossman, Secretary Warburton, members of the Department, the public and the media.

Comm. Flanagan MOVED to accept the minutes of the November 3, 2004, regular meeting as written. SECOND by Chairman Dumont. The motion PASSED unanimously.

A. Building Update: Capt. Allen reported that the punch list items are going well. The Commissions inquired into a couple of items they have noticed have still not been addressed; for example; the carpet in the elevator and the odor of gas in the building. Captain Allen stated that the elevator carpet is slated to be finished soon. The gas odor is still a puzzle. The manufacturer of the vents did a site visit. It is thought that the drains in the building are designed to stay moist and if they go dry they may give off this odor. There is not much that we can do. We are monitoring it. If it continues to be problematic, we will address it.

Chief Dubois noted that we are finishing up our first year of qualification in the range and it is going well. “I was the last to qualify.” We have reduced the amount of overtime that has traditionally been spent for this purpose.

1. Pursuit policy. Chief Dubois stated this item was discussed at the last meeting and held with no action. He advised the Commission that we are ready to talk about this item at the Commission’s pleasure.

A. Swear in New Officer; Paul Kusnierz. The oath for Patrol Officer was administered to Officer Paul Kusnierz by Commissioner Flanagan. Paul’s family was on hand to participate in the badge pinning.

Chief Dubois stated that we have some presentations to make this evening. He said, “it is nice to see the crowd of family members, friends and Department staff present to acknowledge the good work we do. Families are a good part of that and we appreciated you being here.” He offered an apology on behalf of the City Manager who had planned to be present, but could not due to a family emergency.

1. Volunteer Recognition. Chief Dubois asked Judi Blair to come to the podium. He advised those present that Judi comes to us with some law enforcement back ground, having been married to a career police officer. We have a lot of love in our hearts for Ted, and having you in the building as a reminder of him is particularly nice.

The President of the United States has been including discussions of volunteer recognition in many of his public appearances. There have been training sessions throughout the county and communities asking that we serve mankind. Judi does that each day she works with us. There is no monetary benefit to the work she does for us. When we think of the term “service before self,” Judi comes to mind. We appreciate all she does for us and have a small plaque to present in recognition of all that she does.

2. Support Person of the Year. We call our civilian staff support staff to encompass all the different things they do. Chief Dubois requested that the Communications Supervisor, Jayne Young come up. He noted that Jayne’s family could not be present, but acknowledged and thanked their support which allows her to do the job she does.

Jayne brings a lot of enthusiasm and real motivation to the job, for herself and her staff, every day. For those folks who have had the chance to see the Disney movie, “Finding Nemo” Jayne is our “Dory.” She symbolizes and has character traits that are very similar.

During this year, Jayne attended some training at Primex, our Worker’s Compensation carrier. She was so impressed with this training on motivation that she asked to review it and prepare a presentation. She did an outstanding job designing a lesson plan for the employees so that everyone would benefit.

“It’s no small thing to train police officers. In fact they are one of the most difficult groups that society has to work with, from a training perspective. We wish to recognize Jayne for the commitment she brings to the workplace every day and for the leadership she has shown. She took a difficult task and succeeded with it outside of her comfort zone.” Jayne was presented with a small plaque.

3. Blair Memorial Award. Ted Blair was an employee of the Rochester Police Department for his entire career. He rose to the rank of Chief and led the Department with pride, integrity and honor, as a supervisor and a Chief. He embodied traits that all police officers should have.

With the support of the Commission, this award was created in Chief Blair’s memory. It is a non-traditional award in law enforcement. Traditionally officers see awards for lifesaving, valor, bravery or teamwork. Those all are important recognitions and many police departments do them. This award is considered by many in the Department as the most prestigious award. It honors compassion, commitment, duty and dedication to your fellow man, a consistent display of respect for others, honesty and integrity in all that an officer does. Ted Blair did all those things.

It was the opinion of his peers and the selection committee that the recipient of this award this year is Captain Jeffrey Taylor. He was recently promoted to Captain. He has a lot of responsibility to shoulder. We offer our best wishes and congratulations to him for being recognized as the recipient of this award. The plaque with a picture of Chief Blair was presented by Chief Blair’s father, Theodore W. Blair, Sr. to Captain Taylor. There is also a ribbon for his uniform.

A small bouquet of flowers was presented to Capt. Taylor’s wife for her support of him, which allows him to be the recipient of this award. We appreciate all that the families do and we don’t say it enough.

Chairman Dumont noted that Officer Christopher Kelby and Officer William Burke had both recently resigned to accept positions with the NH Department of Safety, Division of Motor Vehicles.

D. Uniform Equipment: Request by Local 580 for knit hats; Discussion. Chief Dubois stated that the Local has requested to wear a knit had during the cold months. We currently issue ear muffs or warmers, for that.

The Local has asked to purchase the hats on their own. I have concerns with officer purchasing things on their own that is not consistently issued. We’ve done that now with detail shirts, turtlenecks, leather jackets, scarves. The list is getting bigger and bigger and we are losing control of the uniform, which I think is an important part of being an officer. I do not support them purchasing them on their own. I am in support of looking into purchasing something that is consistent and works well with the uniform. I was hoping to discuss that and get some feedback from you tonight.

Chief Dubois said “we do issue ear protection and cover’s for the head. It has worked for my entire career. We are not sending them out unprotected. I’m also not sure of the number of people in the Union that are interested in this hat. That’s why I wanted to get it on the agenda as quickly as I could.”

Comm. Stenhouse asked are these like watch caps? Will it replace standard ear muffs? Chief Dubois advised they would. Comm. Stenhouse stated it would favor it with a police logo.

Comm. Flanagan MOVED to purchase the knit hats, with a police logo and make them part of the uniform, and replace the ear muffs. SECOND by Comm. Stenhouse and PASSED unanimously.

E. Education Incentive: Off. Brenden Bentz; Review and Approve. Officer Bentz submitted his grades and diploma awarding him his Bachelor of Science degree. He meets the criteria for the education incentive.

1. SOP 118: Incident Command System (NEW). Lt. Dumas offered that this is a new SOP that we are required to have in place to meet federal guidelines for grant funding under homeland security. It is not CALEA driven, but it meets the standards. We had a sample policy sent to us and adapted it for our needs. The Fire Department uses the ICS also.

Comm. Stenhouse stated that the City has an Emergency Operations Center. Does this follow that or deviate from it in any way? And has the Fire Department signed off on it?

2. SOP 119: Use of Meeting Rooms (NEW). Chief Dubois said “this policy was designed to control our meeting room space in the new facility. We had a public group request the use of the room and without the policy in place, there was a potential conflict. It is better to have the policy than just discretionary direction from me. It mirrors a policy that is in place at the Library.”

1. Patrol Bureau: Lt. Callaghan presented this report. He said that comp stat shows we’ve had a 30% reduction in accidents on Route 11, since July 1.

The downtown has been the target of a rash of burglaries. We have ongoing suppression patrols, using officers to identify potential suspects. We’ve also had an increase in motor vehicle break ins. Lt. Gould has come up with a strategy to address that. Officer vacancies have left us with openings in some of our special teams.

Comm. Flanagan asked if there is a beat cop walking the North and South beats. Lt. Callaghan stated on most nights they are, but not every night. Comm. Flanagan asked if there was a reason for not doing it every night. Lt. Callahgan responded that call volume and call type, as well as staffing levels, all can have an effect on that. In the last two weeks we have entered 40 incidents of walking the beat.

Comm. Stenhouse asked if anything could be gained by using overtime monies to augment what we are doing downtown? Chief Dubois stated it would be worth the effort, but we have cautioned Lt. Callaghan to be discreet with our tactics. Rest assured that has been considered. We are monitoring this from manpower and fiscal stand points.

2. Support Bureau: Capt. Taylor reported calls for the month of November were high in Communications. We prosecuted 110 defendants before the District Court. Of those, 74 were guilty, one was not guilty, 14 were nol prossed and 21 had other dispositions, including default.

In other areas, the domestic violence unit had seven new cases, and closed seven cases, resulting in 14 misdemeanor charges. Our juvenile office is now being served by Det. Eric Dugas. He had 13 arraignments, six adjudicatory hearings with six true findings. Evidence processed 321 pieces of evidence, purging 93 items. Grand Jury had 14 cases presented, and all were true bills.

Lt. Dumas reported on the support side of the bureau. Officer Joshua Ouellette graduated from the Academy and has started the FTO program. He’s doing a fine job. Officer Funk assumed the duties of the HUD program from Off. Triano. He is doing well settling in. We have been addressing computer memory issues for some time. We have finally identified the source and have been monitoring that for the past three weeks. Hopefully the issue will be resolved.

Winter Ban is back in full swing. We issued warnings for approximately one month, the last two weeks of October in preparation and the first two weeks of November. In the first five days, 105 tickets were issued.

Lt. Dumas stated we were almost at full staff prior to the resignations of Officer’s Burke and Kelby. “This has been difficult. I am bothered because both of them were quality police officers and both have history with the City. Both of them gave reasons as the contract being unresolved and the financial difficulty that presents, but more than that was the treatment that they perceived to receive through members of the city council. For that to affect an officer to the point that he or she wants to do police work outside of the city where they grew up bothers me a great deal. I wanted to bring that to your attention.”

Comm. Flanagan inquired into two residents of the City receiving winter ban parking tickets on November 8^th and November 10^th. If no one else was getting them during that time that is not right. Comm. Stenhouse asked if we are going to make this family “whole” for their loss?

Chief Dubois stated they did send me a letter and they paid the tickets. I would point the finger at me for not paying attention to the date. I was paying attention to the tone of the letter and I had the opportunity to catch it, if Lt. Dumas’ direction was not followed. We will check into it.

1. Turn Over. Comm. Flanagan also expressed his disappointment in losing two more officers. He is not upset they are leaving to better themselves. In the past, Chief Dubois has made statements that have been reported in the newspaper, with the Mayor responding that we don’t have a problem here, according to the Chief.

Comm. Flanagan said, “We do have a problem here. If they can leave the City and make a nine thousand-dollar increase, not have to pay insurance, have a take-home car. Our boys are not working for that. I realize that it is a different type of work. At least one of them I know wanted to stay and he made the decision to leave because he had to financially. We are not the highest paid, but we are not the lowest either. They are taking some of the best cops on this earth. Not because it’s not a good place to work, but someone has offered them more money.”

Chief Dubois responded we have lost many in the past ten years, six in the past couple just to one law enforcement agency. We have talked about this a lot. The information that is out in the public forum is inaccurate and I wanted to brief you on that.

Our turnover rate, when compared to the State average is historically quite good. During the budget process several months ago this was brought up by the Mayor and we were right around the state average of 8.5% at the time. Now we are below the average. I’ve seen that quote several times now. It was accurate several months ago. At the present time we are a little more than 15% in turnover. We have not been that high since the year 2001. In ten years we have only been that high twice. One interesting fact that has affected our turnover this year is retirement. We have only had eight retirements in the past ten years, and three of them have been in this year. Almost half of our losses this year are attributed to retirements and that is significant.

We are losing people who are citing in their exit interviews the lack of a contract and financial reasons. This has an effect because we are losing good people that are highly trained that we have invested a lot into. This year we lost qualified SAFE team members that are highly skilled, in sniper and marksman capabilities. From a training standpoint, time and money invested is important.

We do have some issues from a supervisory standpoint to work on. The motivation training by Supervisor Young that we talked about earlier this evening will help us with that. One thing we stress and I’ll stress now. As the contract negotiations get publicly debated, there will be differences of opinion and I encourage and instruct our people to have a first assumption that the opposite point being made, may be because it’s in the best interest of the City. You have to give the other side the benefit of the doubt. The Commission and the public need to know we are going to continue to do that.

I am confident that our officers are doing a good job. We have strong supervision that is highly motivated. I’d be lying of course if I’d said things are all rosy and happy. Our advantage is the strong support we have for the Commission and your handling of the contract and issues in the Police Department. In all sincerity I thank you for the work that you do. We are all looking forward to putting this to rest. It’s important to do for the City.

Chief Dubois said, “too many, is the short answer, but to really answer that would play into rumors. I’m not going to do that. With all due respect, I don’t think they better themselves by leaving here. I would compare this agency to anybody at any level. We have great cops, great support staff, great command staff and political leadership. I don’t think it’s a step up to leave here. However, when you become so de motivated that we can’t re motivate you, then I encourage them to leave because they won’t help us. It’s not good for us to replace them, but we do all we can to control it.”

Chairman Dumont stated next Tuesday night, December 7, 2004, the Commission will be at the Council meeting and hope to present our case. I think we have a good contract and I hope they will listen to us.

2. Public Comments. Chief Dubois briefed the Commission on a discussion that took place during a Public Safety Committee meeting regarding this Department giving poor or inaccurate information regarding minor motor vehicle laws in the City. It was bantered about for quite some time, before a decision was made. It’s important to note that the information we passed on was accurate. We plan to speak to the Chair of this committee to resolve this. The Public Safety Committee performs an important function. I want to ensure the resources they need from this Department are available to them. I wanted you to know what happened in case the discussion comes up elsewhere.

A. Appreciation and Recognition. Letters recognizing Department members this month include: Blair Award - the following officers were nominated by their peers for recognition of the Chief Theodore W. Blair Memorial Award: Capt. Taylor, (recipient), Lt. Dumas, Officers Babine, Bossi & Kelby. The Commission noted it is gratifying to be nominated. Supervisor Jayne Young is thanked for timely response and research of a 911 call. She was also recognized earlier in this meeting as Support Person of the year, 2004. And lastly, the staff of St. Mary’s Church thanks the Department and particularly Lt. Callaghan for his handling of a sensitive but serious investigation at that location.

Comm. Flanagan MOVED to enter a non-public session at 7:50 P.M. for the purpose of personnel and legal matters. SECOND by Comm. Stenhouse. The motion PASSED by roll call vote, Comm. Stenhouse-yes, Comm. Flanagan-yes, Chairman Dumont -yes. The non-public session closed at 9:30 P.M. on a MOTION by Comm. Stenhouse. SECOND by Chairman Dumont and PASSED unanimously.

Comm. Stenhouse MOVED that based on a passing evaluation the 2.5% Compensation Adjustment as outlined in the command contract is granted to Capt. Robert Pease. SECOND by Comm. Flanagan and PASSED unanimously.