Police Commission Minutes 03/04/2004

The Rochester Police Commission held their regular monthly meeting on March 3, 2004. Present at this meeting was Chairman Dumont, Comm. Flanagan, Comm. Stenhouse, Capt. Donlon, Capt. Pease, Lt. Taylor, Lt. Gould, Lt. Dumas, Comm. Supervisor Jayne Young, Attorney Grossman, Secretary Warburton, members of the Department, the public and the media.

Comm. Flanagan MOVED to accept the minutes of the February 4, 2004 regular meeting and the February 12, 2004 special meeting as written. SECOND by Comm. Stenhouse and PASSED unanimously.

A. Building Committee Updates. Capt. Donlon reported that no committee meetings are planned for the near future, until the injunction matter has been settled. A walk through of the building today shows the range is being painted and soundproofing is being installed. There are two Codes issues that will have to be discussed. One, the HVAC for communications and the second is electrical dealing with the generator and back up generator. Comm. Stenhouse inquired if these are cost items and Capt. Donlon said it is unknown at this time.

B. FY 04 Budget Updates: Discussion. Lt. Dumas reported that on February 25, 2004, staff met with Finance Director Brian Lebrun and City Manager Bob Steele on line items in the budget. We sent a request to the City Manager for a supplemental appropriation to balance the outside detail lines. If that appropriation is made we would like to continue with the hiring process, which includes, psychological testing, medical and polygraph for the two officers recently interviewed. It is our goal to get these officers in to the April academy. That will leave just two openings, which we hope to fill at the end of the fiscal year, based on the bottom line remaining in the black.

C. FY 05 Budget Updates: Discussion Chief Dubois and staff met with the City Manager and Brian Lebrun on the FY05 budget. At their meeting on March 2, 2004 Council said they are seeking not more than a 5% increase overall on the city-side of the budget. Our current request is at 17%. We swapped some items in our CIP request, asking for the GPS AVL this year and the crime van next year. The GPS AVL will coincide well with our Project 54. This will cover that hardware for that. We kept Reverse 911 in our request for this year.

The Commission expressed their hope that Chief Dubois and staff will lobby hard for the level of service the city wants us to operate at, and how that translates into cost. If you don’t have all that information you can’t make informed decisions. Lt. Dumas advised the Chief intends to present the menu format, showing our original request, with whatever reductions are made by the City Manager. We are of the understanding the City Manager will allow the presentation.

D. K-9 Program: Housing Donation. This program is still with the Finance committee. Their next meeting is March 9, 2004. At the meeting the committee split the vote three - three, with one member not present. Two dissenting votes felt a second dog was not needed until the first is tapped out. We offered an explanation that in order for the dog to function at top level, particularly given the precise testimony required in court, that you shouldn’t stretch [her] too thin. We are working with the Working Dog Foundation to get more information on that for the next Finance Meeting.

Comm. Flanagan commented that there still seem to be questions regarding costs. This really would be free for three years. We are very fortunate for the assistance. The Council can determine at the end of those three years to continue or not. This is an opportunity for the City and it will be a sad loss to have it tossed by the wayside. A similar program is being run very successfully in neighboring Dover. This is a good thing to have for the city and I can’t understand why they don’t want to.

Lt. Gould agreed, noting that this could also be a cost saving. Currently with an eight hour shift, the K-9 Officer will come back on a call out, at overtime. This has the potential to alleviate that, by having a K-9 available for 16 hours. Furthermore, we have the flexibility to set the schedules for optimum use. There are a lot of ways that we can be flexible if we had two dogs.

E. Volunteer Program, Update The interviews were completed by staff and our first choice is an applicant that can devote eight hours per day, one day a week, indefinitely. This will be particularly effective as we work on compstat modeling. This person is a resident of the City. Legal counsel saw no reason not to proceed when consulted. Capt. Donlon said we do want to approach the City Manager with regard to liability issues before we start. Civilians come under his control. Comm. Stenhouse said that is a wise decision.

F. Reverse 911 Comm. Supervisor Young advised we had an opportunity to apply for a grant from emergency management for this equipment, but there was not enough time to get Council approval to apply, so we missed that window. This was a 50% match grant, and if we applied with fire we would have split the remaining 50% between both Departments. This is in our CIP requests this year and we will continue to seek alternate methods of funding for the same.

Communications Supervisor Jayne Young. A member of the Department for five years, she reports directly to the Chief. She is a working supervisor and oversees the Communications Division. She fills in shifts, as needed which helps on overtime.

Lt. Jeffrey Taylor. A member of the Department for 15 years. Has held key positions in the Department in Detectives and has been a Street Sergeant. He is currently Assistant of Investigations Bureau in charge of priority and high profile cases. He manages grand jury presentation.

Lt. Scott Dumas. A member of the Department for nine years. Has held key positions in the Department in Detectives and as a Street Sergeant. He is currently learning the budget, overseeing training and records while assigned to the Administrative Bureau. Lt. Dumas has some speciality training in Firearms and also commands our TAR Unit and is considered an expert in this area.

Capt. Donlon noted that staff he introduced holds a combined total of 92 years experience with this Department in law enforcement. Everyone works together to keep the Department running at top speed and he personally is proud to be part of that team.

B. Recognition 20-Years of Service; Officer Timothy Morgan. Off. Morgan was called to the dais. Capt. Donlon said he is honored to be part of awarding this plaque because Off. Morgan replaced him in patrol upon his [Donlon’s] promotion to Sergeant. Off Morgan previously worked at Seabrook Station and 1984 was at the height of the civil unrest surrounding nuclear power. Therefore he brought many skills in problem solving when he was hired that he still uses today. For an officer to remain a patrol officer for twenty years, by choice, is a tribute. Off. Morgan has approximately 1,000 hours of training credited to his career, and is well versed in several areas. Highlights of a few, he is a breath instrument operator, a firearms instructor for new and veteran officers, he is certified in CPR and the AED, and he recently completed training and is serving as a member of the Department’s motorcycle program. The plaque reads:

Capt. Donlon stated that “Kip” was a fine Officer. He graduated first in his class at the Academy. He’s been with us for about 5 ½ years. He was selected for investigation work and he attended prosecution school. He was also a lead investigator on the TAR team. Kip is moving on to the Department of Safety, and we would hope that losing Officer’s of Kip’s caliber is not a pattern. We need those folks to stay here. Comm. Flanagan echoed these statements. He said Kip was a hard worker for the City of Rochester. But he and others like him in recent months have moved on to what they feel is better working conditions for them in terms of pay and benefits and hours. We have to work harder to keep these quality officers that we’ve invested so much into.

C. Crime Line Proposal; Donation. Capt. Pease reported that we had asked the evidence technician to have a written plan for the best way to make the move to the new building. We like the idea of bar-coding software because it is a much more efficient method of evidence tracking and the next IMC release will support that. Crime Line has always been supportive of the Department, and helping us to reduce crime in the City. Initially they were looking at donating just the equipment, but we asked them to consider additional accessories, such as the labels and tape. Crime line will be holding a board meeting this week to vote on the final numbers and we should have more information to offer at our next meeting.

D. Highway Safety Grants: Review Proposals. These grants are set to be reviewed by the Public Safety Committee at their meeting on March 4, 2004. The State runs on an October to September fiscal year, so this targets programs to be run next year.

1. SOP 69: Medals and Commendations: Discussion only. We bring this to the Commission for discussion only with regard to members of the Awards Advisory Committee. We have always had one Commissioner on the committee, Comm. Lachapelle. We propose he continue on the committee, as the Chaplain, if he is willing. The Chaplain will have more individual contact with the officers. That leaves us to still select a Commissioner. The final change we recommend is to rotate the bureau commander by using that commander who supervises the member being recognized.

Chairman Dumont supported the changes and asked that Comm. Flanagan represent the Commission on the committee, due to his longevity on the Board. Comm. Flanagan accepted. The SOP will be updated and come back to the Commission in April.

2. SOP 115: PBT’s (Preliminary Breath Testing); Updates, First Reading. These changes come from a model policy from PSTC that mirror changes in legislation. We did see some minor grammatical changes that should be addressed. They don’t change the intent of the policy.

1. Patrol Bureau: Lt. Gould presented this report. She reported that patrol has been very busy over the month, submitting just over five arrests per day. There is a lot of paperwork being generated. Our HUD Program is going very well. In addition to his other sites, Officer Triano is mentoring some of the children and working in the homework lab at the Safe Haven. He is also attending PTA meetings at McClelland School. The K-9 Program was not as active this month due to Officer Wallace being out of State at training. He returned from training in time to welcome a new baby to his family. Fina continues to attend her Monday training. The Rochester Youth Initiative is working with Officer Moors and has just presented their list of programs they would like to run this year. The Commission inquired if volunteers could help with any of activity ongoing in Patrol. Capt. Donlon reported they couldn’t due to the sensitive issues with arrests.

2. Investigations Bureau: Capt. Pease reported that with the transfer of investigators to help the shortages in Patrol, we are down five positions in the bureau. We will also lose the Det. Sgt. when Lt. Gould leaves for Quantico. The bulk of cases being investigated are crimes against persons, specifically sexual crimes. We are receiving 2 to 3 of these per week. We do not have the staff to devote to property crimes. We’ve assigned some cases to the other detectives on specialty assignments, but the fact remains that their regular assignments keep them busy enough to preclude much movement on residual cases. The evidence technician continues to work on purging the locker. The fewer items we have to move, the better.

3. Administrative Bureau: Lt. Dumas presented this report. He noted the $10,000 transfer from regular salaries to overtime that had occurred over the month to assist us with that line shortage. The cost saving measures introduced by the Chief has had an impact. We spent $1,500 our last pay on overtime. The Council received the requested overtime report without comment. Staff completed a records purge in the basement that covered 1992 through 1997. We will institute a more regular purging schedule. Officer Stickles continues to perform well at the Academy. Her graduation is targeted for March 26, 2004. Officer Livingstone was just released to solo patrol, and Officer Lambert is not far behind. The cruiser design has received a lot of positive comments.

4. Communications Bureau: Supervisor Jayne Young reported that there were 4,264 calls for the month, 230 fire calls. This shows an increase of 461 from the same period in 2003 and an increase of 747 over the same reporting period in 2002. We are still short one part time specialist. We are being creative in shift swapping to cover overtime. We paid out 118 hours of overtime, but saved an additional 108 hours. We continue to work on the training for firefighters to be used in the Center during critical incidents. Specialist Griffin will be attending the NCI training this month. The fax machine in the center was replaced this month.

1. Primedia. Lt. Dumas briefly brought this topic up. He advised that it had been referred to the Public Safety Committee as part of the Council’s direction that that committee review all grants for any long-range costs. Councilor Grassie made some inquiries about the grant and then endorsed it. The Program has four distinct networks. One for each of law enforcement, fire, emergency medical and health and sciences. Each network can have 8 - 10 training sessions per month. Frisbie Hospital

A. Appreciation and Recognition. Letters recognizing Department members this month include: The Daigle family offers words of encouragement to the Department. Off. Cormier is recognized Cyndi Paulin for ride-along participation

1. DARE Program, Allen School. Comm. Stenhouse asked that we review a concern from a constituent regarding the cancellation of DARE at the Allen School. It was cancelled last year and again this year. It is possible that if they weren’t scheduled so late in the year that money may still be available to do the program? Capt. Donlon to look into the matter and get back to Comm. Stenhouse.

2. Comments. Comm. Flanagan thanked Comm. Stenhouse for mentioning the reports filed by staff. He is concerned that the credibility of the members is being called into question, when it is suggested that the numbers we’ve provided are bogus, phony or doctored. They shouldn’t have to be subjected to that. He further mentioned we are still waiting for a date from the Council so that the Council and Commission can meet to discuss matters of mutual concern.

Comm. Flanagan MOVED to enter a non-public session at 7:50 P.M. for the purpose of personnel, legal and contractual 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 8:20 P.M. on a MOTION by Comm. Flanagan. SECOND by Comm. Stenhouse and PASSED unanimously.

Comm. Flanagan MOVED that the Commission reject the fact finders report issued as part of the contract negotiations with the Local 580. SECOND by Comm. Stenhouse and PASSED unanimously.