Police Commission Minutes 01/03/2007

Present at this meeting was Chairman Flanagan, Comm. Stenhouse, Comm. Dumont, Chief Dubois, Deputy Chief Allen, Capt. Callaghan, Capt. Dumas, Martha Swats, Attorney Grossman, Chaplain Lachapelle and Secretary Warburton. Also present were members of the Department, the public and the media.

Comm. Dumont MOVED to accept the minutes of the December 6, 2006 regular meeting. SECOND by Comm. Stenhouse. The motion to accept the minutes PASSED unanimously.

B. Landlord Association Update. Capt. Dumas indicated that he is monitoring this. He attended their meeting of December 7, 2007. He said, “I’ve been impressed with the organization and leadership of the group.” We discussed reestablishing contact after the falter we had earlier this year. Our relationship with them will be useful in our ward based policing. We don’t see any issues coming forward again, as long as we maintain our contact.

Chief Dubois indicated this was placed as a recurring item on the agenda due to our missing some meetings. We feel comfortable as a staff that we have reestablished contact and will be intertwining this as part of the ward based policing. If the Commission agrees we would like to remove this item as a recurring agenda item.

Comm. Stenhouse indicated he is comfortable as long as we don’t drop the ball again. It is up to the staff to assign someone to attend in the absence of the regularly assigned person.

C. Acceptance of Grant: Highway Safety DWI Grant Funds. This issue went before the Council on 01/02/07. We are seeking the Commission’s acceptance of the funding as well. One issue that was discussed at the council level was roadblocks. Chief Dubois said, “The Police Commission and Council have been very clear they don’t want that, and all should rest assured that will not happen. These are roaming patrols. “

Capt. Dumas added the grant is more restrictive than we anticipated when we applied for the money. The patrols can only be run on Friday and Saturday nights, or holidays. We are scheduling patrols now in the previously identified high impact areas. The funding runs through March 31, 2007.

Comm. Dumont MOVED to accept the Highway Safety Grant Funding for DWI Enforcement/patrols, in the amount of $2700.00 (Two thousand seven hundred dollars and no cents), as outlined in the grant. SECOND by Comm. Stenhouse and PASSED unanimously.

1. AED. Chief Dubois indicated that four companies submitted bids for the AED’s. The low bid, after all trade in allowances was $7500. (Seven Thousand Five Hundred Dollars and no cents).

Comm. Dumont MOVED to award the bid to Cardiac Science, from Washington State, in the amount of $7500. (Seven Thousand Five Hundred Dollars and no cents). SECOND by Comm. Stenhouse. Open for discussion.

2. Tactical Team Equipment. Chief Dubois advised the Commission that we received single bids for each piece of equipment we were seeking. We are satisfied with all the vendors and would recommend accepting the bids as submitted by each vendor.

E. Quarterly Report #2: Goals and Objectives. Chief Dubois stated he would like to start with a brief look at the 2006 calendar year. It’s a good time to review where we are and where we want to go. We will have a year-end comp stat report at our next meeting. It will show that in 2006 we had a reduction of violent and property crimes, with an increase in arrests. Domestic violence is down 14% over the previous year. Our motor vehicle work is up, and our accidents are down 15% over last year. We can also report a reduction in personal injury from accidents. We’ve had a reduction in assaults on police officers; a reduction in use of force reports and our statistics on injured officers is down from last year.

We are seeing positive reports regarding our effectiveness throughout 2006. It hasn’t been that long that we’ve done some dramatic things, such as introducing Reverse 911, changing our rank structure for management and succession planning. We’ve added GPS/AVL to the fleet, upgraded our MDT’s, and we are investigating major crimes, up to the level of a homicide without any help from outside agencies. We’ve added a crime analyst, a cyber crime investigator, reestablished our citizen’s police academy, and have introduced a strong volunteer base to the department for the future. Our tactical team is now countywide which promotes interaction with other agencies in the county. As we move into 2007, this recaps and updates you on the goals we set for ourselves this year.

We are on track with ward-based policing, working closely with the Mayor and other community groups. Our volunteer program is under the leadership of Capt. Dumas. It is working out very well. We have more volunteers and are finding more ways to use them.

We are looking to increase our internal and external surveys. We have done some with the community youth, but we want to do more work, broad based externally, as well as internally with staff.

In community outreach, we are updating and fine tuning our web site. We are improving in the lobby area, but we still have more work to do. We have expanded our programs in the family unit. We are working on youth gang intervention. We are also registering bicycles on line. We want to get more involved with the community through Crime Line receiving tips and paying out rewards. The board has worked hard to establish the funding.

We are doing more work to address “lower priority” calls through innovative staffing and scheduling. We are expanding the tracking of crimes to make our current system more user-friendly and at the fingertips of the officers through crime analysis. Our population is growing and we can involve the neighborhoods more. We are right on track.

1. Highway Safety Grant. Chief Dubois advised that DWI grant that was approved is one of two we applied for. We are hopeful we will get the second grant, for speed patrols. These are random patrols and do not have any roadblock component to them.

A. Oath of Office: Officer Dominique Benoit. Chairman Flanagan gave the oath of office to Patrol Officer Benoit. Ms. Benoit’s family was on had to witness her achievement and participate in pinning her badge.

1. Support Person of the Year: Deborah Houle. Chief Dubois invited Ms. Houle to the podium, stating that "She's done a lot to improve interaction between police officers and youth in the city - she's shown true leadership in our department." She received the award for her work with youth in the community. She has been involved with Youth Services through the Recreation Department and the Court Diversion Program and among other things has helped set up the city's teen drug court.

2. Blair Memorial Award: Sgt. Anthony Triano. Chief Dubois said this is the most prestigious award, except for the Medal of Honor, that this Department gives. The Ted Blair Memorial Award, honors our former Police Chief and is given to an officer the department feels demonstrates high character, reminiscent of Chief Blair.

Chief Dubois said he considers the Blair Memorial Award the most prestigious because it requires a lengthy review process where a review board evaluates several nominations. Sgt. Triano was the selection of the committee this year. He is a 17-year veteran of the department and has served as a patrol officer, DARE officer, housing authority officer, patrol and investigative unit supervisor and now serves as a sergeant in the investigative unit.

"Sergeant Triano has really played a major role in all major crime investigations in this city over the last year or so," said Chief David Dubois. He added that when he read the nomination for Tony, some of the words his peers used to describe him included compassion, commitment, dedication, and leadership, flexible, patient, and grounded. "Those words really sum up our core values - that's what it takes to win this award." Sgt. Triano was also credited with striving to improve himself and the department and having a positive attitude in good and bad times.

Sgt. Triano spoke highly of the former chief. He said, "I came on in 1989 and one of the things I remember the most is that Ted Blair was the first person to bring me into his office and chew me out. But what I remember most about that is when I left his office I felt better about my career and about being a police officer. Now, 17.5 years later, as a supervisor, I try to bring some of those same traits with me, especially when I'm chewing someone out, which I do quite often."

Chief Dubois said this recognition and awards are from the same incident. Chief Dubois said Rochester resident Nicholas Blougouras called police when he noticed a motor vehicle out of place near his work. When the police responded, they were able to save a person attempting suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning. Chief Dubois mentioned some of the words by the family member who wrote to thank all persons who were there that night. He stressed to Mr. Blougouras that what he did was a good thing, and will give this person a second chance. A framed certificate was presented to Mr. Blougouras. The officers involved in that call for service, will now be permitted to wear the life saving bar on their uniform. They are officers - Michael Lambert, John Livingstone, Joshua Ouellette and Detective Eric Ball.

D. FY08 Operating Budget: Review and Discussion. Chief Dubois said that he has given the Commission a lot of documents. We have changed the way we are doing our budget this year, and it is broken out into three broad categories of Admin; Patrol and Support. The Communications budget has been separate for a couple of years. We think we will successful in breaking up the funding by division. It was a lot of work for us to do this first time, but it will be better for succession planning.

The Captains did an excellent job picking up things that were foreign to them and building their budgets, but they get to see the actual costs and where they come from, into the future.

Some of areas that are not factored into the copies the Commission has at this point include an anticipated 9.5% increase in healthcare, a 23% increase in retirement costs and merit increases for both union and non union have not been factored yet.

What you do have is the operation lines. I think that we can justify the increases. We have gone over this extensively and it has been reduced significantly from where we started. The specific detail of some the increases is as follows:

Staffing. We propose to increase the hours of two part-time support staff. Both work 25 hours each week and we want to increase that to 30 hours per week. This is still below the threshold of benefits. This will allow our legal bureau and our parking enforcement bureau to be more effective. This is a small cost that will be worth the expense.

We propose that last part time position in dispatch be increased to full time. We have discussed this with the Communications Supervisor and with the Fire Department. It will allow better three-person coverage consistently day-by-day and week-by-week.

We propose to add three police officers in patrol services. Two will be for the full year and one will be for one half the year. We’ve talked extensively about proactive and reactive policing. We are trying to work more with the community and be more effective as opposed to efficient. We do very well on the midnight shift for proactive time. The days and evening shift decrease for proactive time due to the activity of those shifts. Our analysis of the percentages is based on Rochester activity that we are responding to. This is not FBI statistics, not national averages, and not based on what departments to the south of us have. This is the activity in Rochester. If we are to be successful in proactive work, we need more officers and that is what we are recommending.

Regular Overtime. This increase is not huge. Historically we always go over this amount. There are more demands on the profession and we need to increase this to keep pace.

Training Overtime. This also is not a substantial increase. We plan to do more active shooter situation training. It was not that long ago we were asked to respond to our capability of keeping kids safe in schools. When I was asked that question I responded that we are well prepared, but would be better prepared with additional training and additional staff. If we don’t get the staff, this can be reduced some.

Labor Negotiations. This increase is partly because this is a contract year. We also need to have funding in the event we have any grievances that rise to the level of appeal beyond the police commission.

Animal Boarding is going up. We talked about changing vendors to support the county program. If we were to move to the county program, we would need to add $13,000.00 to that line. We are willing to do that, but have to think of that cost.

Vehicle Maintenance has received a lot of attention. As you know it was reduced to $22,000 this year, and we have spent $45,000 to date. We are showing an increase to this line.

Clothing has an increase to accommodate new officers. If those positions are not approved, this line will decrease by that amount. There is also an upgrade for tactical team equipment. People have committed to the program, but all are not fully equipped. As they complete their training we are going to need this equipment.

Other supplies have more funds to support community programs. For us to say we are going to do more in areas with the same amount of money is impossible. The level presenting is what we think is going to do it for us.

Vehicles. We hope to recover some in purchasing more cars for the back line fleet, and get us back in line with our plan for the future. Our fleet is the leanest fleet for a city this size. The city is growing and it doesn’t appear that’s going to stop. We can continue to dump money into vehicles to maintain them or improve the fleet through purchasing. We also propose a 4x4 vehicle for transporting equipment that we need to have readily available, as well as to get into some areas that cruisers cannot. The 4x4 for the Police has been a hard sell. I’m not going to stop asking because I believe we need it.

Energy Lines. The amount requested in our energy line is based on what we spent this year, and projecting out. There is talk about those lines decreasing, but with the situation in Iraq and in the World, I don’t believe that reduction will be by much, even though trends show otherwise.

Communications lines are for use projections on current phones, lines for MDT’s to keep them running, and in the support portion, funding for the Detectives for cell phones. The lack of phones is impacting their ability to investigate crimes in the field, while coordinating with other agencies. The detail breaks out those increases.

Dues and Fees. We have some minor increases to dues and fees. These professional organizations can help keep our people current with trends in the field today and our participation is important to the future of the Department.

That is a quick run down of the budget. We will live with whatever you and the Council give us. This is what we need to get the job done and we think it is reasonable with where this city is today and where we think it will be tomorrow.

Comm. Stenhouse commented on our overtime last year. We had budgeted $105,000. Adding personnel does not decrease over time. Each member joining the department has X number of days to use. Every year this line gets chewed up, and I think it’s too low.

Chief Dubois stated the work we are doing is impressive in this line. We are halfway through the year, and 54% spent in that line. It is the best I’ve ever seen it. We analyze each case and based on projections I feel comfortable that that number is close enough that we can operate with the management staff I have working with me. They are doing a great job keeping in check.

Comm. Dumont commented that, “I don’t like to see the budget higher, but, at the same time I complain when we don’t get the service we want, so, who am I to pick this apart?”

Comm. Flanagan said that the department did a good job. I’ve seen quite a few of these in the past and my heart goes out to you that you did what you did with what you had. I can’t see any place to cut and I went through this item-by-item. I have no problem presenting this to the Council.

Comm. Stenhouse stated that he would like to see the overtime line increased, and the vehicle maintenance line increased. Even if you have good equipment and apparatus, it still needs maintenance. This budget is not just because we want these things. If we are going to be proactive, if we want to do that, we have to pay for it. That goes for Police, Fire, Rec., and Schools. You get what you pay for.

E. Three Year Plan FY 08-10. Chief Dubois advised that each year we review our three-year plan and make adjustments accordingly. He said we have some of the finest specialty teams and our equipment overall is in good shape. Our overriding goal of the plan is staffing.

In 2009 we need to pay attention, through CIP planning, to upgrade our crime van. We have too many high priority things we are investigating. The unit we have is getting us by, but we don’t think this should wait much longer. Chief Dubois said, “I didn’t do a good job presenting the Tasers. You will see that come back.

In FY10 the major thing we will be deciding is where to go with our fleet. This will be the end of our first lease and we need to decide how to move forward. As stated earlier the City is not going to stop growing and we have the leanest fleet for a Department our size. We should start upgrading by FY10.

Comm. Dumont MOVED to dispense with the second reading and adopt the policy updates to SOP 28, 30, 38, and 85 as written. SECOND by Comm. Stenhouse and PASSED unanimously.

1. Patrol Division: Capt. Dumas stated that at the critique of the holiday parade the only issue was the traffic pattern, which was previously mentioned. The chamber was pleased over all. We will be addressing the RSA of riding on floats to and from the parade.

Our volunteer program is progressing well. They are energetic and provide a valuable service. We continue to get applications of interest. I roomed with a person in Quantico who had worked with Dr. Beorgois years ago, who told me of an “extra eyes” program in Oklahoma. All of the volunteers are a benefit to the areas they are assigned.

The Rutland Vermont Police Department did a presentation to us on “RUN” (Rutland United Neighborhoods), the community coalition and how their program worked. They handle non-police type quality of life calls. If it was not a police issue, this organization was called and they interacted with the police.

The liaison has been established since 1999, and it was all done with federal monies at no cost to the local taxpayer. It was an enlightening and promising presentation. We hope to move forward with our program soon.

As for the goals of the Department, particularly related to patrol, I don’t think communication in the department has been ever been better. We are working on areas identified through comp stat and the crime analyst. This is a tribute to the professionalism they put forward.

2. Support Division: Capt. Callaghan advised that several arrests for sex offenses had been made in November and December. We were able to get the evidence needed for the prosecution in the case involving the person using a computer to spy on the neighbor. This can be attributed to the training provided to our cyber crimes officer.

We had two bank robberies in the past year, one at the Credit Union on 125 and one at the Hannaford’s Citizen Bank. We received a crime line tip and followed up leads developed from that. We had 24-hour surveillance on the suspect, borrowed jump suits and combed through trash and solved the Rochester burglary. Through this surveillance and evidence collection we are seeing a return on our investments to the special training we send these officers to. The FBI had recently us working on some surveillance on a kidnapping case. Our officers are good at what they do and they were pleased with the work we did.

In 2006 our juvenile program made tremendous progress, in social services, juvenile issues, drug coalition, and the youth violence group. We are working hand in hand with these groups on specific issues and will continue to work collaboratively to find solutions. Communication with the community and our philosophy and taking ideas from the community and using those ideas to provide a better service is key.

Our cyber crime officer is working with the Attorney Generals office on a statewide task force dealing with these issues. We made two arrests this month and anticipate we will get more, as we get better at this. Again, this is return on our training.

This was a good year in training. We did use of force, simunition and active shooter training. Chief Dubois did ethics training for all members of the Department and some community members. Officer’s Brinkman and Swanberry graduated from the Academy and are in the field-training program at this time. Officers’ Pinkham and O’Connor will head out to the Academy this week.

3. Executive Report: Dep. Chief Allen wished to commend the two Captains for the outstanding job they did in building the budget, which was an area completely foreign to them.

We made some upgrades to the Department server this month and the IMC conversion is going well. Of the 7 front line cars, five are up and running with MDT’s. We’ve identified a couple of hardware issues, but overall the system is working well. The feedback from those using the system has been outstanding. It will be nice when we can complete the training with the remaining staff so that all officers are familiar with the different features of the software. It will increase productivity, efficiency and officer safety.

A brief discussion ensued on the body wire item, and that the county had just purchased one for the County Attorney’s office. Further discussion was held regarding the legality of wearing a wire into the jail. It was noted that there are a lot of checks and balances in place through the Attorney General when using that type of equipment in an investigation.

We continue with our community outreach building, and one of the areas we are focusing on now is updating our website. Some of the officers participate in the profiles and some do not. We would like to increase that. The police officer trading cards have been proofed and we plan to use those photos on the cards to update the photos on the web. It gives the public an opportunity to learn about the employees of the department and the different bureaus. We can do a better job of getting that information out.

We are doing more with our comp stat information that is gathered monthly, and we think the best way to put that out to the community is through our web site. We want to go to a more interactive program where you can check trends and patterns.

Chief Dubois has been selected to attend a leadership-training course in Quantico, Virginia. This course is difficult to get into, for Departments our size. It’s significant to mention that he was selected to attend.

1. Registered Sex Offenders. Comm. Flanagan said he heard an alarming statistic regarding the number of registered sex offenders in Rochester. That we had increased the number of registered offenders from 56 to 89.

Capt. Callaghan said that the list has increased some, but not that dramatically. We have one officer that keeps track of the registered offenders. We are in the high seventies. A significant portion does not register under Meghan’s Law (the public list) because they do not meet the criteria.

Capt. Callaghan said the workload would increase this year as the law has been enhanced. Persons have to register every six months. If they stay at one location for more than ten days in a 30-day period, they have to register at that address as well. This will increase our administrative responsibilities and it will take some of her time from active investigations. The other detectives can assist by rearranging their schedules to do compliance checks. There is more administrative work and we are working with the prosecutor and part time secretary so that we can handle the investigative aspect.

Chief Dubois stated this is from legislation that was supported by the NH Chief’s and the Attorney General. It is a good law. Everyone saw the increased administrative work as worth the effort to keep people safe.

Comm. Dumont inquired if there is an ordinance in Rochester about how far an offender can be from a school? It was reported there is no such ordinance in Rochester. Other communities do have ordinances like that. It was suggested this might be something to bring before the Council.

Comm. Stenhouse commented that we should be cautioned on believing there is a rampant rise in this offense. It’s been going on for time immemorial, but has just been criminalized in recent years. Lest people worry, it is not true that “all of them” are moving to Rochester or to any other community. We have a better handle on this today than we did thirty years ago.

2. Communications Center. Chief Dubois stated that although this function falls under the City Manager, he thought the Police Commission would like to know that we are fully staffed and trained and ready to take on the duties of EMS dispatching. Frisbie is starting to move on upgrading some equipment to make that change. We are working closely with the 911 center. The staff is all doing a good job and is lead extremely well by Martha. These folks are trained to a high level in police, fire and EMS.

Supervisor Swats spoke to the issue of when EMS dispatching would be switched over to the Police. She indicated the hospital anticipates by the end of the month. We have installed upgraded Motorola consoles this week through a state grant, so we are better equipped for EMS and are ready to go. This is the first time in quite some time we have been fully staffed and fully trained. We are looking forward to a brand new year.

A. Appreciation and Recognition: Off. Jeremy Aucoin is recognized by Sgt. Dugas for professional handling of domestic violence call for service. Sgt. Deluca recognizes all members of the Regional SWAT Team, and Communications Center personnel for excellent teamwork during a recent training scenario. Recognized are: Officer’s Boudreau, Jackson, Riss, Bentz, Rhonci, Babine, Ouellette, Kimbrough, Loignon, Murphy, Bourque, Mangum, Ball Frechette, Kusnierz, Pinkham and Lustwerk, as well as specialists Daigle, Neal, Griffin and O’Connor. Specialists O’Connor, Bowley, Leonard and Griffin are thanked by Asst. Fire Chief Derek Peters for teamwork handling recent plane crash at Skyhaven. Chairman Flanagan offered his congratulations to all, saying, “It’s nice to have them recognized like that.”

Comm. Dumont MOVED to enter a non-public session at 8:46 P.M. for the purpose of personnel, legal and negotiations matters. SECOND by Comm. Stenhouse. The motion PASSED by roll call vote, Comm. Dumont-yes, Comm. Stenhouse-yes, Chairman Flanagan-yes. The non-public session closed at 9:11 P.M. on a MOTION by Comm. Dumont, SECOND by Chairman Flanagan and PASSED unanimously.

Comm. Stenhouse MOVED to award merit increases, based on passing evaluations for the following: Sgt. Jason Thomas, Det. Eric Ball, Det. Bob Frechette, and Det. Ken Tapscott. The Motion was SECONDED by Comm. Dumont and PASSED unanimously.

Comm. Stenhouse MOVED to award the lump sum bonus, based on passing evaluations for the following: Det. Jamey Balint and Officer John Harding. The Motion was SECONDED by Comm. Dumont and PASSED unanimously.