Police Commission Minutes
Rochester Police Commission
Rochester, NH 03867
Derek J. Peters, Chairman
Bruce E. Lindsay, Commissioner
Lucien G. Levesque, Commissioner
MINUTES OF THE POLICE COMMISSION MEETING
The Rochester Police Commission held their regular monthly meeting at the Rochester Police Department on Wednesday February 3, 2016. Present at this meeting was Comm. Peters, Comm. Lindsay, Comm. Levesque, Chief Allen, Dep. Chief Dumas, Capt. Toussaint, Chaplain Lachapelle and Secretary Warburton as well as members of the public.
The meeting was called to order at 7:00 P.M.
A. Pledge. All participated in the Pledge of Allegiance.
B. Prayer. Chaplain Lachapelle led the opening prayer.
C. Roll Call. The clerk called the roll marking all Commissioner’s present.
2. PUBLIC COMMENT:
There was no public comment.
3. ACCEPTANCE OF MINUTES:
A. January 6, 2016 regular meeting.
Comm. Levesque MOVED to accept the minutes of the January 6, 2016 regular meeting as presented. SECOND by Comm. Lindsay and PASSED unanimously.
4. OLD AND UNFINISHED BUSINESS:
There was no old business for discussion
5. NEW BUSINESS:
A. Awards and Recognitions. We will push these out to the March meeting when we can recognize people on camera.
B. Policy Updates: First Reading.
Chief Allen stated that it would be fine with him if the Commission wished to push these off to the next meeting.
1. Policy 42.1.3: Report Writing/Case Management
Comm. Levesque MOVED to place Policy Standard 42.1.3: Report Writing/Case Management into a first reading. SECOND by Comm. Lindsay. Open for discussion.
On page six the Commission asked to have language “all attempts at service” added back to the policy
Comm. Levesque MOVED to suspend the rules and place Policy Standard 42.1.3: Report Writing/Case Management into a second reading by title only for adoption. Comm. Peters and PASSED unanimously.
2. Policy 54.1.2: Social Media
Comm. Levesque MOVED to place Policy Standard 54.1.2: Social Media into a first reading. SECOND by Comm. Lindsay and PASSED unanimously.
This is a new policy and the Commission desires more time to read it.
3. Policy 81.1.1: Communications
Comm. Levesque MOVED to place Policy Standard 81.1.1: Communications into a first reading. SECOND by Comm. Lindsay.
Comm. Levesque MOVED to suspend the rules and place Policy Standard 81.1.1: Communications into a second reading by title only for adoption. Comm. Lindsay and PASSED unanimously.
C. Monthly Reports
1). Operations. Capt. Toussaint noted that 56 new cases were sent up from patrol for review and investigation. There were no call outs this month. There were 12 pawn shop/second hand dealer compliance checks with no violations. This is a topic that has received a lot of media attention as the Council reviews this ordinance. Compliance checks were conducted on 23 sex offenders. There was one arrest.
As of now the communications center is fully staff. Specialist Behr is moving along well in her training. Specialist Knox was released to solo dispatching, allowing us to have a 3-3 staffing on first and second shifts for the first time in more than a year.
Comm. Lindsay inquired into persons calling into the Crime Line.
He was advised that is a separate dedicated phone line that is not recorded and does not have caller id capability, allowing those that call to remain anonymous.
Community Engagement Officer Miehle is doing good work. He has been part of the Rotary fingerprint project. He has been working on the planning of the annual Wings and Wheels event at the airport. He is now the primary person maintaining our face book page. We have almost 13,000 followers. This continues to be a useful outreach tool.
Chief Allen, Off. Miehle and Captain Boudreau presented the CRASE (Citizen Response to Active Shooter Events) to city and school staff. We have received great feedback.
Teen night attendance was good this month. We had one minor issue which was swiftly addressed by staff.
The “It Takes a Village” community forum on the opioid crisis with Briding the Gaps is set to take place on February 18. This is the first of three sessions.
The prosecution office continues to be bogged down. The Parking Enforcement Officer and Juvenile Prosecutor Anne Gould gave a combined 72 hours of support this month with case prep and filing.
Comm. Peters asked what the goal is for next year.
Chief Allen said that as the Commission is aware, this entire budget year so far we have been forced to use the PEO to assist with backlog in cases that need copying, discovery prep, witnesses, all the work that goes along with the prosecution of a case. She has been trained in that office and we have had no other alternative without an additional support person in there. As of last week there has been an intern from UNH in that office that should alleviate some of the need to use the PEO in there.
The long term solution is hiring additional staff. I have talked with the City Attorney and propose a part time person in that office. This would still come from the legal budget. We will have to wait to see if it is funded.
Comm. Peters asked if we had hired a new MIS person.
We have hired a new person and so far things are going well.
Off. Funk has returned to full duty from a lengthy medical issue. We now have the SRO back at the middle school. We will be working with him to get the DARE Program up and running.
The RUN program was quiet this month with only two meetings scheduled, and one of those was canceled. The remaining wards were scheduling after the holidays.
The K9 team had a typical month. There were ten callouts. Five callouts were in town; three drug searches and two tracks.
We had some reports of vandalism at the new housing project on Glenwood Avenue. We have been working with the contractors to reduce issues there, and have been doing extra patrols.
We did see an uptick in vandalism, burglaries and thefts from vehicles for the month. We had a mini crime spree that has been attributed to two individuals. Both have been arrested and charged with various crimes.
Chief Allen said we do have a year-end comp stat report that we will hold off reporting on until next month. We achieved tremendous results in crime reduction.
Comm. Levesque noted that vehicle break-ins seem to be rampant in the County.
Dep. Chief Dumas said people are mobile. It could be the same folks in more than one community. They get dropped off and picked up.
Chief Allen said this is a crime of opportunity that can be mostly eliminated by locking car doors.
2.) Administration. Dep. Chief Dumas said the budget is trending well and expected to be in the black on the bottom line. One line we are in trouble in is the vehicle maintenance line. We have done some transfers in that line. We will do a breakdown of each cars operation and repair to help us identify overall costs. For example on car 13, last year we spent $358.00 and this year it’s over $3,000.00. We can theorize why, but I want to have the data to back that up.
Comm. Lindsay noted that there was talk of switching vendors.
Dep. Chief Dumas said that the re-bid went out and we did switch vendors. The prior vendor would start at the lowest solution and move up. The vendor we moved to we were unable to mutually work with and following a re-bid, we awarded the bid to Dave’s Tri City.
We had had initial meetings in negotiations to set ground rules. We have not received proposals set.
We scheduled another host training and agencies pay to attend that, getting us free seats at the same time. The most recent training on Juvenile gang intervention we actually made a little money on and got five free slots for our officers to attend. There were more than 18 agencies that signed up for this course. The feedback from those attending was phenomenal.
Off. Arrajj was released to solo patrol. She’ll finish on days and then move to nights. We still have two openings. We sent out 200 invitations to our physical agility training. 18 people responded. 15 people showed up. Six failed the testing moving nine over to oral interviews. We will have five good candidates to bring before the Commission. The next academy is May 2nd, so it will be next spring before these candidates are released to solo patrol.
As reported in earlier the “It takes a village” program with Bridging the Gaps will be held on February 18, 2016 from 6:30 – 8:30 at the Opera House. It is the first of three series designed to tackle the opiate issue. There will be guest speakers to talk about it and provide an overview. People will be able to discuss their stories. The second portion is the resources aspects that are out there. Our hope is the parents and kids will engage and have conversations about how to talk about this. This can attack any family.
Comm. Peters said this came up at Rotary the other day and also at the Chamber board meeting. Comm. Lindsay added the state legislature is considering upping the penalty on fentanyl.
Chief Allen added that is where many of the deaths are occurring is in fentanyl overdoses, not heroin.
Molly Martuscello is working with the Youth to Youth at the Middle School on the Samantha Skunk program about medicine safety. She is also working to get the high school Youth to Youth more engaged.
6. CORRESPONDENCE:
Correspondence for the month included: Off. Forrest is recognized for his presentation at a Ward 3 meeting. Lt. Gould is recognized by Court Security Officer Cook for assisting during a juvenile hearing. Off. Jackson is thanked by a student for his overall guidance. Off. Jackson is thanked by an officer from another agency for his assistance. Off. Kimbrough, Det. Livingstone and Det. Mundy are thanked for assisting with training for the Explorer Post.
7. INFORMATION:
A. Information Other; enclosed with Agenda. No discussion.
8. NON-PUBLIC SESSION: (Pursuant to: RSA 91-A:3)
Commissioner Levesque MOVED to enter a nonpublic session at 7:28 P.M. pursuant to RSA 91-A: 3, paragraph II, section A (personnel) and section E (legal.) SECOND by Comm. Lindsay. The motion PASSED by roll call vote 3 – 0 with Commissioner Peters, Commissioner Lindsay and Comm. Levesque voting in the affirmative. A three minute recess was called. The non-public session closed at 8:11 P.M. on a MOTION by Comm. Levesque, SECOND by Comm. Lindsay and PASSED unanimously.
9. MISCELLANEOUS:
Comm. Levesque MOVED to award merit increases on the respective anniversary dates to Off. Justin Seckendorf (3.25%) Sgt. Patrick Emerson (3.95%) Off. Matthew Flathers (4.15%) Off. James Murphy (3.7%) Off. Justin Worthley (2.85%) Off. Scott Loignon (3.4%) Off. Brandon Kimbrough (3.95%) and Off. John Gantert (2.65%). The motion was SECONDED by Comm. Lindsay and PASSED unanimously.
10. ADJOURNMENT:
Comm. Peters MOVED to adjourn. SECOND by Comm. Lindsay at 8:14 P.M.
Respectfully Submitted
Rebecca J. Warburton
Secretary