Police Commission

LACONIA POLICE COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES FEBRUARY 17, 2021 3:00 P.M. 2/17/2021 - Minutes 1. CALL TO ORDER Chairman Whittum called the meeting to Order at the above date and time. 2. SALUTE TO THE FLAG Chairman Whittum lead the Pledge of Allegiance. 3. RECORDING SECRETARY Executive Assistant Lori Marsh. 4. ROLL CALL 4.a. Chairman Whittum recognized Commissioners present - Chairman Douglas Whittum, Commissioner Frank Mello and Commissioner Scott Davis. 4.b. Chairman Whittum recognized Staff present - Chief Matthew Canfield. 4.c. Chairman Whittum recognized a quorum has been established and there are three Commission members present. 5. PERSONNEL MATTERS 5.A. Commendations & Awards No discussion. 5.B. Resignations/Retirement Chairman Whittum recognized Chief Canfield. 5.B.i. Resignation - Dispatcher Kori Allen Chief Canfield advised Dispatcher Kori Allen has submitted her resignation. He indicated she used to be a full time dispatcher and went on to get married and went to part time status.. He advised she has since been working another job and it's just a little too much on her to stay part time and stay current with the requirements. He advised it is certainly a loss to us, but we understand her situation. 5.B.ii. Resignation - Patrol Officer Connor Sutherland Chief Canfield advised Officer Connor Sutherland resigned to go to another agency. 5.C. Promotions/Classification Change No discussion. 6. COMMAND STAFF REPORTS 6.A. Chief - Support Division Chairman Whittum recognized Chief Canfield. Chief Canfield advised we have been working on Motorcycle Week planning. He advised it is up in the air as to how that will take place, but we assume it will go forward in some fashion given the COVID situation. We have also been working on planning for the Ironman Triathlon that is scheduled to take place in late August. He stated that the exchange between the run and bicycle is scheduled to take place at the Laconia Middle School. The final leg and end is scheduled for Main Street. He advised the organizers have expressed at least a three year interest for this to take place. He stated the deparatment has been very busy getting the PRO-QA software up and running for dispatch. He advised this is pretty ground breaking, as it is believed we will be one of the first agencies in the State to have this software in our dispatch center. He advised it is comparable to the 911 dispatch centers, where it standardizes the questioning. He indicated that when a call is received by dispatch, the dispatcher is prompted with what questions to ask. He advised as the dispatcher is taking the call, it pushes the information out to the computers in the cruisers, instead of waiting until the completion of the call and  dispatching it in it's entirety. This should not only speed up the response time to calls, but get more thorough information to the officers in a more timely manner. He advised this is a really big undertaking and we are looking to have it implemented later this Spring. In addition, he advised they have been spending a considerable amount of time on the new scheduling software called In-Time to get that up and running for Spring. Commissioner Davis inquired if the swim for the triathlon is at Ellacoya and Chief Canfield advised he believes so. Commissioner Davis inquired about parking and if it will be remote parking. Chief Canfield advised it is unknown right now how that is going to work. Commissioner Mello inquired if it's supposed to end up at Opechee Park and Chief Canfield advised that is the location for the exchange between the bicycle portion of it and the run part of it and then the run will basically be the loop around Elm Street to Union Avenue and on the WOW Trail. It also will incorporate some of the side streets off of Holman Street to make up the distance. He advised he believes they will do that run twice and end up on Main Street. He advised it is certainly a good thing for the area and will bring in a lot of people to the area and hopefully a lot of money to support our local businesses. 6.B. Chief - Operations Division Chairman Whittum recognized Chief Canfield. Chief Canfield advised the firearms simulator arrived yesterday that had been approved last year in our budget. He indicated it was installed and they have been running an instructor level class today to get certain officers certified as instructors. He advised this replaces our old system, which was about twelve years old. He indicated that with everything going on Nationally with police use of force, this is almost a mandatory tool necessary to have. He advised it is good for the officers to teach Use of Force, how to de-escalate, how to talk with people and adjust to changing situations. Chief Canfield advised we have applied for a Homeland Security Grant for a trailer with cones and barricades to be deployed in situations where we need help with traffic control. He advised the bid has gone out for the command post vehicle that the grant was approved earlier this year. He advised all combined it is about $350,000.00 between the two grants that we will receive from Federal money with no match from the City. He advised they conducted the annual Sergeants test on 02/01/2021, which establishes an eligibility list for the position of Sergeant if a vacancy were to occur. Chairman Whittum if the old simulations system will be taken in trade. Chief Canfield advised it was taken in trade and we were given a credit toward the new system. 6.B.i. Hirings Chief Canfield indicated we are currently doing one background investigation to fill one position. He believes that background will be complete in the next couple of weeks and hopefully he will be suitable for hire. 7. COMMISSION ACTION 7.A. Acceptance of minutes from previous meeting On a Motion by Commissioner Mello, seconded by Commissioner Davis, and passed unanimously, the meeting minutes of December 16, 2020 were accepted as distributed with no further discussion. 8. REVIEW OF MONTHLY ACTIVITY REPORTS Chairman Whittum recognized Chief Canfield. 8.A. Department Monthly Highlights Chief Canfield reviewed the Monthly Activity Highlights report for January 2021. No further discussion. 8.B. Criminal Investigative Unit Statistics Chief Canfield reviewed the Monthly Criminal Investigative Unit Statistics for January 2021. He noted they have been pretty busy this month and have investigated some big crimes that have taken a lot of time and they have produced some really good work. 8.C. Budget Reports Chief Canfield advised our budget requests were submitted in December and he looks forward to meeting with the City Manager in the next couple of weeks or month to go over preliminary budget recommendations  from the City Manager. He indicated our current budget is on track. 8.D. Monthly Traffic Statistics Chief Canfield reviewed the Monthly Traffic Statistics report for January 2021. Commissioner Davis inquired if there is any place on North Main Street that is more of a problem than another. Chief Canfield advised he is not sure why there was a spike on North Main Street, as usually, Union Avenue typically comes first, being such a long street, but he will keep an eye on that. 8.E. Monthly Fleet Report Chief Canfield advised the last cruiser is finally being outfitted and is currently as Ossipee Mountain Electronics getting the radios and lights installed and all of the three new vehicles approved in the Capital request will then be on-line. 9. CORRESPONDENCE TO AND FROM THE DEPARTMENT Chairman Whittum recognized Chief Canfield. Chief Canfield advised we received a nice thank you to the officers for the work they have done as of recently. He indicated there was also a letter from NH Police Standards & Training certifying that we meet the eligibility requirements for the U.S. Department of Justice Grants. He advised this is a new requirement for Federal Grants that we have to be certified to meet those eligibility requirements. He advised we actually received the certification from CALEA first and then we received the same certification from NH Police Standards & Training, so we actually have a dual certification. He indicated this shows that we meet the minimum requirements to accept Federal Grants. Commissioner Mello noted the NH Police Standards & Training letter was good to see. 10. CHIEF'S REPORT Chief Canfield reviewed the Drug Overdose statistics. He advised we are on a positive trend and it's a good direction we're moving in. He indicated Officer Adams has been very busy with that, along with taking on the ACERT Program, which he will hopefully do a presentation on at the next meeting, as well as the work he is doing with the homeless population. Chief Canfield advised he sits on the State Interoperability Executive Committee, which is a program for FirstNet. He indicated this is essentially a system designed for First Responders to avoid incidents such as what occurred at the 9/11 incident, followed up by the Boston bombing event, where cellular communications went down and First Responders didn't have the ability to communicate. He advised FirstNet was a program that was born out of that and it is finally becoming active in New Hampshire. He indicated AT&T was awarded the contract and we have switched over our department work phones from Verizon to At&T and we are looking to switch over the air cards in the computers to make them FirstNet ready. He advised FirstNet is an independent cellular system that will not be throttled or slowed down in the event of mass usage. He indicated that during events such as Motorcycle Week or PumpkinFest, we will have priority service. He advised he is on the Committee on Terrorism for International Chief's of Police Association and he was asked to participate in a Domestic Violence Extremist working group for this, so he will be working on that sub-committee over the next year. He advised we recently had a staff meeting, which we have been conducting remotely through a conference call with all supervisors. He indicated we recently received training on de-escalation techniques, which was training that was pushed throughout the country after what has happened over the past year where some officers have used use of force that may not have been appropriate. He advised we took it upon ourselves to receive this training and in the next month all officers will go through a Duty to Intervene training, which basically covers if they see another officer who might not be using the appropriate level of force, they have a duty to intervene and not allow it to occur. He advised this has now come out of the Governor's Commission as one of the recommendations for all officers to attend. He advised that since we were ahead of the curve on that, we just have to submit our training to the Academy they will certify that we meet that standard.  He advised the year end reports will be in next month's packet. He also advised that he has given each Commissioner a copy of the Goals and Objectives for 2020 for review. He advised a lot of these were carried forward for goals or objectives next year, due to the pandemic this year and the inability of people being able to work on these projects freely. The first goal for 2020 was to implement a UAV or Drone Unit, which has been successfully done. He advised all of the equipment is in place and all pilots have gone through training and are certified to operate the UAV. He advised this was recently deployed in Gilmanton several weeks ago for a SWAT call out for a suicidal subject and we were able to successfully confirm that the subject was in the truck and we were able to increase officer safety by doing that. He advised the following: There has been some work done on the Detective Unit review, but it will be carried forward into next year's goals. Technology will also be carried forward, which we were looking for better communication throughout the department by creating a computer aided dispatch screen so it was a little more heads up and people could obtain information faster. The improvement of the functionality of the patrol office will be carried forward. The department uniform review committee will be carried forward into next year's goals as well. Part of this has been completed and a new training uniform that will standardize the training uniform that officers attend training in has been implemented through the use of grant funds. He advised those should be coming in shortly. One of goals for 2020 was the creation of a department firearms range. He indicated some work has been done on that, but was limited by COVID, so that will be carried forward. The comprehensive written directive review, which was a pretty aggressive schedule of 3-5 years, is well under way. He indicated we have been working with the Daigle Law Group and Erik Daigle, who is a use of force expert with police experience, but also is an attorney. He advised we have been working with them to review our policies and procedures as far as legality, even though they all are CALEA accredited. In reference to CALEA re-accreditation, we had our on-site in July and our review process in November, from which we met all of the standards and we were re-accredited at that point. The creation of a department video has been tabled for next year's goals as well. He advised we have contracted with a company out of New York to create this video, as they have created other similar videos for recruitment. He indicated they just weren't able to come up this year due to COVID to take shots of different events. We have done several full scale exercises reference the Active Shooter Readiness and Response and were going to do another one last year, but the funding fell through, so that has been pushed off. He also included the 2021 Goals and Objectives, which includes those carried forward. He advised these are all pretty aggressive goals, but certainly something he and Staff felt were appropriate and something that should be worked on. OLD BUSINESS 11. No discussion. NEW BUSINESS 12. No discussion. OTHER BUSINESS 13. Chief Canfield advised that Councilor Cheney sends his regrets that he could not be here today, but wanted the Commission to know it was not intentional and that he had a conflict, but he will be at next month's meeting. Commissioner Davis inquired about the former skate park use. Chief Canfield advised the City has given us permission to use that space. He advised our current impound lot is not big enough, so we have been keeping vehicles there for storage. He advised sometimes vehicles are kept for long periods of time, sometimes up to two  years before they go through the court process. Commissioner Davis inquired what happens with the vehicles after those times. Chief Canfield advised sometimes they go back to the owner or sometimes they are owned by the insurance company, who doesn't have an interest in the vehicle any longer. Sometimes the tow service will file to get rid of them. He advised if the vehicle is destroyed, obviously the insurance company has written it off and they are just disposed of. 14. CITIZEN COMMENTS 15. CONFIRMATION OF NEXT MEETING DATE The next Regular or Special Meeting date of March 17, 2021 was confirmed. 16. NON-PUBLIC SESSION (According To RSA 91-A:3,II) 17. ADJOURNMENT On a Motion by Commissioner Mello, seconded by Commissioner Davis, and passed unanimously, the meeting was adjourned at 3:28 pm.