Public Safety Commission

MIDDLETOWN POLICE DEPARTMENT City of Middletown 222 Main Street Middletown, CT 06457 860.638.4100 FAX 860.638.4104 Jessica.dipasquale@middletownct.gov PUBLIC SAFETY COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Monday, November 20, 2023 Hybrid/In-person Meeting at Middletown Police Department 1. Chairman Ford Calls Meeting to Order at 6:33 PM MEMBERS PRESENT: Councilman Darnell Ford, Chairman Councilwoman Linda Salafia Councilman Anthony Mangiafico Councilwoman Kelley Sweeney Councilman Gennaro STAFF PRESENT: Chief Erik Costa MEMBERS/STAFF ABSENT: Rich Davis – Deputy Chief of Police Fire Chief Jay Woron 2. Approval of Minutes – October 16th, 2023 Councilman Ford made a motion to approve the PSC Minutes for October 16th, 2023 as the Councilwoman Salafia so moved, seconded by Councilman Anthony Mangiafico. There being no further discussion or objection, Motion passed. 3. Public Hearing – Matters on the Agenda Only Sandra Brankowitz: 205 Preston Ave, We spoke at the Public works meeting a couple weeks ago about safety and traffic concerns, seeding on Country club and Preston Ave. Something needs to be done. What has happened in the last 2 weeks, has there been any activity and what has come from that meeting? Chief Costa cannot answer questions at this time, it is noted Sandra is looking for a response. This will be addressed when appropriate on the agenda. This am there was an accident on 91 north, cars were using Preston Ave to detour, flying down the road at 60 miles an hour, couldn’t get out of her driveway because of high speeds and the road begins to narrow. Can’t pull out unless cars are driving reasonable speed, they stop or there’s nothing coming. She called the police, and was told the accident had cleared and it hadn’t. Even if so, traffic was backed up miles. Hours her street was used for bypass. This needs to be addressed quickly. Todd Birch: 1646 Country Club Road, Former Councilman and former chairman of Public Works Commission. Thanked the committee for hearing concerns today. The issue is speeding and the technology that re-routes traffic through the neighborhoods. Would be happy to meet with the Chief of Police as well as the Chair of the PSC with their ideas: quick turnaround of a traffic study of Country Club Rd from PS building to Middletown town line. Re: Preston Ave: tightly designed; when construction starts this should be a local’s only road. The Suzio family has repeatedly talked to their people and customers regarding that. Looking for a quick turnaround on a traffic study, stops signs at Atkins Street and on Western part of Country Club Road to lower speeds, and locals only thruway during construction. Rosemary Warren: 24 Preston Ave. Shared pictures of issues. Pic this morning shows re-route of traffic from 91 to Preston Ave. It’s a very narrow rd. making it difficult for two cars to pass. The telephone poles shows damage of cars hitting the poles. Tractor trailer trucks are now using Preston Ave to either bypass the weigh station on 91 or traffic on 91. They have had property damage. They had homes hit. A gentleman was hit by a car while walking his dog. A suggestion would be a “dangerous” intersection sign. Looking for reasonable solutions. The telephone pole damage was done by a school bus because two cars could fit through. Councilman Ford sent the photo to Councilman Mangiafico and Councilwoman Kelly Sweeney who joined the meeting virtually. Chris Cardella: 1545 Country Club Rd. Re: Traffic concerns on Country Club Rd and Preston Ave. Since he has moved on 5 years ago, traffic has significantly increased. Road is furthest out of town, less than a mile from Meriden Border. Preston Ave has become a cut through road for drivers trying to get around traffic on 91. Country Club Rd has become a major throughway for tandem tractor trailers, dump trucks, construction vehicles and double decker tow trucks. Most traffic is contributed to Suzio’s and Bishops, which attracts a certain type of traffic. Which has been there since before he moved in, but the traffic though has increased and with a new paved road the trucks are driving faster. Regular traffic has increased significantly, cars, trucks, vans, Amazon drivers, Ups, and along with the newly paved road the speed has increased. He walks his dogs on this road, cars fly by. Neighbors will clear a strip of brush along the side of the road for he and his dog to walk up on it, but even still cars get within inches. Points in the road are less than 12 feet wide, cars can’t get side by side. He was a victim of this, after yielding and thinking he was through he and the other driver still clipped mirrors. A few years ago neighbor was hit by a speeding car. Neighbor required removal of skull and years of surgeries. He thinks about this every time he is down by the road. There are nights at 12am and 1am in the am that the traffic flow felt like it was coming from the Berlin Tpke. Right up Preston Ave. Please consider any stop signs, traffic lights, and rumble strips, anything that could help with these issues. Joe (last name audio unrecognizable) 205 Preston Ave Traffic this morning was coming quick down the road. Traffic has really picked up in our area since the highway gets jammed up. When they first moved to Preston Ave it was a dirt road. 10 years ago they put curbs along portions of Preston Ave which narrowed it even more. It’s exactly 11.6 ft. wide. Years ago they wanted the ids to walk to country club road for the bus, but they fought that hard. There’s no sidewalks. Nowhere to get out of the way of traffic. The narrowest part of that road is in a blind spot. There’s a telephone pole at that spot, cannot get two cars by. There are tour busses, tractor trailers. Anyone who wants to bypass jam on 91 comes down that road. Few years ago tried to get no through trucks signs. There’s going to be a problem soon, someone is going to get whacked, cars do not slow down.. One additional issue unrelated to traffic. Going toward Meriden before budding Rich where the power lines come through, there’s a hunter that has set up a blind between Preston Ave and 91. It doesn’t seem like he has the proper distances between either road to have a setup. Deer body parts were found in a bag before hunting season, indicates illegal hunting. Lynette Lockhart: 38 Preston Ave, lived there 20 years with husband. Grew up on Country Club Rd and Atkins Street before it was redone in 70’s/80’s. Took some of the pics in front of you because less than 2 weeks ago there was something that occurred on 91, there was an hour worth of traffic being diverted down Preston Ave and Country Club Road. Included a Fed Ex truck and a Bobcat truck. This am when she left for work, she could even get out of her driveway. When she finally got to the stop to turn onto Country Club Road, she had to wait several minutes to wait for traffic to ease up so she can turn. When she got past Atkins Street the traffic was back up, she had to turn around and go back down Atkins Street because she knew it would take a while just to reach the Public Safety building then get onto 91. Wants to reiterate speed and volume of traffic down Preston and Country Club. Anything that can be done to address the issues. It’s a dangerous intersection if you’re coming down CC road and going to turn left onto Preston Ave, it is blind, almost been struck. Can’t see each other and with speeds you could get clipped. Maybe a yellow triangle with flashing light would help. Shannon Kreck, James Rennie: 145 Preston Ave: Their house is right where everyone is mentioning the narrowing. They wanted to emphasize it narrow to the point where they had tree work this summer, they had to shut down the road multiple times because it was impossible to have two cars pass at the same time. IN addition there are 5 different bus stops on our road. She has witnessed people go past the busses and vans that are stopped to pick up kids multiple times. Just this morning, her mother timed it. In 9 minutes, 44 vehicles passed as kids were getting on the school busses. So this is a huge safety concern. Asked a few years ago asked for a no through trucks sign and didn’t get anywhere. The bus stops are being impacted by the speed and increased traffic. Simon Skymba: 165 Preston Ave, lived here 5 years. Top of his property at street level is near one of the narrowest spots. At the largest radius corner there are trees that restrict vision for cars coming around in addition to the grade changes. From the top of his driveway looking north it is .3 miles. The grade drops 90 ft., 6%, coming around blind corners, preceding north from Preston to arrive at the intersection of Preston and Country Club, with blind corners coming from the West. In any inclement weather if you are not expecting that type of hill, you are sliding through Country Club Road into a neighbors driveways. At 1578 Country Club, vehicles have been struck in their driveways sliding through 2 lanes of traffic. In addition there are points where there are multiple car hits, telephone pole hits, and tree hits. 20 min before the meeting started there were multiple tractor trailers traveling 30-40 mph, in front of his street, traffic trying to come the opposite way, you hear breaking trying to slow down considerable because of the tight curve and low illumination since the change of LED lighting. Not every pole has lighting on the street, maybe every 2-3 poles and that’s before Eversource added additional utility poles. You have lighting every 4-500 ft. and just outside the residential area there is limited lighting as well. Traffic has been increasing. As the road work on 91 was occurring the DOT was shutting down multiple lanes on 91 starting at 7:30pm. Stated they are going to start shutting down one lane at 8p then another at 10pm. Even so there will be a vast increase of traffic. Wishes there was a greater police presence down their street between Country Club and Preston down the Meriden City Line. From the times he’s sitting outside he can say in 5 years that he has seen police presence of about 5 police cars that were not on detail or ACO that he does see almost daily.. Rosemary Warren asked to speak again: 24 Preston Ave, The no through trucks signs seems like a simple request. Atkins has a no through trucks sign and Westfield Ave has one which is a wider and brighter double lane street. That would be a good and inexpensive first step. Sandy Brankowicz asked to speak again: 205 Preston Ave. In the spring she had called the PD on multiple occasions about the seeding and traffic. Went to mayor’s office then public works then police. Can’t go into police department you have to call correct? An officer came out to the house and asked if they can park at the top of the driveway, she gave permission. The traffic officer called and asked what time they should be there? She said 3:30 – 5:30p. The officer said they can never come at that time, that’s their busy time. That’s what they have been getting from the PD. Councilman Darnell Ford asked the commission if it was ok for him to amend the agenda given the seriousness of the nature of this issue and that is is on the agenda and Chief is ready and go right into 7C which is traffic concerns. There were no objections. 7C. Traffic Concerns Chief Costa Reported;  Chief Costa apologized to the public speakers for any issues with the PD  Has a meeting tomorrow in regards to this with the state  Preston Ave & Technological issues will not go away unless DOT can remedy it. o Waze on the IT maps might be able to curb that  No through trucks signs: we can’t just put up signs by law, those will have to be done by traffic studies. He approved a traffic study a week ago. Will get guidelines about what that traffic study will look like in tomorrow’s meeting. Will email Command staff and officers will be there tomorrow.  Question: Are you alerted when there’s an accident on 91 N or S, you have no idea? Chief Costa answered: When you call from home it is going 9 times out of 10 going to dispatch. That is a whole other department. We share services with fire department. Chief will make sure dispatch knows this is a topic of concern and when someone calls regarding these issues it will be given to the PD.  Question: So you have no idea when 91 is backed up, you only rely on neighbors calling in? Chief answered: 91 at that location is always backed up. I am a former state trooper and it’s always backed up and it’s amplified when there are accidents.  When the highway is shut down there are alternate routes that the DOT puts into place, off the top off his head, Preston Ave is not one of them. Right now its 691 to 66 to get back onto 91.  Sandy Brankowitz said right now there’s work on 691, there’s detour signs taking them off 691 through Baldwin Ave in Meriden, Preston Ave in Meriden which leads to Preston Ave. Chief will address this in the meeting tomorrow with traffic engineer.  Chief will do everything he can in his scope of authority. It will be a partnership with state DOT and public works to get answers and ensure safety.  Re: the hunter, Chief will call and have the Blind inspected and ID the Hunter.  Question: when is hunting Season? Nov 15th through? It is Gun Season right now. Sandy has had an interaction with a drunk hunter.  Councilman Ford had notified him of the Preston Rd issues after PS meeting. We have a speed trailer, but it’s tight in that area to have a speed trailer.  Sandy suggested the speed trailers be in both directions on both streets.  A new law, presenting to commission today, is digital traffic control enforcement cameras. In other cities this has become an issues, like on 66, to do motor vehicle enforcement causes more traffic issues. These would be civil infractions. You get a ticket, it gets mailed to you. There’s no way for user to appeal it. You either pay a fine or the DMV will not let you renew your license or registration. He has been told by other cities they average about $350,000 a week in revenue. Chief is not ok with doing, there’s wrong initiatives. But it’s an upcoming issue because a law was just passed last session. We have to see if the commission or mayor will want these type of cameras. Possibly a pilot program on 66. Wanted to put on the radar as part of traffic initiative from the state. We are hot in this area because of construction, Route 9 projects, intersection of deKoven and Rte. 9. Common Council, Public Safety and PD should get heads around this to make sure this will be functional and efficient for the city. At the same time also safe. Chief doesn’t like the idea of a law enforcement agency being attached to the revenue piece of it, would need to discuss.  Q? You can’t contest anymore? No you can contest anymore. In the statute, the minimum pay is $75. Can see people getting inundated with civil violations. Also it’s not mandated, but chief doesn’t have the answer if Route 66, state routes, have authority over the city?  Signage, we have to do traffic studies. PD doesn’t do it but we refer to Traffic engineers. With signs comes liability. For example we can’t use stop signs to slow down traffic. Councilman Ford suggested Chief let them know what they can and can’t do as options to get some clarity. We will keep this item on the agenda and hopefully we can get constant updates, whether on the PD website or notices to folks in the area on what’s being done.  Councilman Ford asked if the traffic cameras mentioned before, if they were on Preston? We can put those can go anywhere, cameras are like the speed trailers, they do the exact same thing but can give you a ticket. There’d have to be an extensive study done for us to be able to enforce that, make sure it’s feasible. Chief responded: The way it works is we have to do a notification to the public through websites and all access that we are putting speed cameras on such and such street on such and such date. For fixed, there’d have to be signage that there’s a camera ahead.  Councilman Ford asked if Waze or maps is rerouting through Country club or Preston, if we put no through trucks signs, does that trigger those companies to not use those roads as a detour? Chief cannot answer that but will get an answer. Councilman Ford also asked if acting Meriden police chief will be in the meeting tomorrow as well, to see if they are dealing with the same issues. Chief Costa does not know.   Councilman Gennaro commented regarding traffic studies, that there are guidelines of things that can and can’t be done. Chief will give us an idea of what we can and can’t do based off these guidelines.  Councilman Ford asked there was mention about bus stops. Chief costa answered: The busses are equipped with cameras for this reason. The next day the transportation director reports it to the PD, then Officer Bodell issues those tickets. Councilman Ford asked what are some mitigative measures to prevent this during pick off and drop off? Chief will get some answers and feedback.  Chief said the public can send him emails directly, his email is on the website. He will then send back a summary of tomorrow’s meeting, and then he’ll do a press release and send to public and commission. At least by Wednesday he will send it out.  Public Q: Can you put in speed bumps or traffic rumbles. Is it state criteria or town by town criteria if you can do this? She asked because in the neighborhoods going to tweed airport have these. Chief answered that there are regulations for speed bumps, but will get an answer. In the northeast region they aren’t very popular. Public comment: some of the worst offenders are the state police coming from the academy. 4. Correspondence a. Officer’s Accolades Chief Costa reported;  We have been reached out to by councilman and state and city officials as well as private citizens who have had loved ones pass. Due to the volume of traffic, for some of these individuals, we have done escorts and have received thank you’s for that, three.  Self-initiated o Major incident that happened with a city employees, we gave positive SOR’s in response to that incident to those who were able to resolve it. 5. Monthly Reports a. Overtime Balances Chief Costa reported;  For those new to the commission a monthly report goes out in email and we will make sure you get it.  Identifiers are calls of service, statistics and budget.  October we were trending $7000 less than last fiscal year.  We had 2 lateral transfers that started Friday. They will go through 5 week FTO program then they will go to patrol. One of those spots will go to the traffic unit and the other position to fill detective position MIU. All the units will be at staff. We are currently going through a lateral process to fill the 8 vacancies we have. Once filled will minimize OT. Once we get closer to January we will have an idea what we will be projecting into May and July  b. Community Reports & Incident Statistics Reports Chief Costa reported on Community Reports;  October we had the death of an officer  18 deaths we were dispatched to  Student that passed, we dispatched Bear to that incident as well as other towns dogs too, the dog did its job, we got a lot of feedback from the schools  Chief takes part of Chamber of commerce, north end business alliance, Downtown business Chamber, multiple boards with CVH and YMCA. Pal Program is active in the community; recently held Halloween events with bounce houses to corn hole, hosted over 200 kids.  Councilman Ford asked if there were any events planned with the PD and FD. Chief Costa answered we have offered a number of challenges with no response. Chief Costa reported on Incident Reports;  4,843 calls for service – October  484 criminal investigations  64 in custody arrests  65 motor vehicle accidents  208 Motor vehicle stops  4 DUI arrest  2 Narcotics arrest  Over 439 last year for criminal investigations, so we are up a little but overall calls are down.  Councilman Ford asked if there are any patterns around where the accidents were with any one specific area? Chief answered 3-4 in the past 2 years. One pretty serious. A lot of times when people hit mirrors, we are called so we don’t know, but will do a deeper dive into those issues. The issue is now it’s been paved. Before there were bumps etc. and not crazy speeds. c. Accountability Update Chief Costa reported on Accountability;  We are on board with all our camera??  Full swing with Calea, ahead of the curve. Lt. Derrek Puorro and our accreditation manager Darren Perillo went out to Washington State for required training, and the depts. who have already received the accreditation, we do a lot of things that those cities aren’t doing. We are trending very well towards accreditation. We are working towards our first inspection. We are building out or proofs now, showing we are doing what we say in our policies: inspecting evidence room, climate control in evidence, motor vehicle stops data entry, working with union with evaluation system of employees. These hold us to higher standard. Looking about 1.5 yrs. out for accreditation. 6. Old Business ***None*** 7. New Business Chief Costa reported on Case workers;  Had a meeting with the mayor yesterday to finalize the difference between those workers and the ones we currently have at River Valley Services. RVS case workers are allowed to deal with first response to incidences and are capable of committing someone to ER or other services above and beyond what officers can because they are licensed. These positions would be the follow up that we have to have with our officers, we have an issue because we don’t have anything for our under 18 group, or a social work piece or mental health services, family resources that our offices consider going back and forth. This will support our officers and SIU unit.  Councilman Ford asked Chief to give a breakdown for our new council members. Chief answered River valley services is a state entity that is a subcontractor for DEMAS. In CT you can be a license clinician of Social work. But if you do not work with Demas you cannot mandate services. They are responding on our calls from people in crisis. What we need is the social aspect of advocacy and follow up. Our JRBs have changed dramatically. The social worker piece, they don’t correspond with the policies police department, they correspond with families entering the system. We need that piece to bridge to the youth bureau because our detectives are inundated in that spot. We are trying to minimize call service, and providing services and outsourcing to those who can deal with mental crisis and other struggles.  We also need help with Soup kitchen piece, they are doing a 6 million dollar project. Bringing in housing and shelters, we need to work with them so we don’t have the problems we are having on Main St. Trying to fix things at root cause instead of reactionary where the only options are committal or cell block with no follow-up. Historically there have been individuals been part of the system and in and out of PD, and that has gone away because we have people who can help these people and quickly provide them housing and shelter, nit in weeks or months but as soon as the call comes in. We have gone down 30% in use of force because of this program. This will be in yearly report. o Showers, wash areas, warming centers, addiction services, job placement, o Our CIT officers Kristen, Brad, Alex, covered day, evening and midnights. They have their mobile crisis unit on midnights with service entire Middlesex County. o Councilman Ford commented that prior to Chief Costa we didn’t have these services. The only interaction people had regarding homelessness, domestic violence for mental health issues was the police going in and having to react and then not being able to do anything other than be brought by ambulance to PD or ED. So with introduction of the social workers, all these types of cases have decreased and are being handled as mental health issues vs the PD handling them. o Our social workers have the ability to be safe dispatched and bring a stakeholders in to take care of a problem. There are no other programs in the state like that.  Youth Crisis: o We have a youth crisis, 13-21 they are doing big boy crimes like stealing cars and breaking into houses. They are violent. Need to take initiative to curb it so we do  not have to be reactionary. But we are on the right path, we have a lot of skilled people in the building. 8. Public Hearing Re-opened -- Other Matters ***None*** Anthony Mangiafico commented to Chief Costa, he has heard from residents the amount of panhandling has increased in the last few months. Chief Costa has responded that they are working with the State and chamber of commerce to curb that. We have discussions going on h re best way to handle that. Officers are working on arrests with ones that are aggressive. It’s legal to do, it’s a first amendment right but not inside of business etc. We are working with a stakeholder group that’s going after that problem specifically. There’s more people homeless in the city, unsure the reason why shelters are opening up Dec 1st. Councilman Darnell commented that the more Middletown becomes accepting and Vibrant this will become more of a problem. Places that care about folks become a lot more attractive to the homeless. Idea of a campaign of not handing the homeless money or vouchers to use or sell for drugs. 9. Meeting Adjournment Councilman Ford made a motion to adjourn. Motion made by and seconded. Motion passed unanimously, meeting adjourned at 7:57pm Next Public Safety Commission Meeting, Monday, December 18th, 2023 at 6:30 pm. TO VIEW THIS MEETING IN ITS ENTIRETY, PLEASE VISIT THE FOLLOWING WEBSITE: www.cityofmiddletown.com Public Meeting Videos Available Archives Public Safety Commission (PSC) Respectfully Submitted, Jessica DiPasquale Recording Secretary