TranscriptSelect Board Workshop ~ June 18, 2024

test my hearing age yeah I'll repeat it for the uh CU we are having a little bit of technical difficulties tonight the only purpose of the meeting is to have a discussion about law enforcement and the fact that we don't have any dedicated law enforcement at the Town level in town and that we've got a lot of feedback from the community about concerns about volume of of calls and invive that involve uh needing police response uh you know we get plenty of complaints about speeding um you know we have multiple state-owned roads that go through here with a lot of Country Roads coming into them and we have some hot spots where we have some a lot of car accidents or what I what we perceive to be a lot so we want to have a early conversation just what do Municipal policing look like what can it look like what's the longterm what's the shortterm and those sorts of things um so all I would ask is the two of you introduce

yourself leaning into the microphone and and uh then we'll have some questions my name is Eric Samson I'm the Inon County Sheriff uh William gagy I'm the chief depy perfect and um I guess I I'll give you a quick rundown of things you might have overlooked or maybe you're aware of for consideration um you know the Sheriff's Office office rural Patrol uh we run for a shift um with a minimum Staffing of three for the whole County um we have one contract town where the deputies contracted for that town remain in that town and was called out for travesties that we've experienced in other areas or to back up Mechanic Falls because it's Poland is our only contract town now uh but they have designated uh deputies which also help enforce their ordinances or other things it's more of how a Municipal Police Department would function um where rural Patrol is is rural Patrol respond to emergencies do traffic enforcement

things like that um what we've provided to you is a rundown of the numbers or call volume with experienc in Durham as well as a u sample contract it's actually a contract we used in uh Poland with taking them out but it's our pretty much standard contract we have that with the town we have it with two school districts for rsro um we've used salaries in there um

based on what we're hiring one of them is our top pay he's he's on the top of the pay scale so for your purposes it would be worst case scenario the other one's right in the middle um and then very rarely we've been fortunate uh with hiring practices that we attract from other agencies but with that you're getting the experience and the training is all taken care of but they come in higher on on our scale because they're credited for the years of experience where we come from the only thing we didn't include in the contract because the markets are always changing um is the capital So currently how it is we have nothing extra in the fleet um Poland had started out with two vehicles that they were paying for when we entered into contract because they'd have to put in their CIP plan it wasn't working for us it wasn't working for them we came up with a flat fee where we would cover all capital Cruisers mobile

terminals uh r radios Radars rifles shotguns cell phones anything in the car the only thing that we don't determine and different communities have different things available I I don't know what Durham situation is is um gasoline fuel for the vehicle uh generally we pay for it at Public Works in Leon we have an agreement with them the town of Poland for the Poland deputies they go to their Public Works and just uh we don't get a bill we don't pay anything we just fill up our Cruisers there um we've had this conversation before in Durham the it's been explored different things uh different options I'd say the interest has been consistent and it's coming up more frequently typically when things come up more frequently they occur to happen um for the absorption of the cost I usually project you know uh try to talk people into not going Full Tilt because that can overwhelm so your opportunity for

success is town meeting might be a little less unless I'm underestimating the the demand no you're estimating yeah so I I've you know some we want this I'm like well maybe you start out with two deputies will go 12 hours a day 7 days a week 365 days a year um and you know later on you can build off that because you also get to us a chance to acquire vehicles and all the equipment sometimes with the watch guard equipment which I forgot to mention it's taken us eight or nine months to get that what's watch guard equipment it's the body warn the car cameras the recording system um we try to have all the vehicles outed the same so everything's just very consistent and and the good thing about now here's where I'll talk about the pros because I think I touched this briefly but I don't you know willing to take questions the pros to Contracting is um especially in a smaller Community is you're not the county already has the

administrative cost we have HR we have payroll we have a sheriff a chief Deputy uh we have a rank structure um um when times are tough with hiring we have the others that we can order to fill the shifts um a lot of small towns like we cover when Mechanic Falls was having shortages or sabatus we were covering their shifts where they had nobody internally to cover it um so like if a Durham position if you wear to contract and somebody resigns or we can't fill it we're filling it through overtime um with County so you'll your your contract will be honored um some confusion with the contract is is we had one town that thought well we'll contract with you but our guy is going to be in Auburn coming here and we were like no when they're when they're here we actually have a we ask you to designate a substation for them to operate out of um other than Court time or arrests or things they need to go to the office for they're end

Durham for their whole shift um the liabilities therefore are transfer onto the county we're self-insured uh the negotiations the wages the training um workman's comp issues are are avoided from the town so you have a lot of reduced liability and the cost savings towards Contracting is the administrative back office operations and over the past even decade it's probably gone all along I'm sure the fire has experienced the same thing the amount of Records we're required to keep uh the foer requests we're always answering um you know we have a records Clerk we'd actually like to but right now we have one so when you look at some of the smaller towns and the cost it is for them to run their police departments and it's like an ownership kind of like your elementary school or your library um I think our agreement with Poland works good we participate in their department head meetings or we meet with

their Town manager um whenever requested uh if they used to want us to go to budget committee meetings they don't ask us to anymore um you know we we serve them like employees of theirs um if the residents have an issue we're able to Target it because we have designated staff for it um they recently went from um 16 hour a day coverage which I wouldn't really offer because it was unattractive shifts that we couldn't really hire for they had a revolving door now they're at 24-hour coverage so their schedule is the same as our Patrol deputies um when people have talked to me uh there's the town of Durham and is another town that I try to say why don't you look at 12 hour coverage to start you can build off that the issue we have when you start Contracting U because we were approached with having a deputy 5 days a week uh 40 you know their their work hours are 42 hours that's what they get paid for um the issue becomes and

it's changed now cuz call sharing has changed with the state police so we're kind of in every town all the time anyway um but once we contract with a town it's ours whether the contract time is theirs or not ours meaning we're responsible for everything uh the state police will assist us obviously but a call after hours of the contract we're still responding to but it'll be like we do now from Auburn Turner green wherever

the available dep is at so I think that's kind of like a brief rundown I um both of us are are pretty familiar with the numbers of it all or any questions you might have um I just wanted to give you a broad brush so we can take it from where your interest to start right off rather than stare at my phone add all this do you know off the top of your head what this number adds up to in terms of calls received from Durham in

2023 23 I don't have the exact number I gave you a list of all the calls for 22 23 and then for January 1st to June 30th of this year okay but like what what I'm seeing here is these numbers is the quantity so right off the bat so like just for 22 for example there were seven abandoned Motor Vehicles 93 abandoned 911 calls M uh 89 accidents

um 94 traffic stops one threatening yeah well what I'm getting at is it's it's a fair amount a lot like this is adding up to like thousand this is in Durham yes there's been years where like what swacked the first conversation is there was a burglary issue during the daytime um I guess bedroom community came up to play that was a major concern at one time um that was actually prior to 2015 cuz I was on the road while it was going on and you know the only recording equipment we could find was like the get and go and things lined up and we're in tops some you doing follow-ups you know that stuff but there's just usually something that occurs that spawns the interest I think over the past year it's been more of communities wanting something a little bit more and we try to you know spread our resources amongst the county uh as best we can I don't typically Advocate um because I don't think it's right to solicit but at the

same time if you're interested we're we're we're interested in providing service so obviously we're willing to have the conversation but it's up to the select boards and I'm glad at least you're kicking the tires exploring the options

publicized they're they're not something that we do press releases as you can see in 22 there was five sex offenses in the town uh there's usually DHS referrals that come in of allegations of sexual abuse oh and on that note when I talk back office we also have four detectives on staff so CID Services another thing that's high for can you say what C is uh criminal investigation detectives and like currently right now we have one uh swor in through the Attorney General's office for domestic violence issues we have an Accident Reconstructionist uh you all probably know we have can9 through the the deputies but I'm just saying these are things that a lot of time a town looking to s a police department there's a big Bill to it where we have a lot of the bill covered but we also have additional resources that are available to you not only now but obviously as part of the contract yeah so what you're essentially

saying is you already have this built down infrastructure and resources so if a town is starting its own Department it might be years down the road before they get the K9 or the detective whereas you're saying you have it there so if it's needed you can call it in yeah okay and um you know I we noticed through our recruitment over the past decade because that's how long we've been doing it um having a lot of opportunities within the organization helps retain people um and we invest a lot in the training uh one of the biggest you know things we pushed for out of the gate was a larger training budget and we're you know you wait for it to Plateau so we try to increase it but we've supported whether it's the Cyber guy computer issues isn't my thing um but we're sending him down to federal training all the time he's like a resource Statewide now uh the a reconstruction the mapping the the guy that does the vehicle autopsies um K9 so

we support the employees developing their Specialties but those are also resources within that you hope to maintain through retirements and things of that nature can can I just add to that because you left out something I don't want to praise you too much but you left out you also have the people on the the federal task forces which brings in those those resources as well when when they're necessary so our one of our detectives who's got all this training and and gadgets and cell phones um he contracts he works with the federal uh FBI so basically we've got him on a 4- day week schedule but Fridays he works for the federal government and he's actually turned into a resource we send him and another that we've been starting to send for trainings for these Specialties in Alabama so um we've been fortunate to recruit really good people uh people that are interested in serving that have interest in not just occupying

a space but developing things of interest and we've been fortunate enough to be able to support them whether it's through the training or equipment needed to do these side jobs so Heather is your question about a contract because before we went into that what I wanted to just because I know that one thing people are going to ask is well we already and this is by no means leveling insult or anything but to say We already pay taxes in the county what does that get us now and so I know you mentioned something about rural Patrol so what I'm trying to understand is like now what is is it you all are only responding when called or is there ever a patrol going through town or what's that frequency without let's say with just can we just kind of quantify for everyone watching what we have right now sure right now at minimal we'll have three on duty patrolling 14 towns six of which have their own I

think it's six have their own police departments so they're responsible from Livermore to Durham you know minet Green leads so while those three deputies are on duty they could be you know patrolling in leads doing a car acent on Route four something on College Street in green or they could be in Durham um so when you're calling 911 you could have the the travel time issues um you know where if you had had a contract Deputy they would be in your now um patrolling for Speed and so so in theory three on 247 minimum in in theory is that means some officer while patrolling is or deput is passing through Durham every day at some part of dur we we asked them to have a presence in every town we actually have them do certain activities to promote visibility um that I don't really want to you know but well I know they've been in town before cuz oh yeah there and when I was on the road I would is is is an outlier but um I just wasn't

sure cuz my understanding is most of the towns north of us have police departments so I I know you probably have to pass through towns with departments to get to us I wasn't sure if that kind of plays into what a patrol ends up looking like or if you Patrol towns with departments less towns without departments more the ones that have their departments or like Poland like I tell our guys hey Poland's a contract town but don't be afraid to swing through it is cuz you got mechanic Falls and Auburn in the way um but I think they try to at least especially the supervisors it's the same thing here we don't we we don't Patrol we do Patrol when we're passing through let's say sabatus but we're not responding to calls unless called for assistant you know they might like I've had ouis in catus when I was just traveling through that happens but the towns that have their own designated Police Department that's not our Focus

it's the towns that don't that that's what we're here for okay if that yeah that's that's answering my question cuz I I know one thing that's important for us out of tonight's exercise is to say here's what we're getting right now so everyone knows and then do we want to expand that more I think that kind of encapsulates and what it sounds like if you got three officers on patrolling 14 towns in a perfect world where there's no calls and you can just drive around all day and Patrol but I'm sure you're getting called to live more you're getting called to green or whatever and so you might have planned on driving through dur but you get tied up and in in case the numbers comes a question so when I'm talking three for the county that's for the communities that don't have their police departments then you add the fourth which will be in Poland so I I for argument sake there's four on duty at minimal but one is contracted

with Poland so he's not leaving there and I've left out the sros which are in the schools and offseason they work in the communities that they're contracted with through the school because um you know they're paying for that all right cool those were my questions on that so we can go around you can ask question go ahead nether so this says calls for service does this mean responses like have you responded to 105

accidents in Durham in 2023 or there were just typically if it's a call for service the deputy is either responding or starting a phone call talking with the complainant having to follow through do reports on it cuz I added it up as 1,073 for 2023 which okay and then the four four

Deputy am I saying that right sorry four deputies on three minimum one of the four is dedicated to Poland does that mean that if we CH if Durham decided to do this would and we did one dedicated um that would come out of that four add it would be an addition so if you said we want to contract two deputies seven days you know a deputy s days a week so our shifts are 12 hours so that would be two deputies um it would be now we'd have five on every day okay um so just a clip so this there's a sergeant a Corporal two patrolman in the county um one in Poland has one okay so

but what we do because we saw this shift over time and then it changes because of the calls are a little bit different today they're more intensive they're more they demand more from the courts um you violence is up we'll just say as so the idea originally we we had the minimum of three on plus Poland but we have four on the shift plus Poland more often than not we're going with four but the original was to have the skeleton for the first man out because people didn't like being ordered in um and you know covering and we wanted people to have their time off so we TR to do it because budgetary we can't afford to pay overtime to have four on all the time but initially with the four on Sergeant Corporal 24-hour supervision two deputies you know plus Poland we weren't replacing the first one out M okay can I keep going with my list fine so um one the two proposals one's for two one's for four the the two wouldn't be on at

the same time no okay but it's seven days a week but it's one Deputy 12 hours unless we went and these these are just they're not they're just examples how our schedule works is you work two days have two days off work three yes so one would be work one would be off they work a 14-day pay cycle and so the 12 hours would align with your shift like we wouldn't be able to align our 12 hours like if we had the most amount of calls between 400 p.m. and 400 a.m. we wouldn't be able to choose the 12 hours we would work with you to to do that I mean we would want some sort of stable structure so for I don't want to get in all the we we work a 5 to5 when before Poland went to 24-Hour coverage they worked to 7 till whenever it wasn't 7 to7 because it was a bizarre schedule and it was hard for us to keep people because they had pretty much weekends off except for Sunday so we were we we kind of had to do away with part-time

employees because the training Court requirements things like that it made it not really in the types of crimes we're investigating um we felt more comfortable having full-time Academy trained rather than the part-time um yeah employee and then you know Court requirements part-time employees generally have full-time employment elsewhere it was it was hard to get them to go to core we had one guy flying planes so we didn't even know we'd be you know here um so we just did away with what they used to call Reserve deputies um and it's all full-time at this point so one other thing while I'm just I'm going but if you said you wanted 8 to8 7 to seven we can work with that okay so when I'm looking at this first prop like the estimated cost for two depy proposal that 288 that includes

all the capital no okay that I was like whoa what are we talking about let's go that includes all their medical insurance Estate Retirement Social Security flight uh uniform allowances so the yearly expense for vehicle Fleet that's not determined yet so that's so that is in the contract uh because what we do is the vehicle maintenance so like for the town of Poland for example that takes care of all their oil changes vehicle repairs tires wipers anything for maintenance for the vehicle okay but it doesn't take care of the actual uh capital or I should say it will take care of the capital moving forward but the initial capital is where we have to get and that number is not reflected here right and and it's to your benefit and our benefit like it's our benefit if we have coverage down here CU then we know we have coverage down here so it's to your benefit with with the capital that we Finance it out um because it lowers the

cost so we have a built-in payment for Poland but it reflects what they're using um and we just you know buy and sell cars um and it and it helps us as far as if we have a Poland Deputy who decides to transfer the county we don't have to leave the car and switch them for another they just take a car and we put a replacement there you know and it would work the same with them so the idea would be um we'd have to look at because it's worthwhile for us to make some investment into this and we would keep the equipment you know all of a sudden 5 years from now so we don't want the contract anymore um but we would look at what are we pricing the vehicles at um because it's not a money-making thing it's how to make it affordable for you and what can we absorb that we have on hand um to help you out with capital because the startup can be a little bit expensive so then my other question which I don't expect you to be able to

answer tonight and and this might be a question for Jerry was was that when we were talking about that initial grant that like we missed the deadline CU that was in May if we were going this route because we're not start necessarily starting our own Police Department I just would like to know if that Grant would still apply if we were doing contract coverage I would have to look but I think it is I think it would because it's it's a grant to to have more coverage more police in your town I'd have to look at the grant is it caught fast it's from the Department of Justice yeah and and if there's grants available we would be if we qualify happy to use them for this purpose because like I said it actually we we have minimal resources you know there's all kinds of considerations that go into building a budget and what you offer um and is that something that you would seek out or is that something we would

seek out I think either way I think usually one one supports the other so if we did it we wouldn't want let you know support let from you or if you did it it would be support letters from us to you and the last cops pass Grant we received was I think four years ago what it was in 2020 when the state police pulled out a call sharing uh we were able to get two deputies to help offset some of the coverage so if I remember correctly it was 75% to 75% is that the same progr yeah so usually it's the first year I think is like it was either 100 or 75 and that usually breaks down you have to have first first three years they pay a percentage and I think the fourth year you have to commit 100% yeah so what we did is we looked at the percentages and then we realized they give you the money it's available for three years so what we did is made gradual steps so the impact at the end of the third year wasn't going

to be this $200,000 figure uh you know kind of looking at I I kind of numbers come to me quick so I I realized that if we start adjusting that percentage now and abs a little bit every year when it when the money's gone it's not going to be $100,000 hit it'll be a $155,000 hit but yeah you make use of the money during the term of the and then uh the agreement would be p on to up for a year or two after um so that that's there but

typically I find that when things are built into the budget it's normally accepted it gives you the time to build up gradually and that grant program is revolving year yeah right and we get notific I mean I get your email I can I usually get notifications when it's coming up and that's why when you look at some of the capital items sometimes there's grants available that are applicable to some of the items we need and currently um coost the federal government closures are not finalizing a budget whatever happened just a few months ago and it we were working with uh Congressman Golden's office um to supply us with new mobile terminals so there's something that could be absorbed take that off the capital cost right now we're working with the same office a different individual different Grant um for upgrade our our watch gu watch GU system because it's it's like eight years old so those are things that we're

doing it already and we're just incorporating it it kind of lowers that's why we really couldn't give you a figure now we would figure it in I'm just it it to have no point of reference is a little bit hard for my brain so I'm not I don't want to put you on the spot and ask you for a point of reference but like it's really hard to to be like this is the number and this is so detailed and I appreciate that but like to have absolutely no point of reference in terms of the capital cost hard the capital cost we're doing for Poland is 40 something thousand yeah we're currently budgeting 40,000 a year but there's four of them in the so if you look at the fouryear the foure four man proposal yes I think it's like 40,000 yes so I just took about half of it um we're seeing the increase in some of the expenses like you know foil changes have gone up that was my question that's for expenses the that's not acquiring the vehicle the

equipment for us for to purchase a brand new vehicle and outfit it with radio watchu and everything it's about 75,000 and we finan them for 3 years mhm um that's why I'm saying with Poland I believe the budget line for it is 40 something thousand it's 40,000 but that's just for the now that we already have the capital in place it's kind of like the maintenance of it to keep it going Josh you had a question I did I wanted to back up you know before we start talking about you know the contract and all that stuff um was it back in a the beginning

of April we heard from Ryan McGee about what he believed is the town of Durham's need for more law enforcement coverage um and I know that Chief has some Pro likely has some comments uh about his thoughts when when the fire department rescue is responding and I and I want to get your opinion also um but what are your thoughts I mean you guys I I've known you both for seems like forever uh so I know you've been there in some position or another for a long time what is your opinion about derms need today for more

law enforcement coverage well I'm not a Derm resident I when I was working the road I was patroled dur show up to many of the car accidents um I Town start police services for different reasons and I look at where Poland fits I mean not Poland where where Durham fits like on the map and coverage wise I can see why people would would want the service I think it's a worthwhile investment um the conservative person in me says

don't go Full Tilt but I can can also understand why people would want to go full till um but you also can understand if you were to go for 24-Hour coverage we'll say that means we got to find four people we got to find four cars and four I want to get to all that those as far as as far as law enforcement coverage or or any type of Contracting I I would encourage anybody of interest when you look at what's going on whether you know the violent crimes we're seeing the the ability to assist fire and rescue fire and Rescue in Poland is why we went to 24-Hour coverage there um they said hold off on giving us anything this year and we need this because of the type of calls that were going to requireing police assistance so you know what I'm saying well you might want to go 12 hours it doesn't necessarily support the argument that the fire department made I'm looking at that as a cost perspective I support um obviously

contractor service because it benefits not only the community to have the representation but it gives us more boots on the ground to deal with the issues we're we're dealing with I mean we take a day a week now where we run the options program throughout the county so that's taking a person off the road bringing and that's very valuable it reduces the followup it reduces overdoses um it connects people with resources so there's always things coming up demands on law enforcement are just where we're picking up it would assist us in that so it's a welcome help I at this point I have a hard time going to the County Commissioners or or budget committee you know asking for more boots on the ground because we have six communities that have their own Police Services whether contracted or Ed um but I also see a need and I see where our people's are tied up not necessarily on the number of calls but the distance

from call to call um so I'm a supporter of it but I understand it's up to your town I'm sure you know one of the things we're seeing more and more of when we weren't on the when we were on the road we didn't have the overdoses that they're experiencing now the mental health wasn't like it was now so that's probably a lot of the calls that the fire department is going to that requires law enforcement and derms kind of like isolated where some of the other communities were neighboring so if I'm in green I'm next to Turner I'm next to leads I'm next to whales where durm you guys are kind of down here um so it makes it a little bit more difficult sometimes so you don't have like a Tipping Point where you're supporting communities and you're looking at um the

calls coming in some records of things that you that you would say to the community we think you need to change your approach I mean we had officer McGee come as a resident right and he just by doing a bunch of research came to the board and said we should do something I'm just wondering have you felt that as well are you talking particularly yes I

well there's another Community within anron County that I tell them you're way overdue okay um do I feel Durham is overdue no do I see a growing Community um that could benefit from having the resource yeah but I'm coming from a a law enforcement background who understands that you know enforcing the law and traffic is one thing but Community engagement is another um and just the resource to the town um you know in my view I think Durham's grown a lot over the past 10 or 20 years um at the same time I I see the threeway 136 is I mean I used to be out here I work night shift and I used to like being here at 3:00 in the morning cuz I don't know who's getting out of work but you know 136 is is is a Raceway so it was like fishing in a barrel so to say and from that you get ouis and probably contributing factors to those thousand crashes you're dealing with um you know and there's activities that

you're dealing with no Community is immune but I'm not here I'm not going to say that boy Durham you've got issues you need law enforcement that's not why I'm an advocate of it I think having uh the direct resource available to you is beneficial to everybody it would be beneficial to the Sheriff's Office beneficial to the uh the residents of the community if we have defined folks here is there a proactive plan like because they're here fulltime I mean are there things that um you provide more of a proactive uh my experience is the uh follow-ups

we'll say to calls is is quicker is is more thorough um because you're not dealing with you know calling green and then the next day they're working and rather being able to follow up or to knock on doors they're busy with something in Turner or whales you know there when I because I was a poll and contract deputy and what I liked is I could get from one end of town to the other in 20 minutes and I could follow up the next day on everything I missed the day before when I went over to the county I found uh sometimes the schedule or or the call volume doesn't allow you to do that so I think everything's investigated thoroughly whether it's County or the contract towns I just think um when you're in a contract town you actually have that benefit of being there you know you're going to be there to 12 hours and you can always Circle back around you you know what I mean where whether it's my schedule as the

patrol Deputy or the residents on a road that I need to talk to you know hey what did you see you know house got burglarized um you know operating around that I think it's you know you have dedicated staff for that can can I go and I think there's also because there's one one or two deputies always in that town they get to know the town's people so they get more inform they go to the durm get and go they know who the people where it's not just somebody passing through grabbing a soda and they really don't communicate you know they get to know the fire department a lot better um so and the school so where there is a need you know in some communities there's more of a need you know like I don't want to name a community because then everybody say what's wrong with them let's say Leon has their Police Department because of the need but there's also I can't think of the right words so I'm going to say side bets to having

police services and just the presence in your community and some people when they have nothing else you know they they have that you know uh whether it's a a lift assist with the fire department or just neighborhood engagements of driving down and seeing kids you know playing basketball hey you know whatever it's a positive effect there that some sometimes I I want Joe had a question and I go to the two

engagement and what that would look like because I think that's a big benefit but I wanted to give chief to talk about whether he seeds need I know you haven't been here too too long but you come with experience and so i' I'd ask you the same question I like to provide data just the data guy right not opinion living pel type of stuff we work well every day with the sheriff's department we've run three calls today I was just with the sheriff's department our issue now that we're staff 24 is you know these medical mental sort of Health advisories if you start looking back all the numbers are doubling from year over year uh we just had it we're not supposed to go in seen safety until Sheriff arrives we we are updated maybe even an ETA or where they're responding from but a lot of times it's not durm so it's literally on the other side of the county so in theory you know last call possible suicide we're supposed to wait

outside for Sheriff to make it safe in good conscience cuz I run most calls I I can't wait outside while someone is possibly having a medical inside or we can intervene so we sometimes go into Harm's Way um two calls ago we were In Harm's Way all the mental medical are going out same thing with car wrecks we do need law enforcement and we don't go to all of them right A lot of times Sheriff will go non-injury reported um but you know our guys are are doing traffic control assessing for hazards we do need law enforcement recently there was not available DUI we needed a game warden to stop and help us out they were looking for Mutual Aid I think we had two Lisbon officers come and that's beginning to be not the norm but it it frequent uh and because of their business what's that had three medical calls and we just just used the sh last night recently I shoed some drug activity away from the the uh runaround

Pond myself just because I was there um by the time you call again proximity it it's really just spit in the wheel are are they busy somewhere else are they in town uh there's no Rhyme or Reason and we would feel better I mean the citizens would clearly benefit from a police presence and so with the fire department what that looks like is is up to you and the reason why I was doing the two over four is trying to make it affordable and an introduction then people would experience the benefit and probably more supportive but we couldn't we we bring it up to poll and it was kind of unheard of and then a new Fire Chief came in and he said we can't have this you know it was I don't know what your population rates are in comparison but he's right the frequency goes up I'm a big supporter of uh the CIT Crisis Intervention Program with nami I'm actually The District 3 Regional chair or whatever we coordinate the training

um a couple years ago they were proposing laws to have it an introduction of basic level uh uh basic law forcement training program The Academy they reduced it to an 8-h hour course which I think is good because I think the training is better if you have some experience in the communities dealing with people with mental health related issues that way you can reflect on it during your training U but there's a requirement that 20% of your department has to be trained and I think we're at 80% um and I think that people are seeing it because of it's just the level of stuff we're dealing with I don't know if the consent degree in the '90s that affected that but we're dealing with a lot more whether it's substance abuse issues or uh Mental Health related issues regularly and and then for Community engagement I mean people are thinking you know when you think about it you're thinking about they're going

to be out there investigating crimes pulling people over that sort of thing but that's not all the deputies would be doing right I mean they'd be we have we have deputies that go to the schools even though even through the schools that have the SRO they check in make sure they're seen uh you know the Poland guys are I mean they go to the fire department all the time I come down here the first time I met the chief so so a lot of the officers might get to know a few people but there's a lot of interaction with the fire department Public Works the local stores um the local business owners so I mean they do try we try to get them Community Based and involved with the community and they try to get familiar with the territories like we we put up some standards that are a little bizarre but the guys you know so it encourages more property checks uh networking prior to co we were encouraging to stop at schools you know

maybe start by taking a walk through then maybe go during a lunchtime maybe during the schoolyard because a lot of people they never have the opportunity to interact with police but at the same time you have some people that their interaction might only be negative so rather than raise an alarm uh and we were starting on a good track uh even people that were resistant to the idea of just stopping in a school it is kind of weird um but then Co happened and that kind of gets off track uh we encourage them to stop by the ball fields while there's games going um you know to be part of the community um not sound okey but that's really all it's about but it's an important part of it um because you want the people's support in in your job and a lot of times it gives people the chance to ask you know the officer the deputy there questions about things that I mean I've been asked some very bizarre questions just

standing there you know and that's okay um but it it builds off that um it's beneficial both ways around Heather you had a question then I'll come over to you CH uh I have a comment actually about the SRO so Durham is a little bit of an anomaly because we're in a school district with Cumberland County towns and so the the SRO that's in Freeport actually can't respond to anything in Durham because it's a Cumberland County employee so I definitely see that as a benefit in terms of our school um when we're talking about this and then um I

personally I own a daycare and we do community helper day um and the fire department comes over with a truck and I happen to have a Brunswick police officer who has a child so we've been able to expose the kids you know to uh law enforcement in a positive way through that but having it be a member of the community I think would also be you know a benefit to start really young with that narrative that I used to go and read them books that the some were kind of interesting but yeah those are the types of things you can expect and and you know in a town like Durham you want to know where these opportunities are because it's part of the networking think so Chief if you had a question there there's other tangibles that I see that probably the public doesn't so sheriffs have transported the mentally ill you know for us um they feel more comfortable just going in a car they don't get an ambulance bill there's

other tangibles and it it happens quite frequently really we we don't have the data on it but it happens frequently um certainly firefighter safety going into these houses you know it it's a judgment call on all of them um and you know

recently again not publicized you know the sheriff we've had two or three arson cases and now it's not the same Department you know now we're dealing with forest rangers and then some of them are are State Police there's possibly a arson case uh you know with a mile of the border the other night um sexual assaults um so to to have goto

sheriffs that we work with also helps otherwise it's just sort of spreading it around as you talk about days off your design your designes are your design so it's not like you get full contract one day it's going to be me the next day it's going to be Billy we're going to hire Tom Larry Jane and Jill and you're going to have Tom Larry Jane and Jill until they you know put in to get promoted or transfer uh so you have the opportunity to have that consistency that you're talking about so so to follow what Chief said I'm thinking about some of the transports suicidal ideations kind of a re repeat customer get get transport a lot are that's times where maybe the

officer that's stationed here for the shift could do the transport there if it's if there's not a TR truly life-threatening medical just maybe it needs to be a transport to a better safe space that can open up those possibilities it can because I mean we do that but at the same time um we have a a crisis Network that uh a lot of times we can get the individual to provide the crisis on scene through phone through whatever so that can alleviate everybody because you know what it's like once you go to the hospital but at the same time we often transport people to the hospital for those Services until we're released by them um and then some people it just aren't appropriate to be a transport in the but ambulance but like you know the chief is saying it's weird some want nothing to do can you just give me a ride in the in the car sure um but yeah there there's an opportunity for that and I also wanted to add uh when you're

talking this rise in numbers through this dami involvement we do a uh every month we submit a form to mental health related calls or crisis related calls where it's the primary so if you are burglarized and we show up and find out it's somebody that's in some sort of a mental health crisis but we're there for the primary of burglary we might miss the the crisis the mental health related part but if the primary reason for our call is Mental Health crisis or mental health related it's it's it's documented kept tracked of we submit it to NAMI so even on the chance that we're losing some of of the data like you're you're uh what we are retaining I can tell you because I think we've been doing this for three or four years now um is growing close to 30 incidents a month where in the past it was in the teens and that's not Durham that's countywide for the eight communities we're providing service to so the trends are

going up Joe did you have some questions I just no I just wanted to say that you know certainly way more Pros on kind of making my little list here you know the travel time is certainly a pro fire department support that that would be a huge driver um I I I listen to the

calls I listen to your calls I you guys are busy all the time um um and supporting these guys is is very important um you know it's more depth to the investigations um you know even though everything gets investigated like you had indicated here all these calls uh more focused uh gives you more depth on the department as well which is you know the added Manning which which focused your ranks um and helps everybody um I know I I like the contract approach I think it's a really good idea um and a good approach so I

just have clarification so you you put out here estimated cost for two Deputy proposal and then the four and I just want to make sure I understand so two deputies would be a deput one Deputy in every 12h hour block so so there'd be 24-hour coverage between two or that's only if you have the four deputies four deputies is two deputies would be you pick the 8 to8 and you'll always have somebody on 8 to8 um and then on the off hours it would go back to what you've had which is rural Patrol um 7 to Seven 8 to8 what

what 10 to 10 it doesn't matter it would be two individuals hired specifically assigned to Durham oh I see what you're saying the second day would be a different individual so they Thursday I be Friday Saturday Sunday then he be Monday Tuesday okay and I don't I obviously I know that these are just just placeholders but in terms of our budget mindset you know that's the number we have here for that two Deputy so essentially we could say this 12-hour block maybe it's our most dangerous 12 hours of the day or something like that most car accidents um that not including vehicle

outfitting and all that sort of stuff is 288,000 a year and that is using a top paid individual in a middle of the road so we you might could we get two three year people that could save you you know $5,000 and then can we then with the um

vehicle component that's the 75,000 per year or 75,000 spread amongst three years yeah and so that leads me to the question are all of your contracts with communities for one year two year three years is there flexibility there because I know that we're budgeting for things you know on an annual basis and if there's a cost that needs to be spread out across a few different years we might have to talk about it a little differently well to start it you know we could look at I'm going to say rolling the dice sorry it's been a long day rolling the dice to say what you know this is this is causing us to be prohibitive so what would work that could work maybe it's we Finance everything for four years you know which on the county side doesn't work because we're driving from Durham to Livermore call to call maybe we could get by with a four-year deal on the cars because they're going to be you know in the town

um you know maybe we have Grant the grant opportunities um our cars typically lasts we've been running about five years for a car because it's assigned to the each Deputy so it's they take care of them it's not you know one guy getting in one and one guy getting out and it's the same car always being utilized and it's being be so I'm the only one that drives my car so I tend to take care of it in this two Deputy situation there'd be two cars correct okay I think so is that I'm just trying to in our in our labor contract we have working conditions and it's actually work better for us cuz LifeWise having that like we're running our cars to 125 150,000 miles before we're getting them when you're looking at cars that are rotated they you're getting 75 to 100,000 miles out of them um certain model cars were getting very low maintenance Beyond you know oil changes trainy flushes and brake pads and tires there's certain model cars

where we've had transmission problems so we don't buy those anymore you know um but we we've done very well and the fleet's very well maintained I think because of and it's a long history of the assigned cars but they were also subject to call out after hours which has happened recently more than we like I think what he was originally asking like we sign our Solid Waste contract our Solid Waste contract is for five years I think what he's asking is is your contract representative an annual contract a threee contract prob would do onee contract onee contract yeah and that's where my only confusion Li that if you have to spread the cost of the vehicle out the two vehicles out over three years and we I'm not saying we would do this but the situation where oh we we tried it out the year one people didn't want to pay for it year two so now you're stuck with the two cars and so I didn't know if that was

prohibitive in your contract language to say hey no you can't you got to be on the hook long enough to pay the car off no what what it gives us the ability to do is put it into our County rotation the following year so we wouldn't be buying as many cars on the county side yeah and then the only reason I ask is cuz someone's going to in the community would ask well does that mean we have to do it for x amount of years to pay for the vehicle so I just wanted to make sure I understood and the other part the reason for the one year the number is not the concern I had here just more of the sure the one year option that works for us you know we'd like guarantees but the problem is is if you retire next year and I hire somebody new um it's a different ball part oh you know where that we're not doing it to make money we actually try to transfer the real cost to you now there's winners and losers um

the guy in the middle he might resign next year and his replacement must cost might cost us more you know we have to figure out a way to absorb that at the same time the guy at the top might retire this year we might hire his replacement that costs us less so in a year it's a fair margin of error three years out it's less predictable because you just you yeah I totally understand that as more my questions weren't necessarily the number but how the contract was and you'll see in the both proposals I used the Family Medical and that was one of the reasons um we just always gone with the family medical so if I have a single subscriber and all a sudden they get married it's just you're budgeting for the full family as opposed to and one one one of our contract e um

actually requested that we did that because they were experiencing the changes and how everybody likes predictability in a budget and it wasn't allowing for predictability so we just said our only option is to charge family ironically most are on the family plan anyway so every once in a while maybe the Count's you know making $4,000 uh because I think that was about the difference but overall it made for easier budgeting for and they didn't want to be into the details so when we've gone to the schools explain that's how we're doing it but like I said everybody on the plans I think is on family plan now so yeah yeah no that's I totally understand yeah are you guys a calendar year or fiscal year calar calar calendar okay so so right now all of our contracts are on a fisal year so we have to figure out but our County budget is on a calendar so the Jail's on fiscal PLL in the schools F we're working on it can

all do it together the county keeps saying they working then they figure out it cost too much to convert it so we work on have you been watching meetings uh can you've talked a lot about the difference in salary would the expectation be that you would be hiring somebody for durm with

no experience coming in with experience going through the academy every every time we post a position um we get a different result so like the last posting we did um I I think all but one were Academy grads um some were too new

of graduates like two years so their buyout option was too expens luckily the candidate that was hired um was you know um everybody's choice anyway so we didn't have to visit the bio ad options um but the one before that um I think we only had one or two that had Academy experience and then we had new to the field so we did a transfer from the jail uh which we always like hiring from within and then uh the other actually he

was a transfer from the jail too yeah yeah and with military background one had already been trained on the road because she was a transport Deputy so that made it easy so my point is I don't know what will Happ for an applicant pool uh we've just been successful in recruiting and so so I get the thead you'll be covered if we have to send somebody to the academy and does that cost us extra if you have to send them to it's in it comes out of our training budget okay do do you give one of the current deputies a option to to be the Durham what we would do is we we have Durham available and If somebody internally wants it they get to move over so on this in on the reverse uh what we've done is we've created a practice where if somebody in Poland wants the county position seniority rules and we transfer them then we post the Poland job so what we do is hey anybody want to be Derm cuz we have somebody that was working with us

that was hoping Duren was going to get a contract when we met with the San it was a few years back I don't remember it didn't happen but 2018 was it yeah okay he was hoping that that would happen cuz he would have I think he lived in power or something yeah but we we just we don't know what the internal interest will be or external another question I have in terms you said that the person would need office space while they're here yeah uh and what what like is that defined as like they need their own Des it's not that big they as you can tell spacewise our select board now meets in chap right now is they have a place where there's a computer um a desk a small fridge you know to keep whatever um there is a phone line but I don't know if that would be a necessity so col has the old uh town office so the back of it is the W Department fronts the substation there like one desk in there um it gives them an opportunity to go

have lunch to to take a break to take a break to make any phone calls but we're so equipped now with our mobile data terminals cell phones that a lot of them if when when they actually have to go drop the paperwork off they just drop it off the office and they come back on the road so so there is a need by the way to drop stuff off and pick stuff up from the office so at times they'll be in Auburn um but overall we we just asked for a place where we can set up for IMC um Can the officer share share one office okay it's just one office phas and then vehicle storage while they take them home okay Jerry do you have any no you're all asking really really good good questions here it's a it's a great conversation but as a but as a manager I'm a facts and figures guy right I don't really do well with the fs you in emotions you know so I think in trying to get this

that's what what we have to stick with is like the the facts and figures and we don't really know how we compare with other TS as far as calls so I guess one and getting back to Deb's question I'll just ask it a different way given the calls that Durham has had are we are we

reacting right now or are we being proactive in wanting to get so we're still we're in a proactive yeah I think you're being pro active I think you know we're spread very thin uh it's no secret 2020 State Police pulled out a call sharing so we used to split the county in half so one month you know uh a

deputy was covering dur Durham green leads and whales and the state police was covering M turn a liore and then the following month we would rotate so You' have that rotation that went away um State Police like a lot of agencies are suffering staffing issues right now I'm not knocking them it's just that's what you're reading about and they're going through the same thing I would and I know maybe you need to get in touch with your feelings but no I I I would and I hate I hate say I can't defend people's feelings I can defend whatever I can take advantage of them anyway so I mean and I hate bringing up the fire department because certain things we just don't like talking about but if you were reacting I'd bet dimes to Dollars it's is going to be due to an issue related to a fire call not to a fire call but to a call the fire department's on that that's where we are in society

and that would be unfortunate um but that that would be the type of thing I don't think it would be to the burglary issue we had a few years ago or to the amount of drunk drivers or I I think it would be you're going to start experiencing calls where the EI the fire department might have an injury or they couldn't respond to something um and there may be a casualty of of a resident as a result um that would be a reactive you haven't experienced that do we want to wait for that that's yeah that's I think that's why we're here CU like I think about with fire with with accidents and you have you know Fire Department responding and you might have an aggressive angry person there might could potentially be a weapon involved someone trying to flee a scene and I don't want us to be like oh we didn't even think we didn't worry about that stuff until and at the same time you know I know he said he always

appreciates us we always appreciate the fire department there you know strengthen numbers um and you know some engage more with us when because they realize it's just us um and then there's I've been on calls myself where I'm going around the ground in somebody's house not in Durham um but where a firefighter or a paramedic I don't even know what he was just stood outside and I said what were you doing I mean I have a guy in cuffs I can't control and he said we're not allowed to enter your residence until you have it under control and you know that was a learning experience for me um but I I get it you know but in the time when you're just looking at somebody staring at you on a window it's a little you know but I'm

sorry question I I would just I don't expect you to have this I would be interested to look at our Fire Department responding and see if this scenario happened what that takes off of your responses you don't have to answer that that's obvious not something I'm expecting you to know you know what I mean but that I would I would be interested to look at that to see if that takes any of some of the off fire department some of the data is difficult to extrapolate that so you know on a medical where they transport it's still a medical for us so I'm just looking at a medical call the fire department responds evaluated medical call we don't keep it I mean we do in our notes if Sheriff they would maybe have that data transports out I think what you're also looking at is respond times you know how the fire department and we talked about nighttime coverage it's the response times I don't know if if Sheriff keeps

response times or just they responded because when they're on the other side of the county I have to best intelligent guess is more than 20 minutes on a lot of a lot I mean calls today for example I know they were up in the northern one was at an accident a car rolled over onto a propane tank he had had to clear to go help out another medical call in a neighboring Town cuz that officer was tied up and the other two I think one was coming from Wales after he had just cleared a crash and the other one I think was up in the Turner area just finishing a call so when they had the most recent call down here you had two three responding through you know so you are right I mean we do keep track of I'd have to go through every individual call to see what the respons is we have the information available we just don't document it only when it's asked and we look took us 8 minutes took us 28 minutes I think that that's one thing

with from Jerry's heartless feelingless facts and figures approach is that I think one thing that people in the community might want to know is well what is the average response time to get a sheriff here right now and I think that that is something that is one thing that many people can wrap their head around and they say oh you know because a lot of folks might not realize they might coming from Livermore East Livermore they might literally be at the Northern end of the county and I think that that's something that we if we're going to present to a town you know an added expense or something like this that that's something that can be communicated well maybe you don't think that's an important thing to communicate and maybe that's my uneducated view on we can talk to our director of communication because he's very good with our rec management to see if you could kind of get an average response

time for us like I said for me to go do it I would actually have to look at I understand it would be time consuming so I'm just Josh you had your hand and then I just to answer that I've been involved in two calls one was an accident one was an accidental 911 hangup uh the accident uh this was still during call sharing so it was State Police both time one was near the Freeport line it took the Freeport officer about 45 minutes to respond and the uh the state trooper about an hour and 40 minutes coming from Westbrook and this was you know my pregnant wife and two other kids in the car another one the The Accidental hang up on the 911 uh uh was like 2our response time where they came and well and you know you're talking an hour which is a long time anyway but even somebody waiting 8 minutes they feel like they're waiting eight hours oh yeah in a crisis situation yeah

town I mean it's just gotten really out of control and so I'm wondering how it works if we're in a contract situation where people are where ticket revenue is being generated how does that doesn't come as it doesn't we don't P Money often so does us either no and you don't get toasters you don't get any of those and actually the state I'm always looking for a revenue Source well the state noticed they were losing revenue and at one point in time somebody come up with the idea we're writing tickets let's up the fines and what happened was you were literally writing tickets where I think you were taking a week's pay for people so since they've lowered the fines to encourage more tickets because they actually they charged more for a ticket while they were losing money off because people weren't I mean you want to write somebody a ticket for $260 when they're probably making $300 that week um

so cops have ticket Revenue um you know there's portions of it that support the academy but it it it it doesn't come back to us at all goes Rue Contra I believe there was a couple towns that tried to do Town ordinance I think Portland at one time tried to do an ordinance so they're writing into the ordinance and then that got nicked pretty quick so and I think the courts get small portions of each too so I tried yeah um well I was going to ask the same thing it's the it's the elephant in the room like where's the ticket money go question speeding now I mean we do do we do get grants for traffic enforcement we have been down here um especially early in the morning or late in the afternoon so we have been doing some traffic enforcement as much as we can it is I mean you're welcome to park in my driveway I live right down the road and on the straight stretch I'm not kidding I've been asking for years

so my driveway first um but you would enforce like Town ordinances that like like Leon uh the running joke is uh you could fight on Lisbon Street but you better not smoke a cigarette um so lon's a little bit different when when it comes to the city ordinances so because the city ORD is as you know either the City attorney has to defend the city or an officer who's been trained so like in Poland many years ago I actually went to some school for City Town ordinance prosecution I think I had one case and I lost it but um I tried it's just like the parking tickets that was an issue are they enforcable right so some of those are difficult and sometimes you have to work with the town's attorney to figure out what we can as the contract Deputy but we're much more like your your police officer police chief than we are right now and you know it's what what your priority would be to address like I know

in Poland I used to work a lot with the is it code enforcement you know the zoning type people because some of those issues get pretty heated so they need the companionship to go to to um so that you know that was something you you know was exp hey we're going to need you to do this okay we go you know so you have those things more readily available if you call today and needed help that of concern obviously we'd go but it'd be more of a coordination of when we can get there type thing so does the contract price include like the detectives that you were talking about specialty support yes so it's included in the price you have that now so I don't want to but when we and the reason why I bring it up is because you have we have these resources now but if you were looking to let's say form your own Police Department um there's a lot of right and we're not looking pieces to it and then there's liabilities that

Contracting allows you to avoid so there's some cost savings with doing it as well I was going to say that I don't know how everybody I mean I kind of just got the gist of how everybody else I don't think we have the internal infrastructure at all to be able to try to support the startup of an entire police department in this town I personally feel like if we're going to entertain this it definitely needs to be the contract route so I had a couple more questions here you know obviously officers have to go to court um if someone's going to court on because of something that they had to deal with here in Durham does that count towards those 12 hour shifts or is that separate and we have an overtime line or it might be when they're working and because of Co now because of what with co uh the DMB um hearings and U traffic violations

they can do it right on their computer through Zoom okay yeah and that's what I just yeah that's what I just wasn't sure not in their car space yeah I just wasn't sure if it was one of those situations of they're going to have to go to court they're going to be there five hours today that counts we actually have our court officer with one of our detectives represents the agency for traffic so they only get called when they're actually going to go to a trial and then my my next next question you know so at this point tax revenue and stuff like that gets us our count our rural Patrol um and say we enter into a contract where we're now adding in 12-hour dedicated service in theory our tax revenue and all that still paying for that rural Patrol so while you have your one officer here for 12 hours the other County officers is going to say well I'm not going to bother patrolling through Durham or it's still the same

we've kind of told them like with Poland hey have a presence in Poland so we we know they do um the idea is you have somebody dedicated so on a busy day they might not make it but there's always an effort plus there's the camaraderie aspect of it all well because the reason I ask is I can Envision maybe a Community member saying well if we're hiring County does that mean our taxes go down because we're not paying for that Patrol at all and it sounds like they'd still be coming through so I'm just trying to I'm trying to get all these questions out why we have is still contributing exactly a lot of the calls we're going to now require 2 million calls so you know even though if you have somebody in Durham who's a contract there's probably a royal Deputy that's going to come as a secondary year because a lot of the stuff we have to do now is at least the two officers but you got one officer starting as opposed to

waiting for and and it's a look at things like Trends I'd say um you know Contracting makes it affordable because of all the back office operations and administrative costs and like we're going through the main Chief's accreditation right now our facilities is causing you know is part of our problem with we're addressing that um I think Penobscot County if I'm not mistaken has entered into a lot of contractual agreements just because the need or the demand for the law enforcement presence or service is has been great and he he's got some unique ones and every County does their contracts different we try to make it real costs um rather than you know some counties charge more uh we're not we're looking to make it affordable for you and what's the true cost as as close as we can be um yeah my other question is

you know I don't know how much they work but I see the signs out there that says the speed limit and tells you how fast you're going now if you have a dedicated Patrol is that where officers might say oh we're noticing some Trends and we think that sort of temporary infrastructure could be helpful here that gets brought in or is that an extra cost you guys have the signs now I haven't seen one I can think about six places that need one for example purchased I think they have two I think green has one they put

uh 8 by8 post all around the the town so all they have to do is pick it up put it in and it's installed so the town so the town actually purchased those um the one in Poland we actually do move around for them they got the the little one that kind of now they get the trailer so when we get when I get a call it says Hey somebody down High complaining about speeding I'll call the deputy and say can you move the sign down there and we've shown a lot of times there's either an issue or what the time frame is so we can kind of concentrate on when the real issue and then of course I think you have some that try to see how fast they can get the sign up um so a lot of them now are shutting off at a certain mile so they can't do that does that thing keep data does it like so some of them have actually collect data so we can get it back and then some are just do put one on a road in Leeds or was it whales it's the that connects the

two and there was a Le Junction room yes so you know where it was well we had there was a resident there who was very unhappy with his home purchase and I try to explain to him well you're looking out your window which is a small double hung and when objects go they're going to look like they're going fast um no no everybody's flying through here nobody and they put dot put it out and there was nothing that supported what he thought was you know there was one vehicle clocked at like 20 over the spieling and they we figured it was a police officer turning on the car pull him over but um but then he got so bad that five five miles over wasn't acceptable MH um in Poland you know back to your car thing when we did it differently they own the car uh they let a contract expire on an SRO position so they have this car with our equipment in it that created some issues in our lettering but they kept this car forever

so we we had a a deputy who's pass um but he used to bring it around town parking different spots and they call it flat flat sand that was pretty effective it was it was his cousin I think we have one of those speed signs ask how we put one Public Works may

want to email me cuz we get calls all the time of uh you know where the Speedy vehicles are I can try to get you know I can tell you where the we're getting calls if you guys can put the sign there and collect the data and if you have more questions that come to mind after thinking about things feel free to shoot us an email I mean I it's I'd rather have an open discussion with you any concerns you might have any knocks any things you'd want to see and you'll get honest answers from us I it is beneficial for all so this is interesting but I appreciate the approach you is there any written policy on the the folks that are assigned to the town and how they interact with the town government or the chief or the fire

chief we kind of tored to like the SRO they wanted certain things so they manage you know what they want we we support each other and it's the same thing in Poland so like Bill will go to the department head meetings in Poland every month and sometimes we're called because residents are showing up to select men's meetings um but we've had staff in the past um we we were just more involved I think than past administrations but we' had staff in the past that had really good relationships in the town office so if they needed paper or you know they it totally the administration wasn't involved it was done directly with the patrol deputies um but for accountability purpose I think you'd all recognize it would be beneficial that hey if you're wanting something let us know and uh we're all on the same page to make sure it gets through currently the Poland Town manager will call me and say hey I got a citizen that's call in

complaining about XYZ with you and we'll have a conversation about it some stuff you know typically I can have a deputy go and address it some stuff is really not a police matter but we at least have a conversation to try to find a happy medium and I think the structure of it not so much would be in a policy it would probably be in the contract um so what we're doing with what you're saying you want some say this you know labor contracts that are prohibited like um our hiring you know it's in the contract internal get preference if they're sufficiently qualified uh those types of things um but we usually encourage the town to get involved like uh with the hiring so at least they see what we're getting some sometimes they don't want to be because they realize well hey this is spelled out and I don't know how to be a cop um like a hiring committee no we do an oral board and we've invited like the town manager to go um the

schools they actually they had for the SRO so the sro's uh we would kind of identify it a potential candidate then have them and then we would bring them and they that candidate would meet with the principal superintendent um the administrators of the schools and if you follow us on Facebook you'll see that our SRO are really welled so they're doing something what going to be my question was you when you when you hire someone

do we get a chance because in the beginning I think you said you know who wants to do Durham do we have a say at all all like do we get to does the board and myself get to interview that person we we would have you involved but what would we do beforehand is explain to you what what we're looking at like labor contract wise now we we've discovered that it was interpreted incorrectly in the past but we haven't had to use the it says sufficiently qualified it doesn't say least qualified right um so there is that opportunity and we'd welcome it because having you involved with the discussion of hey I really like this guy well you know we kind of don't because of this so it's beneficial to both sides right um because you're paying for it so is that is that engagement as ra when you say invol involved could that be look like literally someone from

our board or Jerry is on your hiring committee doing the interviews or more of less like less formal Arrangement there we've done it well we've done we've kind kind done it both ways both we've had some of the said you identify who you want and then or who who you're like and narrow it down for us and then send them to us um typically I think it works better for all doing it together um you know uh from my experience whether it was I was involved in an SRO interview way back in Poland that that worked better we all kind of saw the same thing and as far as the patrol deputies Poland used to want to be involved but then we had we've had a lot of positive experience there so it's kind of been you know you handle it we we bring them to the selectboard meeting say say here's your new Deputy um but if you'd want to be involved or if you'd want your town manager involved we'd welcome it um okay we end up we're

hiring a lot more with experience who our most recent U candidate came from Falmouth he was traveling from Turner to Falmouth every day and it was a quality of life I mean he took a cut and pay to come to us for because you know he

wanted he didn't want to do the commuting anymore he likes the smaller town atmosphere and I mean he's doing a great job um and we try to do healthy blends of age U female to male we we we struggle with a tra we've only got two full-time female Patrol deputies you know there's a goal of like 30% I can't say that I have a goal like that but uh you know female deputies or law enforcement are are it's proven that they um are cing influences that scenes it's beneficial for different sets of circumstances so we are actively always trying trying to get like for lack of better term diversity within the ranks um and you don't want to get too old or Too Young cuz then if you hire the old guy ain't going to fit in with the young guy or the young people ain't going to fit in with the old guys and um I think with the experience we've brought in um it allows for a lot more growth from all of them it's like a constant training

so um so just to be transparent about our process I think what we've talked about as a board and correct me if I'm wrong is that we would go to the town ahead of of entering into any kind of contract to gauge whether or not the town was interested in doing this and then at that point it would go well it would be a war a warrant article but not

a to find out if they want to do it more more of like a poll question right because I was going to suggest if you do something involv in finances do it like 6 months out from when so like if your budget takes effect in well January and I don't know when you're I thought you tell meeting was in the spring it's in April ail well okay um if you give us like a six-month warning so that way we could start a hiring practice structure things the way the town would want so if you're going for absolute stamp of approval with the finances give us some time because well that's what I was going to say is that at this point we be likely going cuz we're unless we went in November with the election and asked it in November is that what I think my suggestion previously was is that we are going to have hopefully one of the biggest turnouts at this election and uh that is to me there's going to be 100% more at this election than there will be

at our town meeting right so that's the time to do it there will be more than 125 people put is that what your requirement is no that's what we had at like the last 170 people to put it out in November as a question of to if the town is interested in engaging in Police Service Long enforcement and then in April that's when we would go to town meeting to deal with the budgetary part of it so this obviously isn't going to be binding until April so we would come back to you again for updated numbers if the town approves and then we go if you tell me we're going to go with two I can I can try to narrow it down again I used averages the averages I tried to give I didn't want to go do two brand new officers who green could to give the lowest number because that's really not realistic so Jerry you had something I would I would think that the contract would probably start July 1st to June 30th you and get the permission or so my

my question here would be and this is a little housekeeping for us if you don't mind for a quick second is that if we had an El election in November to say do we want to pursue um you know two officers or or whatever and the answer is yes that's still kind of getting late in the budget season you know we're talking and end of like middle of November to pull something together for April if they need a six-month lead time to come up with a number no no no no so if you get it approved in April for your July budget like this year with Turner we had to actually hire the person in August yeah so if we see where you're going we can prepare for that and it might be the two new cars we're getting in the county they get delayed because we need them in advance to go to Durham and then the Durham contract EX in then we buy the county guys there so we can work with that but and if you're saying in April

you'll know I would think we'd be able to have Well we'd have to put the budget item in to be voted on in April so we'd vote in November to say yes we want to pursue this idea we would then need to get a number to put into the budget to then go through our budget approval process and then vote on so after November we could start putting okay I misunderstood you I thought you you said it was going to take six months to come up that that was H the people yeah that's totally understandable even if your contract you want to do it July to June you know like when we did the SR the last SRO contract we didn't have somebody in place so all we did is that first year actually was like 11 month contract just because we didn't charge him 12 months we charge them 11 and so another question I have and this is just always trying to do my due diligence here when we look at options for law enforcement in town I kind of written it down what

we've had presented to us so far is nothing do nothing different and stick with the rural Patrol we have here which that is causing people to start you know say maybe we should think proactively do some things different the next option it sounds like would be you know Contracting for 12 hours a day or maybe 24 hours a day those are two options and then then the most expensive option which I believe is off the table for most of us now is creating our own Department CU I I just curious is there an option between the nothing and the 12

hours a day cuz I know you have your normal 12-h hour day but is there any hey if we ask real nice she'll Patrol for four hours in the morning I got to ask if there if there's any other options like that we routinely deal with um hey I live on Route n Green Street I'm just going to name all right I live on Route 9 and you know we were're dealing with these feeders I'm like well could you help us narrow it down because it's a big County and there's only three guys patrolling it well it's between five and nine you know five and seven okay well try to get a guy out there from five to seven you know but it's try to um and a lot of times we're successful doing we get a dead end row that every I see the guy's name calling me every spring he lives in Turner on a lake where little Wilson bond isn't and he says yeah they're at it again and so as soon as I see a call I just call the deputy that's working

can you swing by because you know and then the presence it stops um so you you can get that but but it's you can get it if they're not at a car accident or someplace else yeah and it also sounds like it works until it doesn't again speeding Vehicles probably our number one complaint and of course you know the deputy I can go to Route n i can get almost to our house where we're going to sit and then I get a call so I'm gone or I'm there for 5 minutes or 15 minutes and I get a call so that's the frustrating part about so if you call with a Target we can try to address it but if you're asking is there anything between 12 and nothing or 24 Contracting and nothing not real and the the reason I ask is cuz I just want to make sure we're doing due diligence and we had you all here today because we think it's really important that everyone in the community can you know watch the questions we're asking and stuff like

that and what I hear sometimes that people say well if you just sent someone down here on Davis Road at 8:00 a.m they'd get seven people right away and then you know I'm just seeing is that an option it sounds like yeah it sounds great but at 60 on your way to Davis Road you get called to livmore and and the problem is soon as we park on Route 9 the people start playing the headlight b games or it goes right on the Facebook page or the Facebook officer on Route n slow down next thing you know well I get kick the ones that warning people on Route four why would you warn people on Route four they're out front of the Hanford on the islands watch out you should probably hope they're on front you know but um I guess we're look at yeah I I figured this was the answer but I still want ask so and to let you know uh we do put in for traffic enforcement grants that is identifies target areas from the state data um and they provide

us the funding to have additional patrols and I I can say with almost absolute certainty that some of the roots we talked about here in durh are part of those and so even if we have a dedicated officer you still pursue that and say hey we got this traffic enforcement grants now you have your 12-hour person but we're still going to pursue that we're not just going to write we we spent the money they provided initially so we applied for an adjustment uh it's actually a sergeant John gay that handles that part um and we got more funding to do more of these patrols so you know are they effective I don't you know we got guys out there for four hour blocks they're generating a lot of activity and it's um again data driven the state provides us where they want us to be and that's where we go during those 4H hour blocks so I want to clarify one thing again um so the price that we PID today for Rural coverage

stays as is and this is just an upper yeah and this rural coverage would still would still exist exist but you know our County tax on our tax bill that's what pays for what our coverage is now MH along with the jail and everything else yeah yeah but that's that's just a good it's a good thing to clarify because that I know that's a question folks will have is oh does that mean our County tax goes down it doesn't work that way interviews with high school students about County government I was the inum County Administrator for a while and you know I had to let her know hey it's okay because every year I go to what they call the senior's college at uml La and I speak to a class about you know the Sheriff's Office and these are people some are retirees some are you know Josh's Age and and they don't know anything about uh County government uh so you know I had the high school students that and where it's gone from

there is it's triggered an interest where now every department head is going to the senior college to speak because people just don't know um much about and there's nothing wrong with that of County government they deal more with their towns and the state so this this has answered all my questions and I'm usually big question ask speaking of data um dot came to town and it's is it Rabbit Road and uh oh was new brook oh yeah rabbit is going to put a rabbit Road and quicker meeting uh 136 136 is the 11th most dangerous intersection in the state that was my yeah I know you guys have some new fancy stop want they're going to come and make that they want to make

that's you know when you're the 11th got the 11th most dangerous intersection yeah that's that's good data we don't get any freaking moose out there either so that's not even part of the problem it's just I never get you know he that I was looking at a house that was s just beyond the intersection I would you ever see those at you know like and the whole time I was remember those ACC for somebody has gone so I just came through Sunday on my way to free it's like that intersection is always one I slow and really Road Rabbit Road and and the Dead Man's Curve those are kind of the three Hut spots there's for you all there's two more tangibles that you just don't see first of all it's another first responder in town that that are ready to respond they're not responding to a station or the car usually on the road uh defibrillators in the car medical equipment um so faster than sometimes the fire department the

other is the grant process that we're trying to deal with with main dot I've been working with Calvin we're trying to get a guard rail on Newbrook we've had several accidents but unless the sheriffs have done paperwork and they're so busy during these storms that are all snow that they can't cover all all the car wrecks so we're actually losing data losing car accident reports and losing the ability for Grants and and other aspects of infrastructure for the town just because the spread so thin and I'll will tell you Durham in the winter time you might as well have somebody down here I've come down I don't typically Patrol but I do I have come down here several times in the snowstorm just to and last winter wasn't even that bad yeah it's but I got to say in closing after this conversation you guys have got me convinced on this 24-hour

12 I would be interested to know I mean we're we would have that's I think also part of the reason why I was asking about the call volume is because we would need to know if it was more advantageous for us to have a 12-hour shift that was overnight or if it was we can figure that out really quickly where where where are the calls and where are the calls that are beneficial to have your coverage now you know most people would think that Fridays and Saturdays when everybody's out hooting and holler and I I could tell you that Monday is sometimes a bad day for people but it would be interesting to you get there to look at what would be the best bang for the buck um I just don't know if you'll get the results you're looking for on it but we we can pull that easy um my my last thing and then I'm done sorry you're good um

tendency to happen and I think our last Town town meeting um is a testament to that is that when we can provide the res and this is you know really a lot about Jerry and the other department heads that have done a really good job educating us so that we can also then in turn educate the residents um when residents are educated they vote more proactively and so between now after the board has we go through our process and we get to the point where we've decided whether or not we're going to put this on on the warrant in November the public education process like H how involved and helpful would you be that leading up to it if if this

is our town we love the public the public hearing like where we when and and and that's a big thing and even if people can watch us ask the questions it's still important to a lot of people to be able to you know hear it from the the person themselves so we often times have a little thing over the E Center surprisingly enough we'll get sometimes we have 175 people show up the time meeting but we'll get 40 people to show up at at a hearing for an hour and a half on a Tuesday night and so we weren't sure if that's something you would not only would we be will do it but I I'm 100% confident I could get staff willing to participate because sometimes they don't just like hearing it from us you know even though this has been a very good conversation I think having you know just the boots on the ground or the supervisors speaking of what they're seeing because they can speak to to a different level of passion

like what you're experiencing with and I think that I know that that rings with some people you know um but I think just the exchange of information and you know and listening to you talk or even Bill talk it brought about some ideas in my head that I didn't know where this conversation was going I I didn't know what you want to look at so we'll go we'll figure it out um or like any kind of like PowerPoint and D anything like that that we would be able to like put on the website put in the newsletter you know that type of thing leading up to it like these are the pros yeah I mean like a beautiful thing in my mind again I understand this administrative burden I deal with public Outreach so what I'm thinking here is if there was someone who could say hey before Poland added it this was their response time after they added it the response time went to that ironically Poland had the contract since 1982 all

right then never mind it's only been a couple years but they started off with just one m and then they went to two and it was like a 16h hour coverage and then they were on call and then and now we're at the four and it's working much better the reason I bring it up is just cuz we recently added night coverage for EMT and it was like the night that they started we had a literally you would have thought Chief lined it up perfect the night that they started there was a medical call and it was rolling out my next question can you guys drive EMT cars if we need you we have in the past I'm kid I mean if if you're what makes it easy for us on this angle is if you're Town Administration and the select board is in agreement of you want this pursued and you want us to help you pursue it and you're talking of like a PR campaign it makes it easier for us to participate in that because we know we have the people running the town

that want to help in getting this done um so you know right now we're providing numbers to certain towns because they're evaluating we can do that you know um we can if you guys have questions off what you're seeing that'll help us because if you have those questions questions others are going to have those questions so it's better to put the answers out first um so it's all useful and we'd have to probably recap this and talk about some of the experiences we had when we um entered the polling agreement like a lot of people Overlook the the liability issues that the town escapes by Contracting it it's it's makes it more cost effective um and and the ownership you have in it um it's a little different than not a department you were right under you but you still have uh an active role in it so we can help with all that and we have some staff that like making that computer generate I'm no good at it um but I can

a couple people come to mind that for this purposes it's like I said it's it's beneficial to us as well if you were to do something um so they'd be actively participating okay so my last thing and I I know numbers come later but everyone's going to want to know like a ballpark and so I know we talked about this 288 807 is a high paid and a lower

paid both got family coverage and then it could be you know another 75k per vehicle so that's two vehicles 150k or is that we were're going to finance it unless you have a CIP budget with money in it to say well pay for so what I mean is it it a contract annually in the in the 288 the numbers I was adding here the 288 to 335 335 5,000 a year is in that range so

we're talking right around that capital and everything yeah that that's a fair again I'm not pinning you down I'm not going to call you in 6 months be like you said 288 you know but no actually at at the the 3 did you say 335 I said 33 that gives 807 was with the two vehicles in 50,000 a year going towards the for three years but I mean that that gives us a comfortable cush 288 plus 5050 divid for three years but EI either way public works okay I thought you doing so I mean like Poland that's what we do the deputies that work in po that are working public work if for some reason they're working at overtime shift in the county then at public at Public Work

prior to covid um when we go out to bid and the interest rates it seemed like as a government agency we were getting favorable interest rates compared with the market coming out of covid and financing with the interest rates we've been getting we're treated like I he saying that but we're we're treated like you would be if you drove up the Lee and bought a truck tonight where it seemed like we got and I I bought in 2020 I'm good well no I'm just saying but and I don't know if you've experienced it or or but it seemed like prior to co if we'd finance things the financial institutions it's almost like bid low to get our business now we put it out there if they even want to bother with us we're paying you know what a consumer would pay which is a lot yeah and on that final note there could be an option though where if we see the interest rate and we have a cash Reserve we might say we might want to just purchase the

vehicle out right now to save the money on the interest and you could still outfit it and work with that as well or does it have to be structured I'm not saying we would want to do that but I just want to make sure we know our options well we getting off the ground if we want to do whatever we can to make it affordable and successful we can tailor it later on like I said when when we originally started Poland on the equipment but it was it was it created a lot of work doing that so we proposed them we'd rather take ownership in that we bought their two new cars and they gave us their two old cars as they traded them in um but whatever it takes to get going that is U pal the town rephrase what I mean is if you're going to have to buy two new cars for this and then say we're going to finance them um and if we say hey we have the cash on hand and we don't want to pay the insance rate could we have a contract

where you're buying them but we're buying them outright and then and then the cost is eliminated and just I'm not I'm just not saying we wouldn't want to do that I don't want anyone to hear at home that I'm spending our reserves I'm just saying I want to know the options what we're going to do is you know our Treasurer would probably call around to see what rates we're getting but what we would we would use is what did we pay last year we paid 45,000 for the car and you know to equi it and all this stuff and here was where our payment um we call the GU what a car is going for I mean there was one year where they went up what 12 $12,000 well and that's my thought is like two 2 3% interest rat is different than the 7 to 9% interest rate and we got budget commit so we would B numb we most recently experienced so well I have no more questions I know I've said that twice but I mean it this time so if anyone else has any I just

want to say thank you uh you've given I mean I I'll be honest I came in almost completely against this whole idea and now I've almost gone 180 degrees the other way um and uh and so I know I can see your head growing already um uh you

realize this is televis right I know I know but I had to watch what I said I know uh I I just I I it really it really surprised me um because I really thought I was like you know this doesn't seems like a lot of money um but it sounds like there's a lot of benefit that I wasn't thinking about so I really appreciate you guys taking this time because I know you've already worked a full day um and uh and also I just want to throw you guys law enforcement a long time family members and all that uh and so I value your opinion so I I really appreciate

you're welcome yeah just a couple hours a week just on the weekend slow them down yeah just to Echo what Jos said we appreciate your time and walking us through all these and it was a lot of questions and it just fact finding and really appreciate the feedback and like I said just shoot us an email if the group comes up with them and we'll you know pull numbers what whatever whatever you need um because again it gets us thinking too which isn't a bad thing thanks thanks for than good luck thanks we appreciate it so we have nothing else on the agenda for tonight and keep keep it that way so uh we'll adjourn now at 7 or no what is it 74 7:47 you need a motion oh sorry no

special meeting a work workshop perfect think microphone so you don't bar only budgeted for two sets of batteries a piece this