TranscriptSelect Board Meeting & Law Enforcement Informational Session (Live from DCS)

sound I think I think de's all right so we won't go any further till we confirm that YouTube so I back to it's important for us to wait to make sure the sound's working because tonight it's going to be important for people to be able to go back and review

started pushing I made sure anybody be have sound we have sound did you hear that from who um my home oh [Music] okay we're good okay hold on I have it on my right now somebody say something yeah we're good good okay all right thank you all right so are there any amendments to the agenda no any public

none there's no new business tonight Jarry do you have a manager report uh yeah just a couple uh things um talking to Kim today so all the residents will probably get a text notification opting into the push notifications that we talked about this Thursday um so I would be on the lookout for that and if you don't want to receive the text all you have to do is reply stop if you want to um receive them just reply yes or whatever the message gets but that they plan on sending that out this Thursday right so it'll be operational then for us yeah there still some a little bit of work to do but that's that's part of um uh getting getting that out there um we're a little late another thing we're a little late getting our quarterly newsletter out but that's just because we only have three people in the behind the window and we're short right now so we're working on it but uh we hope to have that out in the next week or so and

that will have more information on how you opt in to get notifications from the company ask a question on text yeah Jerry you have like a communication strategy even if it's a white paper of who will be sending the data let's make sure yes the messages are Cris clear and what type of messages will be going out maybe we could rev that at our next meeting to kind of close this right once absolutely and they they'll help us with that but right now I think the administrators of those text messages is going to be myself and Kim and of course if you folks would like something out there you just let us know and we can we can do that for you but I agree with you we should have right and and and the messages and we don't want to send too many notifications either they just you know we don't want to be like sending all kinds they need to be concise short and to the point so okay I think we should have like a a something written that

says who is allowed under what circumstan and we will put that together as soon as we can okay I'm happy to help okay perfect um perfect and the other thing you were talking us about before we started you want to mention that the the magazine oh yeah I can so

yeah I got a call from um new business magazine and they want to feature Durham as uh one of the best managed towns um in Maine under 10,000 so they're going to be looking to interview um some folks in town including myself some folks on the board and possibly the fire chief we we just got to nail down who who we want to be in on those interviews to talk about Durham where we've been where we're going that sort of thing what in what yeah well thanks yeah I don't think I don't think it has a whole lot to do with me I think it has a a lot more to do with everybody cuz we all contribute to that no I just got a call out of the blue um yeah that's great yeah it's

pretty neat so yeah that's all I that's all I got for for now I'll have more for you in the next meeting cuz there's a lot going on but not quite finalized yet all right uh board member report Joe thank you um just I want to everyone

who contributed to put together for the law enforcement meeting later I say thank you yeah I've got a lot of input from people but I I realize the importance of um putting in writing our position we need to do this on other things too and I want to talk at some point about that crossing the finish line on some things by documenting it in a way similar to this

tonight are you marking it down in your you mean the whole night no no just right now in a board report right I'm not going to say anything tonight we we have 22 minutes two minutes worth of video I feel like you're telling me to say something so I don't want I'm not telling you I just don't want you to not say anything when you have something to say no it's it's all just back to kind of like reiterating what Debbie was saying about closing movs right so like the fee schedule I just want to keep making sure that those are in the Forefront that we have things that are not completed and I really don't want to keep kicking the can down the road and so the sooner that we can get those and I know we have a lot of stuff to work on in full agendas but the sooner that we can get those things on the agenda the sooner we can like close that tab as an open window and be done with that stuff so that's that's my only com in my

report I agree just lost oh I wanted I was asked about the solid waste committee oh that was actually what I was going to follow up on too um and I know not last meeting I think but the meeting before we had discussed having a conversation with them and getting things going and make sure they had what they needed has that happened there's a meeting on September 16th um and I don't know if you all have picked us sort of liaz on as the board to that committee but I volunteer oh

tote is that it was on it is on all right anything else Mr chair I could give you an update on one other thing that I so the staring commit for the Visionary project for the so that we had our first meeting on August 12th and it went pretty well uh GP Cog LED that um we just George and I had just finished that schedule of meetings that are coming up I think we have one on October 7th there's a series of them if that works with GP Cog we will let you I will inform you of when those those meetings are but that seemed to go pretty well so look looking forward to that yeah can I ask a question about what you about that sure did they do like bylaws choose a chairperson did any of that stuff happen no it's not that really that type of type of committee really was that recorded no we didn't we didn't recorded either it can we I think that people are going to be really interested in that so once it becomes a

regular meeting schedule I think the the more that we can work towards if they can't be live streamed because the staff person has to be there in order live stream I completely understand that if we could record those things so that they're available for residents to view I think that's important okay yeah we can we can work on that yeah all right anything else uh so the consent agenda the approve the minutes from August

from 910 and the PLL presented Mr second second all in favor or nothing right um upcoming meetings Solid Waste committing meeting 9:16 at 6:30 at the fire station our next meeting is the 24th at the fire station planning board is meeting on October 2nd at the fire station at 6:30 and I think we have about 18 minutes before we go into our um old business so can we

talk about maybe the next select board meeting okay and I just one one thing I just want to put in that rsu5 is having a a board of directors meeting um on September 11th tomorrow night that's at 6:30 at the high school 6:30 at the high school yep regular session

spend not a significant amount of time but we spend time on understanding the open topics we have that need cross the line and make a plan for what is it we need to say this particular item is done okay so um I would volunteer to work with Jerry and whoever to get a list is it appropriate to get a list out through our email in advance so the select board can look at that not having any substantial conversation around it we're allowed to do administrative tasks outside of a meeting but we're just not allowed to have any sub any discussion about items that will be on the list so you if you send out a list and just said is there anything else and I

the point for discussion and then that next agenda we should really go through it make sure we understand next step and put a timeline together Jerry can you remind us what's on the 924 I feel like isn't the um historic district is that that night what's happening on the 24th yeah that's a good question and I didn't bring my notes with me on that or maybe that was the do night no do is been is actually getting pushed to to November because of the meetings that we rescheduled in October they couldn't make so now we're looking they're looking at actually November 20 I think the last meeting in in

meeting I know you met with Joe Roy before today so we'll make sure we have it and if we just need to put it out there and say this these are come up with plan next week for next meeting for when we can talk about we can do that yeah okay can I ask a point of question the so our next thing is listed as a regular agenda item called Old business informational discussion on law enforcement coverage are we do we have to say something that says we're going to do Workshop format so that other people can speak and that type of thing or how are we how do we do that I go

ahead no no I think it really I think you just keep it the same and it is more it isn't really a workshop format really it's just more of informational sharing so I think you can sort of just announce that we will open it up to the public question right to do that because that's not in our regular part of the meeting right right it's not a regular business meeting but it is part of the regular business meeting so when we get there as or the vote to allow public comment to happen at that window of time yeah when we come back in at 6 o'cl so in 15 minutes we'll do that then we'll go into to that workshop and So the plan is um to to try to do an overview uh if Chief MC is here you know have him explain why he brought this up in the first place few months ago uh have uh the sheriff and the deputy sheriff talk about the options that they can they presented to us uh Chief Goodman from Freeport who's

also a dur resident I think will be here uh to speak about freeport's role in law enforcement here um and so I'll hand to do that and if if Chief McGee is here uh he can talk about lison and when they respond uh and then I think I'll do there are some questions I think general questions that I will ask to get out and then we'll open up the public and try to keep it uh questions and not so much commentary got it okay and you'll say that at the beginning so people know that all right we have copies of there

some so with that uh I will take a motion to recess until 6 o' come back for the informational session I'll make a motion to recess till 6 second second all those in any discussion all those in favor right recess thank you

all right thank you uh thank you everybody for coming we have uh one more business to take care of uh this is old business um an informational session but I a motion uh from the board opening this part of the meeting up to public comment your second second okay all in favor thank you all right so uh I just want to welcome Chief Samson deputy sheriff sorry chief chief it's been a long day Sheriff Deputy

questions uh first uh we were hoping to have a couple other people um Chief trip was going to be here I'm not sure if he's going to be able to make itation he's on vacation okay um and Ryan McGee um was hoping to make it but there's been an incident tonight in uh in Lisbon uh which kind of will help us address some of the questions and concerns I think that people have and have raised at least to me um so this came about not because of anything that any Town employee or the board had but it was a conversation that uh Chief McGee raised at one of our meetings earlier this year um based on

um uh his information he believed that it was time for dur to start looking for uh its own law enforcement coverage sort of like what they have in Poland um because the uh coverage that we were getting uh might not beic because the number of communities in towns uh that the sheriff's department is covering these days without uh call sharing with the state police uh so we had that

conversation I think we've had a couple more conversations since then and then thought it best to have a a public meeting with public comment um so in a few minutes I'll invite people up who want to come up to talk I'm going to ask you to keep it to questions and and not comments um and so

over sort of an overview of the concerns um and then ask you folks to tell us um how you would what your proposal is the cost um how we address those concerns and then we'll open it up to public comment does that sound okay okay so the concern uh from from

Chief was the growing population in Durham and the uptick in in CR uh be that driving offenses property crime uh crimes against uh an individual uh drug crimes all of that stuff uh and I think right now the appropriate time for me to say I'm currently working for the Attorney General's office I'm the uh drug prosecutor for an County right now I do all of the I'm supposed to do all the F drug cles I'm doing most of the misdem drug cles as well uh for the county uh sometime in the next few weeks or months I'm going to transition to the deputy district attorney in an County um I don't know what my case Lo will be it would not be the sheriff's department uh coming to Lisbon um and so I wanted to get that out there um in case anybody had any questions about that um so those were Chief M's concern Chief trip raised the issue of the Fire Department responding to calls whether it be welding checks uh or the like and

they're being concerns where they need to wait uh for a law enforcement backup before they can go in and uh they have not necessarily been doing that because of the time it takes uh law enforcement to get to dur and ensure uh their safety at seeds um I think that that is a general overview do any of the other board members have anything else i'' like to add about that go i' just like to say that it wasn't brought to the attention by only those two people there are that haveed out and brought this situation to our attention and as a select board um it's our job to make that we're addressing resident concerns I want to make it really clear that this um informational session is not an indication of where this stands whether or not we believe it's time engage in further law enforcement services this is purely informational this is an opportunity for us as a town and residents to be able to gather

information so that we caned decisions want go in so I'm going to turn over and ask if you could briefly uh discuss first what you're seeing regarding um calls in durm what the options are regarding uh dedicated coverage what that coverage would look like and the cost and anything else you'd like to discuss and then we'll open up public comment uh just to give us an offis we we were asked several months ago uh to come discuss with the select board options because of community concerns and heard from two I think as Josh

described um explain the amount of Psych psychiatric calls they may be going to medical issues that might involve narcotics uh the concerns they were having there which was similar to what we were seeing with Poland when they expanded their contract to 2 we went over with the select board um their options right now you have rural Patrol uh we have three deputies scheduled that shift U you know that's covering the eight towns seven towns sorry that we uh perform roal Patrol with it's I believe got point it's 400 something squ miles quite a bit of ground cover um and they try to get everywhere I know there's always a concern about why don't we see more they tend to go where the calls are um because they have to be responsive so when we met with the select board we went over Contracting the benefits there you're saving administrative costs we already have a lot of built-in resources like CID uh Records management things

like that uh as opposed to potentially starting your own PD so it's a costs saer there and it would give you dedicated contract employees that would be in your town we'd have a substation here providing law enforcement Services I think in one in the packet that was distributed it's giving a rundown or brief glimpse of the types of calls we're getting it's no different than any other community um there's domestic violence there's ouis there's you know bures U car accidents you know probably not to the number of some of the more highly populated communities in as County um but as an example our Union met recently met with the County Commissioners to talk about the calls that going to countywide and it is countywide it's not unique to the Leon arburn area anymore uh communities are growing we're dealing with the same types of calls um we just might not get journals changed a little bit um but but

they're El so we went over with the options the benefit of Contracting um some of the things the select boy thought there might be opportunities to do community engagements things like that and we came up with figures average employee would cost for contracted Services um so that's why we're here um we would look forward to you know contract with the town it provides us an opportunity to actually have dedicated coverage here to be more responsive to have better relations with your community the people that are here the schools um what businesses for that matter like your own Police Department do um you know response times would uh

quickly you know the response times would be better um because you would not only have your direct resources that are going to be contracted to town but you'd also have the resources still of the agency with our roal patrols still coming through and assisting the deputies assigned to this town I think that's pretty much a broad overview if you want members of contracted cost we've done it on you know an average eight-year employee because that's right in the middle of the pay scale with family medical benefits

you know what the average response time is to calls dedicated coverage that would surely go down and um one of the end questions is um for concerns if there's dedicated coverage in Durham are they going to be responding to calls outside of I mean would they they would in certain circumstances so for town of Poland for example we've had a contract in town of Poland since 1982 the contracts started with just two deputies now four years ago exp um the only time they leave the town of Poland they'll go back up the can Falls quite a bit meic Falls will back them up to their neighboring towns other than that office to turn in paperwork go

to court if they have to they have to go to the hospital for a followup or bring somebody into protective custody but other than that if there's a call Turner they're not going Turner there's a call Durham they're not going so they're right that's maybe bad example we want you contract but they don't go to other towns that we provide protection for so they are strictly in stays in the town if you had a deputy in Durham they would stay in the to dur and so I know you and I spoke briefly some calls that they would get called out that would be mass shooting mass casualty events so the October 25th incident everybody went um back in June there was an incident in Auburn guy killed person got a standof

burn a couple houses down everybody went because we needed the help day they are in the town cont and then tonight as an example with what's happening in Lisbon all three of the the deputies on patrol are there now so I currently this afternoon A call came in and dur they were requesting assistance right away the entire day shift uh was sent they call tied up still um and we ended up calling out our night shift to help cover the other advantage to call Shar when you talk about the coverage is when you're Contracting with us you hear about the shortages State Nationwide law law enforcement when you have a contract we have to built-in resource with our County Patrol so somebody quits that's covering your day shift we'll have the Sha staff the existing staff fill those shifts so whether it's somebody quitting somebody calling out six somebody on vacation we plug somebody in that's on the RO Patrol to fill those vacancies so

your shifts are always covered um in some towns the Contracting thing is common Statewide we're a smaller County um with the number of communities but like York County I think pcot County have you know half a dozen to a dozen contracts but they have more towns um the advantage to having that is when it comes to Replacements once we contract we cover it until we hire or until the person is healthy again um some people like that so you're not you're not funding or supplemental funding the county and the county is not supplemental funding you but you have that always having 71 dut in your town and now can you tell us the cost um and I know there were there were two different estimates you gave USB meeting if you could just go over those briefly so these are kind these AR like you know detailed numbers these are kind of rough numbers using the way our contract works we hire people to certain steps we can

bring people certain steps so I tried to give the worst case scenario you two Deputy proposal um the cost approximate cost is about proposal in terms of coverage 12 hours a day option proposal that gives you 247 coverage numb 56,000 and um what what is what are those numbers cover is that just that covers salary all your benefits it has Capital included you don't have to be in the capital business so as time goes we need new cars it's part of the contract the town doesn't have to go like buy a fire truck and try to buy another one so it's all built in all the maintenance everything is done through us we on the vehicles and the equipment and the equipment um an average vehicle right now to set up about

a car are the car the mobile terminal computer in it the radio the watch guide system all of our deputies wear body cameras but in dealing with Poland they wanted out of the capital business and it wasn't working for us because we were going to budget committee meetings all the time we found it was easier just to budget the capital in there at what it would cost us to you know keep the uh the up to date current and then not be bought away those fixed cost that we agreed to and since then we've had SRO contracts with two school districts and we we do the same thing with that so it's always on us to replace a car or in it we don't go back to you saying hey we and um my last question before we open it up um the town will be responsible for an office and anything else copier printer

they Sheriff's Office just because the way our system our computer system is downloading photos and that stuff it's at the main office that's they usually and all of the evidence lockers things like that are also and that would be like the reason po might come put evidence secure bler it's to be track

that's important for the cour process right so I'm going to open it up to public comment if anybody wants to come ask questions I'm going to ask if we limit it to questions and not necessarily comments at this moment um come on up to the microphones

check he speak okay um so my name is Brad Owen I live here in Durham at 12 Ada Drive um and I can't believe I I've actually lived here for almost over 20 years we've uh raised five kids in this community uh we've seen the um the school go from a small school to a brand new school and um seen this this community grow and flourish and uh we uh love to be here and to be part of this community uh couple of questions I do have um do you can you give me maybe a rough estimate on what the response time would be the 56 minutes response time is a little concerning for me currently as to you know where we're at right now do you have an idea on how much quicker that might be well it would be the availability would be there unless they're tied up at your neighbor's house or across town at another car uh where right now you could get somebody responding from Livermore or green uh to put things in perspective so being

within your your town from one end of town to the other so when you look at the average of 56 minutes um that seems exessive to me I mean I worked on the road I you know I guess I could say you don't realize the time when you go into a call but would throw it all off is if somebody's reporting a theft you know there's no rush to get to a death so that could be why it might be two hours to get there where it's emergency call maybe it's 25 minutes BR the average to you know 56 um so I can't tell you how long it takes to get from one at a town or the other I can tell you at night there's not that much traffic so that helps out um a lot of your roads are like that so you have those concerns but I would think it would be under under 10 minutes okay and if they're in town probably quicker so um with that question um where would they actually be stationed would they be just in their car or would they have an office here in

Durham would they have a place that they would hang out we would request a substation and we did talk briefly about that um in Poland we were fortunate to get an old part of their Town building they didn't use they just finished off an office is the bathroom um and you know the guys go there to do their paperwork or meet with people um so the town in our meeting with them know whether they provide a space in the town office department or somewhere it would once it's known usually put signage up as well so that that part hasn't been discussed any yeah that's a discussion I'm sorry that's that's more of a discussion I think the select board has to have with the town employees and and find the space I think the hope would be that we could find a space without doing uh much if any work I think there had been mention of a um a trailer that might be available on the fire station something but that's you know that's I

think a next step for for the board and the town town to sort of map out and present should this get presented to the the town at the town meeting okay or a town meeting the the other comment I just had was um I did have a chance to talk with um Chief McGee um a few weeks ago actually we were chatting at the ree Festival over in Lisbon and he did mention um the cops Grant and I think that that's a great opportunity a great idea for us to get some funding who would fill that out and how would that be like every year would that be renewed or is that a onetime thing it's a one time Grant four years so we would have to apply for the grant in partnership in the town we would apply for it I believe first year we did it in the P was like 100% went 7550 25 a guarantee that the to here

approximately I'd say five six years ago um because it was a change in federal Administration uh and at the time call sharing was you know saf Poli say we're not going to be able to do the call Shar anymore we went to the Commissioners so we funded two positions through the cost fast Grant so that's expired now so we're eligible to apply again but it would have to be in coordination with the town the town alex2 and then they funded two other positions using partial arpa money so we could at least add one staff which you know brought our staffing level

process it would just have to be in Partnership where we would have to do it and there's some commitment from the town there after like the fifth year you're going to pay 100% so you would hope that during the four years where the grant is the funding is supplemented that it's offered enough to the town to you know 50 year and Beyond is worthwhile but basically once we fow the grant if we're successful receiving it the

stackpool road could you re-explain the capital funding I didn't I get lost on that basically U we have a capital line in there for payment from the town and that we cover all capital expenses associ so the 288 includes the capital the capital expenses yeah it includes all capital and you're pretty much talking about the vehicle and all the equipment in the vehicle those are the big ticket items what what does non- Capal funds mean estimated cost non- Capital funds

are you seeing that page two the first uh on the right side of the first table that's on I think that's on the paperwork you handed out oh and this is this is from last night's email so maybe it's different than what you handed out today's 288 so 288 includes going to be

the initial Capital to get the cars and the equipment that we need which is what well dep how many people want to do want to do have look if we have aicle we can f over that's good enough then we can put that car down here in the fleet if we need to order a car then we'd have to look the car currently is like I said is going R so my question is initial Capital

expense and then the 28 includes like a maintenance um so in the TW man contract no no the 2 the 288 is the cost of the contract of the total contract the total contract and what what it's what it broke down for you in this document is currently under a Ral Patrol there's no bill to the town of Durham if you were to contract two deputies they're saying it's going to be 288 a year showing you what they cover and if it was four deputies which would be 24-hour coverage it would be 556 I think that's just a mistake in paperwork

is an error so 28 is the total cost to the town yes including the initial Capital oh you got to the 288 is is is not the initial capital cap 288 is the yearly Capital if there is no hold on 288 is the yearly contract cost for two deputies 12 hours a day to include all expenses there's no 288 plus

it's 288 including the capital so so it includes a car yeah because what we're going to do is we're going to finance the cars so the last select board meeting I watched which I I've tried to watch most of them you guys seem to want to put something on the ballot this year for a a straw pole or something like that is that what you is that what this is about to get ready for that this is so this is to get information out I think the intent is Heather is going to try to do

a survey of some sort um after tonight's meeting to get people get initial thoughts and then um we have what is it I think three select board meetings between now in the election where there could be public comment um and maybe additional conversation at at one of the select board meetings um and then at the election I think the hope is to sort of put out a feeler uh I don't know how we necessarily phrase I don't think we've come to that conclusion yet but it would be trying to gather Town's thoughts of is it something we should pursue we're interested in uh or not um and so you

know so if you thought if you thought the time was interested you'd have something on the warrant for next year we we would uh do more uh work to get to the point where we can put something on you know presumably next year um I think it would depend on how much work is necessary and what information I think the the cop fast Grant is something that we have to make sure that could be applied for but either next year or the

year after it would be it would be something we would present if there there's interest or even there's not interest the board decides it wants to present to the town anyway right if you want so um we I just got this last night at 9ine o'clock or 8 o'clock whenever whenever was emailed seems like this is a bit of a rush I think the whole thing is being rushed actually and um I I did a quick

perusal of the categories and the calls that were classified seemed like half of them at least weren't I would call emergencies so I don't know there's more policing now in the county I believe than ever and crime still going up I don't think policing is going to stop crime might solve some problems

to follow up on on one of Neil's questions about what the select board intent is is going into the November election um I feel weird sitting this way because I'm actually talking to all of you so I'm going to turn around um I'll take the mic with me even though I'm probably loud enough um if people remember when we were talking about marijuana ordinances and we put the straw pole out um ahead of the warrant

whether or not people were interested in um grow facility you know those those questions that we put out there to gauge interest before we went through the process of developing um ordinances around marijuana the town voted no that

they weren't interested in going down that road to adopt those ordinances this is what this informational Gathering and also the straw pole will potentially look like in November we're trying to gauge before we put all of the leg work into going down this road if this is something that the majority of residents actually want us to pursue and so at the

November election there's obviously going to be the uh largest voter turnout in any of our recent elections because it's a presidential election which gives us the opportunity to pull hopefully as many residents as possible so we can really gauge where the interest lies in going forward with this or not if people remember we I think it was in 2018 the select board in 2018 um had you guys come and do this

at that time they didn't feel like they wanted to pursue it and now here we are six years later you know the concern is still there and so we're just revisiting it again trying to figure out if this is the direction that the town wants to go

Swamp Road I'm imagining the scenario if all the towns that are currently on Rural coverage all adopted something like this at the same time there would be a very large increase obviously in the in the police force across the county and it makes me wonder is it a

possibility that this can be addressed on the county level like if there weren't three officers on duty on the county level but there were six then maybe there wouldn't be a need for towns to do this and that that cost could kind of be a lower per Town cost and if if there's anything like that that's possible well to answer hypothetical you could always partner with a a town to share the cost but I think in part what what we were getting feedback is the idea of having a designated person in your town establishing the relationships with the town's people um and can guarantee better response so we could increase our Ro Patrol you know and actually designate a Durham and min haveed to share the cost of the

Deputy it doesn't necessarily you know guarantee that the deputies in M it when the calls in Durham RSE by and I think that's what a lot of the confusion is with rooll of Patrol a lot of people say well you know you've got roll of Patrol they the three deputies you know 24 hours a day um what's with the response times or why is our call getting put off and could be because they're dealing with something more crucial some sell us so in large part when you're contractor you're always going to have a deputy here as up with another Community um to share the costs that would involve the towns working together I don't know geographically that works for the town of Durham um you know there's other towns where I could think of better examples but we've got some departments you know full-time police departments that that you might think are going to be closing in future years and those conversations come about about how does

that affect things are they going to contract where they contract with the town the call of volume is still there and what tends to happen is when you have a police presence like that whether Poli department or contract deputies the call volume goes up because there's a lot of things people don't bother calling for um that when you know you have somebody in town you are calling for and another issue that was really brought to my attention when we not the slide from last time is the concern um and the nature of calls your your fire fire service your rescue is is going to and that was similar to what was going on about the whole the psychiatric issues uh at night or sub substance used to in excess tonight um and the danger it is for all that are involved and they're concerned with not only their own safety um but the lives they're going to in effect save and the time it takes for us to get there so I

think that was something that was really emphasized with Poland when they went 24 hours in Durham when we met with them last time so when you're partnering with other towns you would have more coverage um but it doesn't necessarily me AR in a partner in town maybe I can ask a similar that a question that's maybe more direct is that is there any discussion for Andre gagen to increase the number of of officers on duty above three um we we've already done that since call sharing went away when the state police said we can't have a call sharing agreement anymore um and at this point you're dealing with six communities that have police departments so they're when you look at two of the six they thear contributed to the tech County tax bill uh they pay I think combined 40% of the tax bill so they know they're responsible to pay for the Sheriff's Office operations um but as as far as we're at with the budget spikes due to

wage wage adjustments over the past couple years and things like that it it didn't seem reasonable to request ad Staffing to put on the county tax bill because we already go through a budget committee process where representatives from you know mcken Falls status Le Auburn Li more FS they're already contributing towards it um and they have their own police departments so while the staff is always asking for greater numbers because of the types of calls they're going to they're more intense uh there's more followup and paperwork involved with the cost of the operation already going up due to inflation we'll say um it just didn't seem like the appropriate time to be requesting more Staffing and understand the politics of you know there with and it's with the we present to the County Commissioners they represent you know seven different districts and then it goes to a budget committee process which is made up of

all the communities in County just like the Commissioners are um and I think you see everybody every Community not just in in County but probably Nationwide that's trying to tighten the person I don't think we experience success could I summarize your answer by saying no there's not any discussions with increasing the number of officers okay thank you other than Contracting for services uh we've been requested the town of proposal and we've been giving information to another community in County about bring okay and just one

more quick item I was I was looking in the categories there's one that's that's alarm in in in the list of of police calls one of the categories is alarm I don't do do you know what that can you describe what that is the alarm here like an alarm system okay thank you can you tell me your name John Hansen I forgot you're waiting just get

Milt Simon I live on the stackle road uh a few questions um I got I didn't understand the answer between if we contract with two versus four deputies because two deputies was going to be 12 hours a day was the answer each shift and then the answer for four deputies was 24hour day coverage so what's the difference the difference is our contract calls for our our employees get paid for 44-hour work weeks they work in 14-day pay Cycles uh with that they work 12 hour shifts so you have two deputies at seven days a week 12 hours a day um but they're not working together one's working Monday Tuesday the other's working Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday then it alternates the following week so you're paying two 12 hours but it's one a day for 12 hours a day and then 24hour cards or four deputies would give you 2 they work most of the ships we have are five and five okay so that that that needed the clarification

because when you say 12 hours a day some 12 hour shifts then you think well 12 and 12 is 24 so if we only hire if we only contracted for two we have coverage in town for 12 hours a day if we hire if we contract for four deputies then we have coverage for 24 hours a day okay um

is it the int if if Durham was to enter into a contract is it the intent of your department that you would go out and uh seek imp hire a a a new Deputy to come and work in the town of dorm or just move one of your present deputies to our town what we would do is offer it to the present pool of employees say anybody want to work as a contract Deputy for Durham and there might be some interest there and whatever V filled internally then we adver out so if you were to if you were going to move someone who is currently in your employment pool well all of your deputies I believe are assigned to a vehicle so if a deputy who's already working for your department gets assigned to cover durm

for the the TW for the 12 his 12 hour shift he's bringing a vehicle with him so why is your proposal including the cost of leasing I think is what you said a new vehicle because um we'd still have to replace that vehicle we're taking from the county Supply and in the rotation it would eventually that vehicle would need to be replaced so it would always guarantee a replacement vehicle that's why it's a buil-in cost um so if we send a deputy from the county over with the vehicle that is 50,000 miles and two years later we need to trade it in you're not going to get another bill you're going to be paying the same amount we're going to give that Deputy uh a new vehicle at that time would we be getting the used vehicle or would we be getting the new vehicle under the contract it would depend on I mean if if you demanded that we have the new vehicle we could do that um but pretty much we'd have to go and acquire

four new vehicles to put into our rotation so there's a chance that could happen but if it was something the town says well no we want new vehicles out of the gate we can always com it just it works out anyway because we've had people in Poland that have been in Poland and when they you know have transferred to the county they've taken their vehicle with them and then we've supplied a new vehicle to Poland um we just recently had a a deputy asked to go from the county to Poland um you know

that doesn't happen as often so but we the reason why they say the vehicle their unit numbers on it so it's more of just a a management thing inside it's really for no reason but eventually every vehicle gets replaced in the rotation so if the town of Durham enters into a contract and you take you take a deputy out of your a pool and assign him to durm so he takes his vehicle with him however the town of durm is going to be asked to purchase this Deputy to purchase a vehicle to replace the one that came from the pool and now let's say to three years down the road I don't know how long the contract lasts but Durham decides to opt out of the

contract so now we no longer have a deputy but we paid for a car uh that that doesn't sound like good good budgetary we dealing with on the other end which communities didn't like is we were having them buy the cars so we actually lost a position at one time it was an S position I believe and they didn't know what to with the car so we took all of our equipment out because they could have it and they had um a cruiser with nothing in it that they we'd Park on different roads just SL traffic down um but at this point we would own the pars you know we're taking care of all the maintenance you're paying us for the Capital Equipment involved I guess um it's just the preferred method um that that works for all involved in the existing contracts we have but um yeah so we purchased four cars we

equipped the four cars and if at the end you would decide the town we decide to not re up with the contract they were our cars unless again we've done it this way it just doesn't work as well because when we're going back to you to buy cars when they need to be replaced you know you buy the cars with the understanding all the equipment comes out of it when there it was easier to manage it was easier to budget because they were budgeting Capital to repace all time it just seems to me that if we get if we're getting someone from your pool and we're not buying him a gun I don't think buying equipment every year by contract they have all work into the contract okay so for example Poland when they used to buy their own ties if auty was forced to work in overtime Shi in the county they made them go find a County car use that County car yet the county deputies when they were forced to work overtime in the

town of Poland they used their County car so at the end that's like our office so all the patrolman have the car set up all of their equipment is in it so it's very difficult to take if I was a patrolman and I had to go all my equipment out of my car there is a lot of stuff we carry because we're Rural and put it into a different car to use for a 12 hour Shi it made it easier manag manag get in the long run in ofland they were tired of

the capital buiness they didn't want to have anything to do with it we got one car left that they actually own and that's actually getting traded in soon and then all the other vehicles are we purchase it as part of the contract and it follows the deputy so if the deputy gets forced to work in the county if she uses it if County Deputy works in the town of Po they use count car so a lot of times in Poland for example the county car was being used more Poland than the Poland car being used and at the same time if a vehicle gets on an accident need to be replaced it's it's on us and all on the town we insure it we P that that money for the car takes care of all the maintenance for it and the purchase of everything in there am I assuming correctly that in

when you were preparing out how much it was going to cost the town of Durham to do this um it it was as if it was as if Durham had no protection and and and now to if in order to protect the town it's going to cost $280,000 a year what we assumed is in meeting with the selectman we we just we thought it would be of everybody's interest just not knowing what the residents would think or the community would think um we could give you a proposal for 12 hours a day 7 days a week or 24 hours a day right so what we did is we prepared two budgets based on the worst case scenario for that meaning you know higher pay you never know who will we might get somebody that's got a year experience or no experience that's going to be a lot cheaper than somebody with 10 years experience and that was yeah so I I understand that where I'm going with try to clarify your question I I'm going with this I'm going

somewhere with this do you want to wait till I finish sure thanks so we're already the the town is already paying the county for protection so if we're in if we're going to contract for our own coverage it seems to me the town would now be issued a credit for the amount we're already paying your for your service does this contract mean that there will be no more rural Patrol in neur no so we're still getting that service is is I think the answer to your question you'll still be getting the back office operations CID Services the rural Patrol coming through um you know everything there um as far as

reductions no um County government is responsible to provide certain services and that's what I was talking about about the budget process you get communities that have their own police departments those towns still contributing for the RO of control but as you saw tonight just in Lisbon our deputies where they are backing up Lisbon PD um and we do that often small and lately cities and last my last question um can describe if you could what you what how you would what anti what would the typical

shift for a deputy assigned to durm what what would his day be like there is AAL thing we run an agency we work in a profession there is no dat the same so we can come out our day and start with fatal CR on 136 we can be tied up for hours we we could have a very SL cover all accidents we have overdoses we could watch soccer games here at the school you know it it's there's no typical day I mean typically you expect the deputies go out learn an area do proper depending on you know the time of day get more familiar with it meet people develop resources you know connect um and then the normal law enforcement functions in for speeding U running stop signs monitor areas you know learn that respond to any calls thank you for your

Nate leder I live on Brian Drive first of all thank you you you do a thankless job and it's not respected enough and you don't get paid enough so thank you for that I want to humanize things because we keep talking about equipment and cars and that's all cool we can buy all that kind of stuff what's your current roster and where are you at in um employees how many officers how many deputies do you have and where what percentage are you missing can't have the question the question is is the Staffing break down so the return question I have is does this include the contract deputies the contract so that's my point if you are already down I'll try to speak up sorry if you're already down 20% I don't know what that number is like what are you already budgeted for how many deputies and where are you at and if we're Contracting somebody that leads into my next kind of question is like I want to

humanize the badge you guys are like husbands wives brothers sisters like these are real people that you first have to find to want to do the job that you do then send them to eight we 18we Academy which you only do twice a year and so if you're already down deputies to have this imaginary thing that we're going to find two guys that are gung-ho to get on board send them to the academy which only happens in what beginning I think September and January or whatever so by the time if we do hire somebody first we have to find the people to say yes and then we have to send them to the academy and so I want to know what that looks like all right currently we have 16 full-time deputies four contract deputies two contracted SRO and four detectives uh we have detectives with various expertise um one is swor with the Attorney General's office from domestic violence one is part of the FBI computer task force I guess for done

three different Federal task force he's a resource throughout the state for cell phone stuff and U and I'm just being brief here we have another that does all of our ACC reconstruction we have two drone Pilots so just for patrol I'm talking about so like if we get those two Patrol guys we have 16 we're down two right now we have one at the Academy and we have one out as a result of a gunot in so we're currently down and so when we find those two I see a lot of sentences that they're they they that they won't leave town leave to unless call to assist Lisbon or right so like it if I know like I know if 's a call a two person call Gun call domestic violence something to tell that Deputy that he's not allowed to go when he works for the county if there's a gun call in Livermore and you're down officers and Livermore granted we're contracted are you going to tell that Deputy he's not allowed to back up his

brother in Livermore typically um the other part you're missing is we're Staffing shifts through overtime okay so a lot of vacancies it's overtime where we're actually contemplating having detectives alternate days to lessen the burden of ordering people filling overtime shifts and two of the you know positions we're just starting to uh advertise for but the idea of if there's a situation in Livermore it really wouldn't be practical to have the Durham or Poland deputies go when you'd have liore Falls jpd Franklin County in County St police so I unless you're dealing with that is of great proportions we wouldn't have I don't do hypotheticals I hate them because you can spin them as and I don't want to say it because

police to help out the Dury would not respond to a situation like that and then my final question is um well I'm sorry I have two does that contract include the cost of sending them to the academy say we get a new hire that wants to do a Durham contract is that factored into the cost of sending them to the academy as well I might be wrong with this but we have a training Budget on the county side that because of the movement like we talk about with capital it's the same thing with employees so generally most of those costs are associated on the side is all already are taken care of on the county for pretty much the academy being paid by the tring okay and then finally I'll let other people speak um my main concern is we pay into the rsu5 system and part of the rsu5 system pays free Port PD for anr uh school resource officer we rarely see the SRO because of the county separation freep Port is part of

Cumberland County and so their officer is not deputized to handle calls up here even though the rsu5 system pays for a small percentage of his salary would the contract lower that would we not have to pay for the SRO I don't know what that and educate me please I I don't know if it's so minute that it it's not worth discussing but I know the SR the the school budget pays for the SRO That Never Comes to Durham the only thing I can tell you about your SRO is we have cooperated with being able to sign the mutual agreement and deputize the individual if not it might be you know an issue with Administration there or so we have nothing to do with with that um that that's somewhere else but we've been that continue this been a longstanding practice for free to provide the SRO and we have done nothing to prohibit that because we we welcome school I I just see it as a benefit not as I'm not trying to be negative I'm saying if we

have a a contracted Deputy in town who could also operate as the SRO here number one are we paying for two are we paying double paying are we paying for an SRO but we're also paying for a deputy to do the SRO work here for the school and is there a way to we have two SRO and they are it's almost like their own little Community they're very busy oh I'm not saying that at all so I mean Deputy could obviously come to the school yeah to do community involvement with the students but would not probably partake in a lot of the typical SRO duties that are coming so there's nothing stopping the SRO and Freeport from coming here other than whatever's happening in Freeport or their preference that's conversation admin so that's a conversation that we should have with the school and then figure that out I just think it's a Manpower thing there's five School six schools in Freeport that at the SRO has

to take care of school district in the northern part part of Franklin and we have muts the town of J who provides the school resource officer high school middle school and we deputize that off he does go to gotcha cool that's that's something I think we will have a conversation about and and try to address if that's not happening I just don't want to pay for two things at the same time if we have a deputy here no yeah it would be two sep I think they have to be two separate positions right especially where we're paying for one if they're not coming here then we cool thank you both thank

to wait for it to come back no go ahead I'm letting it come back to me I didn't write it down Heather is it I'm sorry is it the note that you I was gonna say something about that but that's not it go ahead you want so so there the question about the the vehicles Heather made a comment me it's equivalent to Leasing and so the county is leasing each of the Cruisers well they call it a lease purchase I call it financing them for three years because they last about three or four years so they get paid off we have a certain budgeted amount um the towns contribute it allows us to buy five sometimes six cars and we just put a car in the rotation and next up gets gets traded in

um and I can get where you're thinking well we're getting new and then that might very well happen but we Finance them and uh we have some cars that are 2016 that'll get us another couple years because of what they're doing we have some cars that are 2020 that need to go next year so there's no Rhyme or Reason to some some depies

put a lot of miles on their cars and some do more investigations and some are doing traffic so we' been getting sometimes five or six years on of a patol car we can get sometimes more out of sheriff said we have a couple of 2016 still on the fleet on the fleet so we do try to maintain our vehicles the best we can to keep them and some work a lot of over time which would require putting more miles on the car so it is we just every year we keep tracking and look at what we got replace the following year sorry I didn't mean to nope not at all um Derek Lovich Snow Road I want to thank you both for being here tonight and thanks to the town for putting this on and giving us a chance to learn more and ask some questions um just quickly pref preface my question by saying that my primary concerns are the um epidemic of excessive speed aggressive driving and presumed ouis on uh route 136 and being off a Snow Road we know this firsthand

as my wife was nearly killed in an accident last year walked away with minor injuries inches away from it being a very serious one um forgive me if these are then therefore a little too specific for this time as it's early in the process but um given the 12-h hour coverage is that a consistent time like um set hours of the day you mentioned a shift is five to five but is always every day five to five or did people like drag racers get used to knowing when there is anop that would we discussed with the town and what became more obvious in our discussion with we slide forward is some of the concerns they were having at night due to the rescue we'll just call it rescue calls for lack of a better term um so if you were to El to go for two we'd work with the town say you know wheny one for instance when we had two in Poland they did certain shifts on you know Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday and then

different shifts on Friday Saturday and Sunday um so that would be it's fair to have a consistent for the employees and to see what works unfortunately we were meeting with them there was a lot of interest for different things there was interest for Community engagement and things of that nature and then it was interest of having the public safety aspect pretty much at night um so if there were two we would work with the town saying what do you what do you prefer and then we also work with them to evaluate what are you seeing and want to adjust it one way or the other so although it's 5 to five I mean we have some that work you know 3 to three we have some that work s to S um you might say we want 10 to 10 but then you're missing out on school traffic in the morning so it would depend what does the town elect to do if anything and then if it's two or four then we' say okay when do you want your two hour when do you

want your 12 hours recovery other than a full shift that would be our only requirement because we do have a collective bargaining agreement that you know gives the sure and that makes sense thank you for that um I I heard your earlier answer I totally understand about there's no such thing as a typical day um but is there some way to have some sort of guesstimate percentage of time on average you would expect the dep Deputy to spend enforcing traffic laws as opposed to being in the office you know obviously you don't know every day is going to be different but is there some sort of time frame that you expect this amount of time is dedicated to it can that even be you know ballparked or guessed currently we we ask that they have what we call Community contacts through traffic enforcement um what we do is we can because we have a records management system we can monitor what deputies you're doing and what we're

looking for is to get them out of the communities to be visible because that tends to you know proactive policing would deter certain activities um it would be more like you would supervising anything else making sure they're out there producing and it's not producing tickets it's the the visibility giving people their money's worth responding to calls but if we're seeing somebody's not stopping cars or having any activity but yet they were tied up on a burglary investigation that took them eight hours and then the report writing that's totally understandable and sometimes that'll happen so it's not we're looking at saying gez why don't you stop any cars during your shift um often times we find that um you know there's justification for it um we're lucky where we have a staff that understands the value and being visibility you know being visible and being proactive so I think we've had with the criteria we do set um a lot of

success with it is that publicly available in any way I don't know what the records are I mean other than what we've given to um not sure we have one guy that knows the system a lot better than we do I kind tell you for your speeding issue we've done 20 proactive details just this year 136 was obviously one of the primary speeds quite High

most of them between 5 and 8 morning so they are they are out here currently trying to area we have a supervisor that's pretty good for I just signed for another one um because if he spends all the money in the target areas we're 136 obviously one um he'll give them more money but what we do is we have to say is anybody going to do this because it's hard for us to give MD do the money back so he might get 20 grand initially once that goes through he'll pull staff is anybody willing to work more click C details or speeding enforcement um and if they are then he puts in for more and you just receive yeah generally four hour blocks and thank you for that answer I've noticed the difference between when you do see a detail and the next day driving to and from work because I work in Freeport so it's and on Snow Road we have no choice but to go up and now 136 so but thank you for your time and answering my questions I appreciate it

was your last well um I had a couple questions in regards to the data on attachment B MV laws and vehicle stops what's the difference between the two so MV is usually the complaint of hey we got speeding vehicles on our street um there's a car coming through this driving erratically that we are getting a complaint from a citizen and if there a depy the area we're responding to it where motor vehicle stop is the actual we're conducting an actual motor vehicle St okay so if I'm reading this correctly in 2024 there have been 88 motor vehicle stops here in the town of Durham and I mean like I think if you guys were here for 12 hours shifts you could do that in a month um you know the reality for me

I've lived here since 2009 and the very first thing I heard about 136 was called the Durham Raceway and um I watch people you go to Little League fields to watch a game watch people roll right through the center of town and never slow down you guys have that sign out there right past the Masonic Lodge just when I came over here there was a BMW in front of me come around the corner where it goes to 35 that thing's flashing he never slowed down just kept on going so um you know

it's it's a serious concern to me uh somebody in this town is going to get killed um one of our kids one of our family members one of our loved ones dereck's wife right at the end of our road almost um the other question I have relates to the contract um and hiring the deputy is it sort of dovetails with what Nate asked um so if we agree to the contract and we go with the 12-hour shift or the 24-hour shift and you're going to find us two deputies um I'm concerned about hiring my wife is the HR Director for the city of Portland Portland is down 30 officers Leon is down 19 officers there's a shortage of police everywhere nobody wants your job anymore I remember when I get out of the service you apply for the State Police there'd be500 applicants for one position that's not the case anymore and I respect what you guys do it's a really dangerous job and it's really tough and you guys don't get get

paid enough um so if we agree with the contract we're going to are we going to be paying without actually having somebody until you find somebody or are you guys actually going to stick bodies from other officers that you have to fill those positions until you get somebody in or are we going to have to wait so we hav we haven't talked about that at all um but I can tell you we've handled it two way once we have a contract and once it's full so let's say two years from now we' end up filling it um you know from the existing staff and we can elect to do that now but we had an instance when we got a new contract for the SRO position where the person we hired couldn't start for like three weeks into the contract so we did is we said you know it does no good at SRO because that's a specialty to have somebody fill it for three weeks we won't charge you for those three weeks Our Hope would be if you have your town

meeting in April and it gets we can start the process then um and we can give true figures at that time which would save you a little bit money because again we budgeted for the worst case scenario we again it's anable thing we we've been successful in recruitment um and we've been selected and we've hired we're not just looking to fill seats because that's part of it too we're looking to bring the right people in we have had interest in this town because it's a nice Town um I don't know how successful we'll be um but you know if it's that

would be it right away if it's four um you know it might involve working with the town to see what works best but we would have the ability to have existing staff fill in until the right hires were made perfect thank talking to you guys this time so I just want to make sure that everybody understands the process of how this would work um we touched on that a little bit about what Our intention is for November with the straw pole our town meeting is held in April if in November there was a strong desire to pursue this the timeline could look differently um as this progresses what will have to happen under any circumstances is that number one um the town votes that they want to move in this direction and then number two it has to go through the budget process just like every everything else in town has to go through the budget process and if we the town says that they want to do this and it fails at the budget level we

don't move forward with that it has to pass the budget process at town meeting the same way that everything else does I just want to make sure that everybody understands that that you gave a hypothetical answer earlier about what the response time would improve to what did what's the current response time in Poland I I really don't know my head I tell you if the dep is available they're immediately responding so it could be 30 seconds it could be eight minutes depending on what side of the Town they're on we had the shooting the other night in Poland and the deputy was at the substation doing paperwork when the call came in and literally got into Cruiser and crossed the road and the fire department she was there so I was like a minute and a half um but there could be another instance where they're at Five Corners at a you know traffic accident or monitoring traffic by the school and something comes in on Poland

Spring modeling which is you know across town obviously Poland has a better response time because it's contract that in town Sy is that something you could possibly get for us for when we're gathering information in further review thank you um the other question that I had is when you are looking at attachment B what some of them are repeated but they have IP that means in progress so so when is IP

at the very end it means in progress so there like a bur domestic typically when I do my monthly reports I'll just merg to in our in our CAD system our computer system the dispatcher taking a call they are built-in call reasons so some might put it in as a domestic some might put it in as a domestic in progress personally I think there's so many it's confusing sometimes okay that's what that means okay so um I own a business in Mechanic

Falls and when my alarm system goes off the response time of the Mechanic Falls officer is less than 10 minutes and then we all sit around shooting the waiting for the second person to arrive so that the two people can walk through the house so it really doesn't improve response time to have a police officer right there in town and that's for simple alarm going off in a building

so I respond to that so alarms because the have to search a building and could be somebody in there it's typically a lot of the calls we don't out our man calls two officer calls um an officer like your fire department may choose to hey I know this business I'm going to go in and and check it out and not wait but

a lot of times especially the resti we don't know what we're encountering well and that's kind of my question is you know of the 800 calls that we had last year how many of them would have still required waiting for a second person well if an officer shows up say it's the say it's your your house the officer shows up within five minutes and has to wait for another officer chances are somebody's in the house they now detain them enough so that when the second we can go in apprehend cont or generally

if you you know people HDE so if somebody's there they know they're there we're clearly visible and you know you're you're watching movement at that point it's all how you look at it I guess okay does the money go if we have a contract officer it goes to the state but they divide it up through some formula where the pts get some um it's broken out like three

four different we don't get any neither as the town other than probably Revenue sharing or some sorts I guess okay but it doesn't there's no quotas there's no you know officers don't get points or raises or any percentage of the tickets and neither do the agencies okay all right thank you

would just kind of echo some of what you've heard today with just uh 136 being an incredibly dangerous road uh where it just seems like it's getting worse and worse and that leads into my question uh rather than hiring on essentially full-time employees are there also options available to us uh to pay far lesser amounts if what people in the town felt they really needed was traffic enforcement uh in particularized areas or just traffic enforcement in general thank you in 2018 I believe it was the conversation when you know there was this consideration is it time for law enforcement so we met with this life board at that time and they said well really we're looking at Target things when we notice this problems so we discussed with them maybe having uh a budget amount I believe we were talking $30,000 a year here to have a a deputy here for details U

because those require 4our minimum call outs um so it give them a pool of money to say hey we would like you know from 2 to six on Fridays and 7 to three on you know whatever it would be a deputy available to do this and they'd have an account to pay us in effect detail rate um and I think the town voted it down with that it didn't go to vote to the town the convolved around we could do that but we would have to buy out car and own the car and then theut Detail no no there might have been some confusion because we were meeting originally about a contract deputy and there was they were looking at one Deputy Monday through Friday and again like everybody that was at that me you you heard the different concerns it's 24 hours a day issue and that's up to the town and the people um I'm just here giving the information but at that time when there didn't seem to be the interest to pursue that there

was there what could we do you could hire us to do details like we do with football games or different events you know it's minimum forour walks you tell us what you want we do a lot of Fourth of July for like Orchard turn they do the fireworks and stuff pretty much you're hir for security say we'd like to have additional speed enforcement addition to what glal Patrol covers as well as I'm sorry as well as um the grants we get and is it correct that that would cost substantially less than the proposal like let's say so we have the almost $300,000 proposal and and maybe you don't know but if you had a targeted response with hiring on I I would presume that that would cost much less than the proposals that are before us today yeah I think we B $100 an hour for that yes so our speed the commissioner said so if you said hey we want to hire a deputy twice a week to do traffic on these roads then typically

our security details or our special details $100 an hour four minimum four hours and the county get not all and it pays for the benefits and all of that stuff for the deputy and then we say okay and then we would hire somebody okay Deputy Jones we want you to go they want traffic enforcement on 136 especially the area yep okay that's what he or she would do and there was one year where I think they were looking at doing it to have somebody available at polls I think we worked out something different but it was concern over activity that was going on places thank you for your time

um we keep talking contracts what do these contracts entail for details meaning duration are we locked into a three-year deal are we walk locked into a fiveyear deal we offered like we do everywhere else a year to year contract so it's year to year year and know if if the town elects to pursue the cops fast Grant with us for services um that would walk the town into I think it's a fouryear contract a fouryear contract it's a four-year commitment but the substantial funding by the federal government biding for you know it's like 75% 50 25 and then you you're guaranteeing you'll pay the 100% in that final year yeah that that would be the town's commitment but as it is right now we sign a year contract so year to year how would that impact the budget committee I mean is it something that would have to R into a budget committee 6 months in advance of the Year expiring to figure out what costs will be

cont year I give them what theost will be based upon the off of the dep that are assed and then they take it as part of their town finan okay um as an example do you have a year-over-year cost increase percentage well it changes every year it doesn't people move around we have retirements resignations other issues so we base the cost of the contract on what the actual deputies is costed So currently Poland this coming year it'll be cheaper because they've got two new employees where they we had one retire last year um so he was at the top of the pace Gale uh they like it predictable like anybody would with a budget and that was why the capital part they liked you know and the benefits and there are some changes every while there's a new collective bargaining agreement there's adjustments to the cloting on it's usually minimal um things like that but the wages um we actually in the last the Commissioners

in the last Labor contract U did it so even the step increases were moderate as opposed to in the past we had like threee bumps that were rather large so harder harder to absorb when you have a number of people hitting that but they're consistent but I would guess that most years they go up a little bit so to go along Ong the lines with that is uh so if Durham was fortunate enough to get somebody with say 10 years experience obviously they'd be higher up the pay scale obviously costs go up so the 288 that you're recommending um that taken with a grain of salt that's not something that we can set in stone I can't remember I did not

putry so I tried yeah we try wor worst case scenario when projecting a cost yeah so that way if it comes in cheap everybody happen yeah you know well not [Laughter] everybody all right um I guess that's all I have for now thank

there thinking so I've got more questions that come up um and somebody can correct me if I'm wrong there's a lot of budget committee people here so they are smarter than I am but I just did a simple breakdown if you're asking for 288,000 per year to

contract two deputies correct there's 1,800 houses in the town of Durham that pay taxes if you take 288,000 break it down by 1,800 houses you're asking for $159 per household which works out to be $13 per month so to my fellow taxpaying people that's less than what you pay for your Netflix account so so for $13 a month we're going to get a deputy in town if you were to increase that to four deputies for 56,000 per year that's asking the taxpayer to uh put up $37 which is $25 a month which is getting close to your Netflix account I don't know I could be completely we off and wrong about my math and I'd love to be educated on that but that's my just realized how much she was paying for that yes Netflix is a lot Disney plus Netflix I mean I would happily cancel that to get a deputy in time I just because what and I appreciate everything you said and everything everybody said we're not here um doing a sales pitch or trying to you

know talking we it was requested that we come and you know have this discussion in the past we did it is is well worthwhile for our agency if it was a contract and we believe for the this community um but it was brought out I believe through Community engagement with the select board the select board asked us to come speak to them what their options were and we discussed you know options from leaving it at rollal Patrol to Contracting own police department and we're we're very happy to provide this service but I don't want people feeling like we came here tonight to give you a sales pitch because we're wanting this we do want to provide that wasn't for me at all yeah I hope you didn't take it that way I just I just see like what it it's going to cost me as a taxpaying household $13 a month unless I'm completely wrong and how you guys budget it seems pretty easy what is your detail rate $100 an hour $100 an

hour so some of it goes to employees goes back to the county to cover like I say retirement they figured out a rate to charge because this the detail rate is higher than the hourly rate for the employee but then there's cost associated with the employer and the Count's not really making any money because they didn't factor in how much gas we using in the car and all those you where and you have a 4H hour minimum they're 4our minimums yes so would be 400 bucks if we wanted you to come just do a quick traffic thing for 4 hours and you know a lot of times if there is really a Target area beyond the grants we try to hit it it's just calls take us away when I say hit it we try to show attention to that area yeah yeah um but the calls that come in Daily and is there a minimum on how many details we could request throughout the year or per week or um how many you can fill how many you could fill perfect thank you

and so my math and remember I went to school so I'm not a bad was $160 per household 160 for the year for the year for the two for the two Deputy 12 hours a day and because you've asked questions about Staffing and roundabout way we can order people to fill shifts by contract you know they can shift in Durham they can shift pole they can shift in account we can't order people to do details understood I see what you're saying so details are voluntary you either sign up for them or you don't nothing they're nothing perfect appreciate you guys thank

could have heard me from up there uh actually I think Heather might have touch on it and this gentleman that was just here might have but I know you guys have got two options that you kind of been offering up here because you've been asked to come I guess my question is probably for the suck board has there been any other conversation about if there is any other options and if there if there is a committee or has been a committee put out there to look at that I know when we've done huge projects in the past this us the estering committee to look at all different options good bad and otherwise to find that out um I know the comment was about $140 a year for for or compared to Netflix which sounds like a pretty good deal but you had that on top of my $500 tax bill that just went up you're look at at $600 something and every year that goes up so I'm not saying we shouldn't do it is there any other options have they been

looked at so um I think I think as a group we've only really focused on these two proposals from the sheriff's department uh I don't think there was much support of uh full creating our own Police Department based because of the expense for that rumors are out there but that's why one of the reasons I'm asking no I I don't know that we've had discussion I can tell you that um you know for me for my role in this uh criminal justice system that the sheriff's department is involved in uh I think starting a law enforcement department a police department in Durham would be insane um I think this they

here we're paying for you know we're paying the salaries but we're paying for two just for us but we're getting the continued benefit of all these other detectives so the DB detective um reconstruction you have you know they you know I have my guys go to one of their detectives for cell phones and those sorts of things uh so uh they're some of the best in the state um so we've really as a only looked at these two options uh I think um if there's an interest in it we could reach out to one of the neighboring towns and say what would you charge I think based on the presentation to us from Chief McGee um this is going to be the more cost effective option that was going to be another question about reaching out to the other towns and I'm not I'm not saying yes or no either one I just know this is information for us but I didn't know if there was you know I've been in here for 40 something years I know that

usually big things takes time and they put people out there to do a lot of research I'm just asking not as much for me maybe but for other people to find out so so this is really informational uh there is no time frame this could this go on go to the town meeting in 2025 sure could it be 2026 or later yes we have not set a time frame for presenting this to the town this is information um we asked our questions at our meeting we want to hear the concerns and I think the biggest concern is is cost um and so I think going forward one of our goals will need to be checking and confirming what I think is going to be true that you know this is the most cost cost effective option for us right um and it may and it may be the case I think I was I think I was on the board and we had I'm not sure if it's the same to but a couple other gentlemen that came in kind kind of give us that presentation too that was and it got

shot down so I'm just I was just wanted to make sure that we if we go this route or if the town decides to that we cover all our bases to make sure that's all cuz I I know that uh taxes are going up and if ours are going to go up theirs are going to go up so we just you know and all we have in town to pay for all this stuff is home owners we don't have any infrastructure so to speak so we probably should be looking at that maybe even before this but that's up to the people I can to address that I know the woman sitting behind you has has made a comment to me about trying to look at at infrastructure and and doing that so it's not lost on us who's paying these bills um and that's you know it's really do people want it we don't want to waste you know everyone's time uh having them come back more going to town meeting because if we present this at the town meeting we're going to ask them to come

back to meeting to answer questions so that it's not L of I think uh it's from what I'm gathering this is something um that there might be interested in I don't I think it's going to be you know it's it's 5050 what people want um and so I think next steps for us uh would be to reach out to little lisban uh you know maybe maybe the other neighboring departments and see what it would look like uh to to share with them or have them cover her again I think their costs are going to be pretty similar I know uh Lisbon's having a hiring Bo right now they seem to be hiring somebody new every couple of weeks um uh and so I I you know that that's that's next steps but right now I think the focus is on this right because I think memory serve that's how it was sort of presented to us and based on on Ryan's position I think that's how I took it as that that was his recommendation and that's a recommendation that I put a lot of way

I'm I'm not against it because let's face it it was a shooting in louon just recently we're only 10 miles away it's getting closer to home all the we was covering everything thanks I I think and so so could there be more a committee or steing commit or something like that it's possible we're you know we're not there yet I think I just don't want to rush into nothing even though I know it's probably past to

because I'm going to ask questions and I'm going to make comments um microphone oh microphone could you one of the things that when you guys came to talk to us at the meeting the first time that I heard you know a lot of what Durham considers first and foremost is the cost because as Mark alluded to we are the taxes are paid by primarily all residential taxes um and so in balancing

that a lot of things that stood out to me when you guys came were the non- tangibles um especially the depth of resources which also goes back to the difference between starting our own Department which as Josh said the collective board thought that was not within our reach whatsoever um but

important for us to include in all the information that's available so people can make informed decisions however could you speak about the depth of your resources that you have that if we started our own Department okay yes so by Contracting Services you already have Administration in place you already have uh HR you have you know payroll taken care of um you have the records management system you have your dispatch capabilities uh we already have CID Services we already have evidence lockers

have Specialties within the detectives so specialty we have four detectives like I said earlier one does a lot with electronics cell phones computers one is an Accident Reconstructionist two are drone Pilots for accident reconstruction or other types of Investigation one is a domestic violence investigator sworting through the AG's officer to literally work Statewide um we have a Kine officer

we in the federal task force we have yeah we have you know Federal task force the thing is everything that you would need to start a police department you're saving the cost because we already have it in place um and I think people often times Overlook that and there's a lot of requirements that have come up over the past decade yeah whether it's involving domestic violence or a number of other CRI that require followup um and you know I remember talking to the director of The Academy back in 2014 no 2011 and the

concern at the time was a lot of the small departments aren't going to be able to fund 100% to meet their requirements because it'll only you know they'll have 90% free time 10% hit what they're doing it'll just be economically not feasible so he thought at the time that um a lot of small departments would go by the wayside because of the am investment would take to run it and you've seen that happen in some of your Northern departments if you're paying attention to the news a lot of the smaller departments are closing up some of the Departments around here have ponied up the money to keep their department but it becomes quite expensive because we're required to do bail follow-ups domestic violence follow-ups uh things of that nature but we already have all of that built in um so there's a lot that people Overlook when it comes to running a police department you know the policies procedures the insurances the

liabilities um you know we're going through the accreditation process right now uh to to have a higher standing in that regard but there's a lot of things that you were be required to do you know records management evidence and things like that that the town is actually saving on and I don't know if I hit it all but I think well one other thing I'd just like to add to that is the office Spa like we're we're already outgrowing our existing buildings and and starting a police department would also include the expense of being able to house a police department where if we were to contract a service we would need to provide office space we wouldn't need to be we wouldn't have to pay for an entire building for a police department to exist in so because of those Reasons I'm trying to answer your question without answering a question because I'm not supposed to be answering questions right at this moment but um

those were the reasons why the select board as Josh said felt like this was not that was not an Avenue that we felt like we could realistically explore and and I I think what what resonates with a lot of people is the administrative cost to anything is always a concern well you're already covering the administrative cost through your county tax bill it's already there you're already getting a sheriff a chief Deputy a major running Division and you're getting a records Clerk that's handling all the things to put together for the patrolman and that goes for our rural Patrol guys our Poland guys or dur would like to contract that's doing all that process to gather all the information from court so you know there's a lot of services that already having that would you know be enhanced with this and you'd have better coverage because you'd have dedicated people to your town that would learn the town people um but a lot of

the back office stuff that's very costly in running a law enforcement organization is already there provided so it's actually producing huge savings um in my mind that's a huge benefit towards Contracting for services okay this is a question and a comment kind of tied together again um it goes back to what Jill was saying about two people needing to respond to So currently what we've heard from our chief is that he will or First Responders in our town will arrive at a situation that they are not supposed to enter without police assistance um and sometimes most times

they choose to go in anyway there is liability you know in invol they make that choice and they do that um in that situation if if the chief were there or I don't know if somebody other than the chief is qualified to count as the second responder or does it have to be to that that's that's their perimeters ours might be different so they might have a psychiatric and I don't know what their Protocols are right so they might be going to a psychiatric you know a suicidal individual and it might require two to go in or you know ours don't you know there's a lot of two-man calls deping severity of the call of what's going on the the deputy might you know want further assistance but in a way um working with rescue um we might have different measurables as far as what we're going on but you could count as one of for them we could come in or vice

versa yeah okay thank you that was one of but I see people trickling out and I just want to say before other people trickle out that we sincerely appreciate all of you being here tonight so thank you uh for coming tonight appreciate your time quick question um the five to five shift 6 to6 whatever it may be at the end of the day is that Durham's decision to make or you know because I do understand if you you you post a job and one of your officers oh I'd love to go work for Durham and and his or her hours are getting flipped back and forth that that can cause problems too so at the end of the day who who holds the what we would do is find out what's your target time for Durham um and because we've done this before with new positions here's what we're going to start out 11: to 11 you know but that might change because we got to evaluate where the Necessities at you can't predict you know you would expect Friday night to be

busy sometimes it's Monday morning um but we would work with the town to give them what they want so they're like hey we wanted 88 but you know after the growth and some development we would want it to be standardized so it's not people the only we really have to set stone is I imagine they want more daytime coverage than nighttime coverage if you go for two two instead of four um because the nighttime Factor there there's a nighttime stien so it's not like we could say we want a week of days and a week of nights because our treasur office would get right right would you say you guys are having a hard time filling positions right now again we just had two resignations last week um

and we advertised internally because we have Visions so positions are always offered internally first us we post those for seven days and then after that period's over um we post it to the public we haven't had a problem to date every time something comes up we are SM enough to recognize that this could be our time but um we we typically we're not track attracting the high numbers we had in the past but we last time I think we advertised think we had five applicants and three that were already Academy certified one just graduated and one was just looking for a half life this y um yeah I mean that's one thing for us I think as a community it's important you know the last thing we want is to take this on and then have people you know begrudgingly being forced into overtime shifts taking the town of Durham I mean I think for us if this is something we do it's something that we want them to become a part of

the community and and be involved in the community I also think it would be important to not have you know a couple two people take the job that are just off training you know that have done their 400 or whatever hours and all of a sudden are the two uh deputies we have in Durham I think having at least one person with the experience uh would be good um but that I I I think we we would you know based on what we've seen and the people that have applied that are still interested I think you would find if we were to posted their jobs today which I know we're not even anywhere close but you you I could confidently say you get at least two experience because we got two that are wantan to come over from over hearing so right but times always change so yep and I think the the last thing this is something that the council can address obviously as we move forward at the end of the day you know everybody looks at money what's

this going to cost me I mean the the quick uh math that he did before it's different if your house is valued at $2 200,000 or a million dollars it's very different so I think at some point getting a rough idea when numbers and information's put out to say you know if your home's Valu at this this is what it will cost you at the end of the day you know to me Public Safety is my number one concern but everybody is obviously very uh conscientious of their wallets at this time so thank you I think that's easier said than done but it's something you can look into but yeah but 160 would be if all the houses were valued the same right right all right thanks guys thank you and so anybody

say we'll hear that too it's open no okay so then I'll address this to you but make this it's to everybody um you can find the select board email on the town website uh you can email the select board you can email Jerry um with questions uh they will if you ask uh

preferably nicely uh the questions can remain anonymous uh and we will answer them return email or we might you know send these guys both I mean that's possibility but I they already pass their bedtime I think so yeah um so you're lucky tonight um but or we might just take time at one of our future meetings to say here are some questions we got uh and and we think that they're important questions that need to be answered um so I encourage everybody to have questions because I know there's there's more I have I have some I having conversations with the people because I'm I'm torn going back and forth but if there's nothing else I would just ask for a

motion thank you second all in favor thank you a