Town of Auburn

Police Commission

August 3, 2010

PRESENT:    Ken Robinson, Hubert Topliff, John McCaugherty, Chief Picard, Lt. David Flight,  Jane Rego and Bill Herman, Town Administrator , Officer    Chip Chabot (briefly)

Mr. Robinson called the meeting to order at 4:09 p.m.

REVIEW OF BILLS

All bills and personal reviews presented were signed and approved.  

MINUTES of June 2010.  Mr. McCaugherty made a motion to accept the minutes.  Mr. Topliff seconded.  All in favor.

DEPARTMENT REPORTS

Chief’s Report

Chief Picard presented Officer Steven Donahue’s resignation letter to the Commissioners.  He urged the Commissioners to invite Officer Donahue in for an Exit Interview if he is interested.  The Commissioners  agreed and a letter will be going out.

Chief Picard thanked the Commissioners for attending the workshop in order to interview Gregory  Santuccio for the open part-time position.   As he is retiring from Derry Police Department  there is a time issue involved in order for him to retain his certification.  We are fortunate to have such an experienced officer on board.

There has been a definite increase in burglary activity – seven in one month.  We will be increasing patrols and we are determined to put a stop to this, although this is just a fraction of the burglaries that are happening in surrounding towns.

Officer Santuccio,  our newest part-timer, will be getting right out there on residential patrols.  He has a wealth of experience from his years in Derry and will be aggressively investigating these burglaries.

Chief Picard is pleased with the figures remaining on the 2010 budget.

Lieutenant’s Report

Our first Sobriety Checkpoint of the season was held on Friday, July 16^th.  This checkpoint was held on the Londonderry Turnpike at a four-way intersection.  We have held checkpoints here in the past and have gotten, on average, about 350 cars.  This time, we were down by about 60%.  There are many “theories” on why this is.  One theory is that people travelling through the checkpoint are informing others to avoid the area via cell phone.  However, it could also just be a “sign of the times” with the poor economy and less people going out.

This checkpoint was done a bit differently this time as we now have the laptops.  We had one officer checking everyone on the laptop to see if there was a warrant on anyone stopped.  This was much more efficient.

Chief Picard mentioned that everyone feels that the “Roaming Patrols” are much more effective than the checkpoints.  We will be looking into applying with Highway Safety for more grant money to do these types of patrols.

Lt. Flight stated all laptops have been installed and all the guys, except two, have been trained.  Some minor bugs are still being worked out, we had some “log-in” issues, but anticipate these being cleared up very soon.

With the aid of the laptop, we recently were able to apprehend a wanted fugitive from Massachusetts that was wanted for five years for kidnapping.  Also, Officer Bike recently had two arrests utilizing the new laptop.

We still have approximately $4,000 left in the warrant article for the laptops.  Our final purchase will be a wireless transmitter installed in the sally port or thereabouts so that the cars can simply pull into the sally port  and update their files into our main database.

Chief Picard informed the Commission that there is a new product on the market whereas an officer can take a thumbprint of a person out on the road and run it immediately to see if a person stopped has an outstanding warrant.  Chief Picard is hopeful that we may perhaps be able to get this new technology at little or no cost when it becomes available.

Old Business

Officer Chabot gave a brief description of the quote he had gotten from CenCom for new repeaters to be included in the 2011 budget.

The need for good communication out on the road was discussed and various options, i.e. tower vs. repeater,  were weighed.  Further research to follow.

Motion to adjourn meeting by Mr. Topliff at 4:30 p.m.  Approved – Mr. McCaugherty,   All in favor

Next meeting, September 7, 2010, 4:00 p.m. @ the Auburn Safety Complex.