City of Portsmouth, New Hampshire Police Commission, 17 May 2022

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From YouTube: 5.17.2022 Police Commission

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5.17.2022 Police Commission

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uh Commissioner shaheen who's chair.

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Of the commission will appear miraculously uh on the screen.

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You all hear me: okay, yes, great.

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Good evening everybody are, we all set to begin.

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We are great so, let's begin by calling the meeting to order and stand for the pledge of allegiance.

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I pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the.

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Republic from which it stands, one nation, under god, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

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So before we get into the.

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Meeting, I would love to ask for a suspension of the rules, so we can move up.

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The promotions process, I move to suspend the rules and and move up the promotion process to.

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The beginning of the agenda, second honorable call vote, commissioner sure aye, commissioner coyle. Yes,.

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And I vote yes also so acting chief maloney, it's all you take it away.

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Good evening, everyone and thanks for coming.

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Jackie takes very good care of me, as I figure out how to do things in the last month.

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During the police commission meeting, she said the microphone make sure you're talking on the microphone. I said I got a microphone, so I walked from there to here.

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And I talked into the microphone, which was the wrong microphone that I found out afterwards, so.

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We're already off to a better start now that I've got uh that figured out so.

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That said, can I have uh sergeants mccarthy, young and weber up here? If you would please.

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You got one coming.

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Okay, gentlemen, after a competitive selection process held on april 21st, 2022 detective kevin.

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Mccarthy, detective matthew, young and patrol officer max weber were promoted to the rank.

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Of sergeant, it is my pleasure to vest them with the supervisory authority of sergeant and first.

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A little bit of biographies on on each sergeant, kevin mccarthy began his law enforcement career.

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With the portsmouth police department in 2009 for his first 10 years, he serves as a patrol officer.

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And later went on to become a detective sergeant, mccarthy holds several assignments within the.

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Department to include crime scene investigation, team, member digital forensic examiner.

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Use of force instructor and craze instructor kevin earned his bachelor of science degree in chemistry.

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From the university of rhode, island sergeant, matt young began his career in law enforcement with.

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The rochester police department, where he served three years before joining the portsmouth police.

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Department for nearly 10 years, matt worked as a patrol officer before being promoted to detective.

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In 2021 sergeant young is a current member of the u.s marshals, fugitive task force.

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A defensive tactics instructor and has previously served on the seacoast emergency response team and.

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High intensity, drug interdiction, team matt earned his bachelor of arts degree in economics from the.

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University of new hampshire in 2014 sergeant max weber, began his law enforcement career with the.

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Ports of police department, he has dedicated seven years to working as a patrol officer.

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Sergeant weber is a current member of the crime scene, team street crimes unit and motorcycle unit.

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And he is one of the department's drug recognition experts and a field training officer for the field.

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Training and evaluation program designed to train new officers max is a graduate of penn state.

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With a degree in civil engineering, if I could each have you raise your right hand, please.

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You don't have to repeat after me, by virtue of the authority vested in me.

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Through the commission by rsa 105 c, a in the portsmouth city charter, amendment e.

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Trusting in your experience, integrity and fidelity, I do hereby promote you to the.

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Position of a sergeant with the portsmouth police department, with all the power and.

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Authority and subject to all the duties and liabilities of this position. Congratulations.

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Sergeant young, if you have somebody that would like to pin your badge, we could certainly do that.

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All right who's doing it. Yes,.

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Sergeant mccarthy, do you have somebody? uh Yes,.

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Sergeant webber same they're over there.

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It doesn't stop.

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Congratulations.

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Can I have officer ian esther theo come up. Please.

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This is a swearing-in ceremony for one of our newest officers.

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Officer ian f theo is a lateral transfer from the charleston south carolina.

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Where he served two years as a police officer with the charleston police department, ian grew up in.

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Southern maine and is a high school graduate of burwick academy. Ian earned his bachelor's.

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Degree in wildlife and fisheries biology from the university of vermont, he has relocated to the area.

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With his wife and daughter, even if you can please raise your right hand and you'll repeat after me,.

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That I will faithfully and impartially I will faithfully and impartially.

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Discharge and perform all duties incumbent on me discharge and perform all duties incumbent upon me.

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As a police officer constable and night watchman of said, city of portsmouth police.

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Officer constable and night watchmen of the enforcement, according to the best of my ability.

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According to the best of my ability agreeable to the rules and regulations of the constitution,.

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Agreeable to the rules and regulations of the constitution and laws of the state of.

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New hampshire and laws of the state of new hampshire so help me god, oh my god,.

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Very good, by virtue of the authority vested in me, through the police commission in rsa105c.

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Trusting in your integrity and fidelity do hereby constitute and appoint you as a police officer.

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Constable and night watchman of said city of portsmouth, with all the power and authority and.

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Subject to all the duties and liabilities provided by law, congratulations! Thank you.

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Thank you all so much sorry that I couldn't be with you today. I our family, unfortunately, is.

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Dealing with covet so we're sparing sparing any risk of transmission from me, but I wish.

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I could be there to commemorate and celebrate these promotions and uh our newly sworn officer.

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The talent is a true testament to this department and our ability to recruit and bring some of.

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The best and brightest in and up through the ranks, so we feel especially lucky, given all the.

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Turnover that we've seen in the last 18 months to have the talent of the.

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Sergeants that were just sworn in tonight, so thank you all. I appreciate you being here.

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So we'll go back to the regular agenda and I'll ask for an approval of minutes from our.

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April meeting, uh I moved that we approved the uh minutes from our april meeting second, and I will.

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Call vote commissioner sure aye, commissioner coyle yes, and I vote yes also and now we can.

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Open it up to public comment. Is there anyone in the room who would like to make public comment.

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Hello, my name is stephanie hausman. I just have a couple of questions. I was a part of the. I forget.

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What joe and oscar called us, the resident group representatives who worked with commissioner.

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Inosco and chief newport on a series of proposals that the police commission adopted last fall and.

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I just am wondering if there is an update, um if there is a sense of sort of timing of when.

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These might be enacted, um and then I just have a question. We haven't seen chief newport for a.

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While and I didn't know where he was or if there was any news to report on that front, thank you.

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I'll just address the few questions. um Thank you for being here tonight. First, chief newport is.

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Participating in fbi academy, training at quantico and should be back within the month. uh It's a.

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Specified window of time that he has to be there to complete the training, it was training that was.

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Postponed several times as a result of covid and actually was training that he was planning to do.

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Before he was appointed interim chief and then made permanent chief, so we thought it.

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Was important to honor the commitment to have him complete that training and it's certainly a.

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Benefit to the department to have him had that experience and that additional training so he'll.

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Be back, he did participate remotely in the budget work session with the city council last week.

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And has been in regular touch with acting chief maloney and with the commission in terms of the.

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Updates on the community advisory group, we we have been doing monthly report outs on the progress.

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Being made, and commissioner coyle has also been developing a tracking document to demonstrate.

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Progress, obviously, some some things are contingent upon others and some things are more time.

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Intensive than others, but we do have a tracking document that we are planning to have live on the.

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Website and keep current and we'll go through some of those updates in our meeting later this evening,.

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So with that, is there anyone else who would like to make public comment.

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Okay, I think, unless you see people there, that I can't see from this angle, I will.

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Close the public comment period and we'll move on to our other police commission agenda items.

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We've already covered the first one, which was the promotions.

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But before we go into a facilities update, I do want to acknowledge and thank detective.

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Rachelle jones, who many in the community has have seen and heard about her terrific and heroic.

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Police work, given the incident on the bridge a couple weeks ago, the city council acknowledged.

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Her work last night at the meeting of the city council last night and we as a commission and.

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Department intend to honor her uh at a future meeting, so stay tuned for more uh more about that.

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In the months weeks ahead, but we did just want to acknowledge and uh thank the council for their.

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Recognition and again celebrate detective jones for her outstanding work and the team that helped.

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To make it happen, but you'll hear more about that in the coming in the coming weeks. So with that.

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uh Love to hear a facilities update and acting chief maloney, do you mind starting us off there.

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Yeah, so the main work being done right now is in the detective division.

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As some I know, our detective division has been moved into the training room and.

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Last week they started painting they've almost completed the painting.

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Next comes the flooring, then the installation or reinstallation of the cubicles.

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But we're looking at a completion time for them to move in probably mid to late june. Karen.

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Yeah, the cubicles are being done the week of june 13th june 3rd and then the next phase of the.

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The building restoration would uh would initiate once the detective division.

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Is habitable again by uh by detectives, I believe that moving on to the basement level,.

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Great and um I think some folks in the community may have seen on sunday, there was a front page.

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Story in the herald about the current state of the facility- I know several members of the city.

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Council have taken the time to tour the facility as it stands today. Certainly that invitation.

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Is open to others who are interested and that really speaks to the restoration, karen and or.

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uh Chief molly, could you share in terms of next steps on the public safety facility planning? I'm.

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It's my understanding that, once the budget goes into effect, with the funding allocated for the.

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Additional planning that needs to be done. We can start the process of identifying who we will work.

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With to do that, planning yeah, that's correct we're working closely, obviously with the city.

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And dpw, uh once the budget does get passed to um complete the next steps, which would include.

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um A brief revisit of the space needs study uh confirming the previously reached conclusion that.

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Building a new building is preferable over restoring this building and then additionally,.

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Beyond that is identifying external partners and drilling down on locations and then even moving.

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So far as to possibly a preliminary design, if it's ultimately decided that a new building.

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Is is what's needed if there's anything else karen on that, no, I was going to say once we move to that.

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Part, we'll probably send out an rfp um to get um solicitations from different vendors. Okay,.

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Commissioner, sure or coyle do either of you have anything to ask or weigh in on.

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Relative to the facilities- I don't, nor do I okay, so why don't we move on to community.

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Priorities and I'll start I'll kick it off with you, commissioner. Coyle. Certainly so.

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We have to develop a tracking tool taking the initial recommendation extrapolating from the.

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Final document from the rgr recommendations, um it's an itemized list which is uh identifies.

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Each accident item the current status and then the timeline, and um we anticipate that after.

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Tonight's meeting sometime in the next week or two it will be posted to the website. So everybody.

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You know the public can access it. um It's color coded so that you can see what items are completed.

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What items are ongoing and then there are a number of items that are largely um dependent.

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Upon the cad system, so um those are going to obviously you know we are in progress to.

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Get that cad system in place, but um you know we're still. I think at this point reviewing the.

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The rfps, so um when you know, obviously those items are going to be.

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Will happen some at some period like a you know, there's an identified time after the cad system is.

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In place uh so that's sort of a general um update specifically just because I think we're I think.

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We just have some updates on specific items and I'm going to speak to the survey, mess methods and.

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Having surveys we, there was a meeting between lieutenant kieveny and unh survey center and.

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Commencing in the fall there's going to be a generalized survey of the city, but also.

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A specific target for marginalized communities within the city.

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And just their survey methods are going to be pretty expansive, including door, knocking.

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You know online access phone access. There will be surveys at the pd so with an effort to make.

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The access to surveys as easy as possible, so we can get the best data.

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Great, thank you, commissioner, sure want to jump in on your updates. uh Yes,.

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I've had conversations with the uh attorney for primex the loosely the insurer for the the city.

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And with the city's attorney, and it looks like we're, headed towards an agreement which will.

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Vest authority in the police commission to decide incident by incident uh whether uh the degree of.

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Transparency on the any settlements that were made um that hopefully we will have a draft of.

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That available for the next uh the commission's meeting in june. uh That's what I anticipate.

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Great uh any other updates before I weigh in here on the community priorities. um I I just.

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I just thought um in terms of the mobile crisis unit, uh the current belief is that it will be.

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uh Much uh it will be the 988 number, which is uh a dedicated line for people. People uh observe.

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Observations of people in mental health crisis and similar to a 9-1-1 line. It's anticipated.

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That'll be up and running on july 1st, which will be a substantial improvement of where we are now.

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uh The the mobile crisis units are out there, but there's still staffing issues uh and there's still.

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It's a statewide operation, so that's, that's all still be. The kinks are still being worked out, but.

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I anticipate by july 1st we'll be well on the way to having that fully operational.

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Thank you and again this. This came up at the council meeting relative to the.

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Budget, so it's worth reinforcing that uh the mobile crisis response.

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Is came out of the state's effort to provide further reinforcement in the area of mental health.

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And these are being managed by the regional mental health centers. So uh in our case, ceco's mental.

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Health and it's funded not through the city but through the state and and ultimately we're working.

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Very closely with uh ceco's mental health to roll this out and as you've probably heard in the past,.

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uh Acting chief maloney talk about the fact that it is already working it started in january, but.

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Obviously, there's still staffing needs and it was sort of the first six months was a phased.

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Rollout as they as they were getting staffed up and hopefully we'll have more capacity starting.

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In july, the other thing I wanted to just report out is: we were able to work with lisa wilford on.

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Formatting of the recommendations brought forward by citizens host george floyd murder and part of.

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That was really what triggered and prompted all of this work with community priorities and one of the.

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Things we've been working to do is format that list of recommendations in the form of a report.

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That can be shared with the attorney general's office, uh and that is actively underway now.

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um We're grateful to lisa for her efforts to put that in a format we can work now to to further.

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uh Enhance with graphics and and print it up, so we can share it accordingly. So.

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We'll that will also live on the website as soon as it's final finalized and ready to be shared.

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All right anything else on that topic before we move on.

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All right, moving on to budget work session and planning we'll let karen follow up on more.

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Detail but I just want to commend acting chief maloney for jumping in last week and presenting.

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To a work session of the city council on the department's budget and our total budget request.

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uh I know, commissioner sure- and I were able to be there to to listen in- we didn't have to add any.

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uh Anything because he was able to cover all the bases with karen's help, and I think it.

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Was a very thorough and complete uh review of what our request is? Obviously, people can see.

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That full request uh through the city's website and and all the there's lots of detail there.

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But I did just want to give an update on where things stand now and uh we'll. Let karen.

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Fill in some of the more specifics when we're under the chief's agenda item.

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Any anything else on this topic before we move on.

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Okay; okay, turning it over to you, chief maloney,.

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Okay, uh first off we have a donation in the amount of five thousand dollars from alex.

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Choquette- and this is earmarked for portsmouth police departments- honor guard to attain uh to.

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Attend specific training as it relates to uh department, honor guards. um I move uh to accept.

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The donation, the amount of five thousand dollars from alex choquette for the honor guard and for.

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And to forward to the city council that uh that donation uh for their action? Second honorable call.

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Vote, commissioner sure aye commissioner coyle yes- and I vote yes also with a sincere thanks to alex.

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He's terrific member of the community and nice to see he's stepping forward to help the honor guard.

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Next, we have traffic stats. For the month of april, we had 1 000 traffic stops 90 in custody, arrests.

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And we categorize arrests in two different ways: you can you can arrest somebody by virtue of the.

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Fact of a summons, which is a summons that you you hand to them and you release them on scene. You.

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Don't take them into physical custody and then we have in custody arrest, which involves taking.

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Somebody into custody, so we had 90 in custody. Arrests in in april we had 72 summonses you'll.

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Have to excuse me, I gave the initial number up top of a thousand motor vehicle stops for the month of.

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April was 737 not uh not one thousand uh in total motor vehicle crashes, uh reportable motor vehicle.

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Crashes in the city in april was 41 and uh just for those who wonder, what's the difference between.

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A reportable and a non-reportable uh reportable would be damage to both vehicles um or property.

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In excess of a thousand dollars, so um we had 41 total reportable crashes in the month of april.

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Karen I'll turn it over to you for a financial report: okay in fy 22, we are now 4 below the cap.

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Which is very good, we're still watching overtime, but the difference between the overage and.

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Overtime and the undridge in sal benz is still good right now, the big push is on recruiting.

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We got an update today. I don't know if the chief can talk further about that, but we've got.

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Several officers in the pipeline, but um in dispatch we're still having a problem recruiting.

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So they're going to be getting uh different materials, different options to try and recruit.

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On both those ends, there will be costs associated with those and we're going to use some of the.

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Funds this year they aren't budgeted, but we're going to use some of those funds toward that end.

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And in fy 23 the budget work session was last tuesday. We are working on.

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Some supplemental materials and um expanding on our answers to some of the questions.

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um That the city council asked just so that um we can maybe pursue more of our data and whatnot on.

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Supporting the officer two officers and the crime analyst positions, the strategic plan, we're still.

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Working on it just a little bit, it's my fault. I have to get it to the chief in virginia he's.

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Going to be writing his uh intro letter to that, and then we will get that out in terms of grants.

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We've submitted the new hampshire highway safety that you approved and in terms of the icac arpa.

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That is still moving through the channels in concord. We're not sure when we're going.

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To get approval on that, if we're going to get approval on that, but it's looking good.

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As lieutenant kinsmen said, the workload has expanded exponentially because of covet, and it's.

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Not slowing down so he can justify uh the funds. I think he asked for about 700 000 on that we.

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Had 200 000 on a previous arpa approved, so we're hoping that that gets through and then we're just.

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Working on the bulletproof vest grant right now, that'll be before you soon and I think that's it.

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Thank you karen any questions from commissioner sure coyle on the financials. None from me.

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Nor for me, okay, before we close out this portion of the agenda, I just wanted to read into the record.

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A letter from pat bagley about the incident that transpired on the bridge a week a week or.

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So ago, for the record, please accept this token of appreciation to officer jones for a job superbly.

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Done saving a life many years ago I was trained as a volunteer to provide listening resources.

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And crisis suicide intervention for a mental health service in new jersey, most calls were.

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We received were benign informational type. What we all dreaded were the true crisis.

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Suicide calls I received quote only one it resolved well, but it has stayed with me. I.

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Remember trying to use what listening skills we had been taught, but somehow almost couldn't.

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Breathe living within walking distance of a river spanned by three bridges provides.

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A lesson all too often of how precious life is. Our daughter had texted to ask why the bridge.

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Was closed not knowing I replied, it could be a jumper. Sadly, that is our chilling reality.

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Thank you rochelle for another job. Well done, you are tremendous! You have tremendous heart.

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And courage we are lucky to have you as one of portsmouth's finest gratefully pat bagley.

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So any other topics or miscellaneous business we'd like to cover before during the meeting, none nor.

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For me, okay, can we get a motion to adjourn? I move to adjourn. Second, I will call vote commissioner.

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Sure aye, commissioner koya yes and I wrote yes to a journalist, so thank you all. Thank you.

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