##VIDEO ID:zHzN6_UI7ow## all right we're up on YouTube okay and the chief left us here I'm here all right so Chief you know everybody right yes yes I do all right and we know you believe it or not um okay I don't see I don't see anyone from the public here so we'll move right into uh police activity so uh Chief I sent out I'm going to put up here regenda and go down here um you know I did a little different take on these statistics um I don't know if you want to say anything about the robberies in general you know we're down yeah uh so definitely the robberies have been trading down for three years um again I said before um we have the we put an officer at the Wawa overnight and that seemed to uh calm things down we're getting a lot of robberies in that area Jobe Street Chancellor spring um since we had the officer there um you see it's decreased also the uh detective Bureau made um some key arrest um in the last year year or so so um that's that that has uh stops stopped a lot of the robberies but it seems like the um if we go to the next page with the burglaries that has picked up yeah can we just stay on this from uh so Chief just because we know Malia and Deb are new um Dean I see is here too Dean's old but Malia and uh and Deb are new so could you talk a little bit about what a robbery is as opposed to a burglary right so uh a robbery is um physical contact with somebody then you you take something from them so a regular theft is like you know you leave your cell phone on the on the uh on the counter somebody takes it that's a theft but if you're holding the cell phone and somebody pushes you and takes the cell phone that's a robbery or if they intimidate you and say um I'm gonna you know beat you up if you don't give me my cell phone if you don't give me the cell phone that's a robbery also also pointing a gun at somebody um and taking something from them that's a robbery um the a regular theft which we um have an increase in thefts is just that it's not um any physical contact it's just um you know somebody left something somewhere and somebody took it that's a theft um a burglary is usually you're breaking into a structure so you're breaking into a business you're breaking into a home you're breaking into a a car um so that becomes a burglary um so we've been having increases in burglaries um and throughout the state they've been having increases as well um because they're like almost home invasion style burglaries burglaries used to be during daytime when people were at work before covid so you know everybody went to work before covid nobody's home they ring the doorbell make sure nobody's there then go in and take stuff now they're doing it in the middle of the night when people are asleep they wait till uh a family goes to sleep they'll break in and they're going actually to take high-end Vehicles so they'll break in get the keys and then take the car um the good thing about these style burglaries though is uh nobody has been hurt um they don't want the confrontation if somebody comes downstairs they usually run off or there's a dog or a motion light or they see there's a camera or something they usually take off but the problem is they come back and they'll try again um so during the summer we put out um several burglary details of our officers and also um unmarked vehicles and plain cloth uh detectives and um it seemed if you see that chart it seemed to drop down um at that time and then uh we also made a few arrests um residents will say how come you can't chase the car we did have a couple of cars we could have chased and we Chase for a short period of time but we stopped the chase because the uh risk award um you know isn't that great you know people um usually in these type of chases somebody ends up in somebody else's house with a crash or or something like that so um we we take that in consideration where where the chase is taking place the time of day the weather conditions and usually we would break it off we would give the information to another agency that we had um you know a BMW plate XYZ is is coming into your town other jurisdiction will pick up on it um and also we have been working with other jurisdictions with Intel to find out who um it's usually juveniles um of who's doing this the um but now can ask you something here because the only consistency in year to year is sort of this may number then everything else is a little different is there something about the spring that kicks off burglaries it's not the burglary one that's in May though if you go back to for a few slides I not that's what I noticed that there's more stuff happening in May I was curious about that too even the robberies aggravated the aggravated assaults yeah the um well the thing about the aggravated assaults um that's it's probably like um 80 80 85% domestic violence situations so it's not there not really a way we can um you know we did hire uh more uh volunteers than me with uh domestic violence um victims but usually it already happened by the time we get there it's like no way for us to prevent it because it happens inside the house um as far as the burglaries I and uh the um I'm not sure why that's May why that's happening in May but um I'll do a deeper dive into that okay and know and knowing that we'll um increase our Patrol to certain areas and then and then you mentioned you know you you did hear in the summer putting some details out then again it slipped up again is there something do you think why this happened again yeah um well well at some point we we had to stop the detail um um part of it was because our uh officers were pretty much getting exhausted they're up all night and then they're working the next shift so um we kind of like pushed back on it a little bit and then um U but as you see in November is is dipping down again right so um but we we we you know we use other things besides just officers we also use um you know vehicles in area we we place them and um a lot of stuff happened um not just patrols but detectives contacting other agencies and and going on social media um a lot of these kids post this stuff on social media and we're able to identify them through that so a lot of stuff doesn't even have to be us on the street a lot of us is uh following up on uh Intel and then going back to the aggravated assaults I mean it isn't there not we did have a reduction which is good uh in addition to the uh domestic violence what other kind of aggravated assault would these be um well I ass salt is is um is is not a robbery so they um threaten somebody or they um did something and didn't steal anything so um it could be um you know they pointed a weapon at somebody and the person got away or something um that's aggravated assault because they didn't take they didn't take the item okay and then we're going to move down to thefts yeah um you know we had a huge increase with almost 30% yeah so um a lot of these are um people are not locking their vehicles so um uh these um people come down the street they pull on door handles and it's unlocked they'll take the laptop or things that are left inside the vehicle um also we we have uh shoplifting on Springfield Avenue at the dollar store and the uh um not not so much 7eleven but um we actually had a robbery at 7-Eleven with a juvenile um but um the uh it's usually a theft of um and the stores um they they have a requirement where they wait till the person leaves to call us um they don't confront the person stealing it because they don't want their employees to get hurt so if they see the person taking it they'll let them walk out and then um and then they call us I remember one time I was in Walgreens and um I guess somebody was stilling some I was in there I didn't see it and then they called us when the guy left and I was you know I didn't know I was a police officer but you know I was like you know you called this I what you know but that's their that's their policy so um and we make we make a lot of arrest you know um person's walking down the street with the items on them and we make the arrest but um we had to keep it as a theft also package thefts um porch Pirates uh taking packages you know of course during the holiday season when people are getting stuff delivered um you know with Amazon and everything else um but but people a lot of people have cameras U and we check the cameras and we try to make an identification and make an arrest from that again it looks like you know you get we get this this particularly this year we got this big bump in the just right after the winter into the beginning of the spring and then again when school started do we is this kids like at Walgreens stealing stuff and stuff like that um not so much but also we carry we carry theft from high school so um yeah there's um cell phones taken from a locker or um different things in the high school we carry that theft as well okay and inid as far as shotting you mentioned that people are leaving their door their cars unlocked I feel like we did a good job communicating out for people to lock their cars for a little while was there like a down tick in that and now it's an uptick again like do we need to put that messaging out again or yeah we put we we have to put it out again because it is I was looking at the stats before this and there is a lot of um car ragings vehicle rumag but are they are cheap are they related to did they go down when the communication was out and then go up when we stopped telling people to lock their cars or did it have no relation I don't think it had a relation we we we we haven't had a lot of um you know what went down as you see auto theft went down a little bit and has been going down uh every year um people for the most part are not keeping their cars running like they used to um I think because the weather has been mild up to this point now it's cold of course but um the uh keeping the vehicles running and um you know somebody jump in the car and take it that seems to uh going down a little bit and most of these most of these car fests are that they're taking you know the car is running you know we haven't had um car jack where somebody's in the car they pull the guy person out again a lot of our car thefts burgar thefts are non-confrontational so it's usually the car running or there's no confrontation with the homeowner when they're doing a burgling and taking the car well we've had an overall reduction in 9% which is good um so Chief if someone breaks into the house it gets listed as burglary and if they steal the car it gets listed as an auto theft also uh no they they uh they just call it a burglary because it's it's it's like if you break into the house and you take the jewelry okay it's the same thing it's property you go take it um is there anything else you want to tell us about any of these and and also uh my colleagues any questions you have about do you find this helpful to look at this for Trends sure Patrick yes very helpful uh if you go all way to the top yeah um if you see that um those are the big ones these are the good these are these are the three big ones right right right and we're usually at zero so um so that's good and uh the robbery being the next big one and that's going down so yeah the robberies you know I always remember my years on the public safety we always kind of zeroed in on this because this is a personto person crime and you never know what could happen you're generally out on the street it could escalate quickly and somebody could get hurt right so it's good to see these are going down right I am bothered by the increase in the burglaries um what kind of messaging do we ha do we have to share with residents on that because I mean I know one of the families that was impacted personally and it's just you know it's it's terrifying to think that you'd be upstairs asleep with your family and your kids and I see a 28% increase here and I recall I think at one at a previous meeting like somebody asked like well should should we be taking our car keys upstairs and you said no because you don't want the interaction between the homeowner so so what what do people do so I mean we we we have our details out there um again I will keep the I would keep the keys there get get a camera um we have done um home free home surveys department or community service unit has been out to uh oh yes the free home surveys my NE are all talking about it great yeah so we um we go out there we do it for free and um so um give them a lot of good tips on that Chief could we get um a list I'm sure you have a list I know I've seen it of the makes and models of the cars that are most targeted because that's what's happening right there somebody has an electric BMW it's parked in their Drive way they break in so it becomes a bur burglary to get access to that car and take the car right right so there's there's there's a list of cars that are targeted so people with those types of cars should be more Vigilant about whether if they can put them in a garage or you know keep them otherwise out of sight um what are you what are your thoughts yeah definitely we had to list out before we can U do put the list out again and yeah Patrick can have yeah Patrick can get that out through Pio yeah and also with that we can put our um information for the free home serving yeah can hurt um anybody else have anything else on the so the aut theft home invasion I think we've talked enough about that um if we can do some of these the I I've always heard good things about the uh you know the crime I mean the anti-crime inspections and stuff and chief this also includes uh the burglaries are also the commercial break-ins right right so um so we we actually uh went down in the um residential burglaries but we did uh last month we did get three um commercial burglaries but our detective Bureau um has identified the person so uh they're just working on um more information just to get the charges to this person okay can we um can you let us know next month like how many people ask for a a free home survey just so we can see if that if that's get the message is getting out okay no problem anything else on the crime report okay see we have Teddy from the community board on please Teddy we're going to move you over in a little bit and ask you if you want to say anything from the board on Polie um if it's okay we'll move to traffic enforcement these are cool charts too all right oh here's I'm sorry I didn't get down to this one so overall we're just this remember this goes to November where we got a 177% increase yeah so Chief we're hoping these numbers in December just go right down just shoot right down yeah um I think December the uh buies wasn't as much bus as it was last year for that month and um so I got to see what the theft is that seems to be uh putting us up okay all right here we go with the moving violations radar summons warn and I added the warning notice because we did talk about that so um Chief uh you know moving violations we've been looking at this so through the you know first 11 months we got 1900 moving violations um So based on your experience is is you think we're on the right track is this a good number uh we we had definitely have a lot more Improvement um we did go up from last year and and um the actually the um radar or the speeding tickets went up um 2023 uh there was 29 uh and 2024 75 so the uh Radars have gone up slowly but um I do expect more um with The Radars but um there's there's a point um believe it's April and May um where they go down because the uh Radars are being um serviced so um CER certified and everything else but um yeah definitely we've been doing the multi officer details um and uh uh attempting to um make these traffic violations uh Chief could you remind us on the hours of the shift the shift one what are the hours that shift one works yeah shift 1 is 11:00 PM to 900 a.m. okay and then shift shift two is uh 7 AM to 5:00 pm and shift 3 is 2: PM to uh 12: a.m. okay so would you expect the overnight to have less tickets in general just because less people are out driving definitely it's a a lot less traffic um on midnights um 2 to 12 is uh people coming home or communing back home um a lot of people are out and about using the restaurants and everything else so there's definitely a lot more um more incidents and that happen and more uh traffic that if you just drive down Springfield happen at uh five six o'clock right and and why you know when you look at this you know shift uh one it's sort of steady there was a big jump in March and then it goes back down but it's been pretty steady um shift two is almost consistently in the 30s 40s it was interesting in shift 3 that it jumped way up to this 145 in April and then just has continued to go down now we're about half of what we were in April yeah what do you what's the reason for that uh some of that is uh Personnel so um you you might um you know certain officers uh are more uh write more more summonses or stops than some well are we are we working to get all the officers to meet the officer that's doing a lot or we trying to get the one who's doing a lot to do less of course of course trying to get him to do a lot more so we're trying to get them up to that to that threshold but um and and go ahead sorry so yeah so so what we have been doing is um we have had a a supervisor uh supervise the uh the details um what we're going to do uh moving forward because of the schedule change and everything else um we're going to do more of uh I say k55 k55 is radar details so we make sure we're doing a lot more of those um for speeding um uh so you know we we and and also with uh the new schedule we should be able to to do more enforcement around the schools when school is uh when um uh school's in session or people come to school uh any colleagues any comment on the moving violations it's nice to see an increase Chief thank you um and keep it up uh I know that the community board on police is interested in looking at this data uh especially if we can also show um where in town these moving violations are um are occurring like what is the geographic demographic looking like we'll talk about that in that committee okay here's the radar again uh shift three it's pretty consistent shift two is and shift one are pretty much they don't do a lot of this but then again there was this huge bump in October of shift 3 were there more radar details then yeah we started doing a uh more of a radar detail during that time period so we'll get back to that okay and then I mean there were significant amount of warning notices and I don't think you know I don't think any of us want automatic tickets written but could you talk a little bit about the discretion of issuing a warning notice as opposed to a ticket yeah so um officers have a discretion on a traffic stop so they could um issue the summons they could issue a warning or they could issue nothing if they if they choose um just get a verbal warning um so with with the warnings um is that if you if you get a warning the next time you do it it pulls up that you have received that warning so it's not like it goes away um officers are able to see if uh this person was issued a warning for a certain violation so officers use this um sometimes uh instead of writing the summons and they have the discretion is there um I don't know how to say this but is there any disincentive to writing a ticket because it may require going to court or you know other things like that and so it's easier to do a warning notice no I don't I don't think that's it um usually people uh when they receive a summons they just pay the ticket I mean every once in a while person will come to court but um you know and it's usually uh you know if the person usually when the person is working their shift when they uh schedule court so I don't think that's much of an issue I don't think that's it I think it used to be an issue once upon a time not necessarily here but just in my experience uh in other towns but maybe the virtual court has made a difference that you know they might be less it wouldn't be as much of an imposition for them if they have to go into court if somebody contest a ticket the officer I mean okay anything else anybody have any comments or questions about this okay um we're going to move to some of the uh uh Prospect in Oakland Deb you wanted feedback on the crossing guard yeah I was just curious like how it's going because I Know Chief um you weren't sure that was the right spot and I was just curious if there's any feedback of how it's going or if there's a lot of people kids or what is happening with uh no it's it's going good the um got a good crossing guard there he's strong there so um and I haven't heard any complaints since he's been there so um from uh I I haven't heard any complaints about Crossing yards in in a a while so seems to be um everything seems to be working we do need to hire three more crossing guards um we had one uh resign so we had to put somebody there and then we usually get two floaters to fill in if somebody's out so we just need to um we're in the process we uh I believe we found one so uh to fill one of the slots so we're going through the process with that but uh there's always a constant um hiring of guards um sometimes but so ch um this morning we talked at the engineering and Public Works meeting about um moving forward with replacing the cones with the ballards the quick curb ballards that we have on Bernett and tusin Street Tuscan road yeah so uh because we're not going to get to Paving and and redesigning um Prospect until 2026 and we want to do more than just have the cones there so um Mr ker is going to be working on getting some pricing and and planning and we we talked about putting those ballards up at um Oakland and Prospect and probably Oakview in Prospect okay yeah I think um even though the cones are temporary I think it it does have an effect uh on that street so I think the Ballers will be good yeah it certainly cuts the road I mean it makes people stop right uh because you know it's it's pretty much a straight shoot from uh T well yeah tuskin to um to to Parker so by having this it kind of slows down that traffic in Midway yeah and people can't cut around that shoulder right you know and Deb you wanted to have a broader conversation about crossing guards yeah I think it's just like I I mean Pat and I have talked a lot about this and I think it's just a bigger conversation of figuring out like school placement has changed so the way kids and parents are getting their kids to school and the train have changed and there's a lot more cars on the street there's a lot more safety issues um there's a lot more people talking about in conversation and I just feel like we should just be working with the schools to get information about like how where the kids are coming from like to see if there's any patterns and I know Pat I think or maybe Uchi Sali have asked the schools for some of this geographical data and haven't gotten it um so but I feel like we need to be with the schools to figure out where kids are coming from where they're going to so we can just help this inform our decisions about crossing guards about um sa other safety issues we're going to do whether it's in engineering or whether it's here and so we can get a better sense of how people are traveling because how it used to be forever and ever and ever isn't the way it is anymore so I feel like these lists of oh we've always had these crossing guards here so this is our permanent list um until we're reactive because something happens or someone complains like I think I just want to be a little bit more proactive to figure out what where we should be putting our resources where there might be trouble areas um what we should be looking out for so I don't know where that stands with the schools and getting some of that information or if this has moved forward at all or what we're doing yeah we haven't received anything from the school but to be fair it's been a while since we followed up with them so I can follow up with them they were going to I think that they wanted to make sure what they gave us was uh generally Anonymous and I don't I know that they say they don't um have that data to the extent that we were looking for but they do have some that may be helpful to us I've seen charts posted on social media though like Graphics of like where kids are coming from to go to Marshall this so I don't know who created those but like I feel like some of it might exist or maybe if they have raw data we can just look I understand the privacy of knowing where kids are but we're also another round of placement so even if we can't get the information from like this past year like forward thinking it would be nice to be able to you know work with the schools to have that information in advance so that we can actually plan accordingly versus be reactive is there anything that the parent associations can do sort of like I'm just thinking like the bike people the bike to school people they like have plotted out where to pick people up they know where everything comes from I'm wondering if there's because the school always gets hung up on privacy issues um I'm wondering if there's some way we could work with the parent associations to get parents to tell us how they're bringing kids to school and ploted out that way yeah I can look into that because I mean they definitely do it for busing because I've seen people go into like extensive reports about like I don't understand why this bus route is like this or whatever um and I'm just like because I don't know that the schools are usually using geography as a way to help with placement because back you know originally they were talking about creating almost micro communities where the same street go to the same school but now I don't think it's even I don't think it works that way and I do know that there's some areas that traditionally used to go to psms and now go to MMS and I think there are um areas that used to go to MMS that now go to PS and I just feel like if we had some of this data to look you know where the middle schoolers are going even then it might help inform some of the decisions and I don't think we do like counts the crossing guards don't do counts or anything anything but like I'm curious like are all where all the crossing guards are are all those areas really busy with people crossing um if we know kids are going from one section to MMS or to a different school and we know where there's a crossing guard should we be putting out Communications before the start of the school year to tell people help them figure out their best routes to school based on what we have set up for safety um these kind of things but I feel like if know like maybe it's just this area not having the data doesn't help us be able to plan so I I I think that's interesting to go to the school the the ptas and I can certainly do that but isn't this a topic on Municipal partnership agenda it is but I feel like I've been talking about this for a year and a half and so I feel like we talk about crossing guards here so it needs to be talked about in more than one place and Pat previously told me he didn't want me to try to get that information so should I try to get that information through m i mean it's going to be on the C on the agenda for our next meeting in end of the month like what is there something I can should I be hands off should I be more proactive in asking them to get it like I'm not sure the best way to proceed without ruffling feathers we already had a conversation with them where they said that they would provide it to us and so um I think the best thing to do is to follow up on that conversation which I'm happy to do and I agree you know if we have data in advance we can make change or or you know prepare for day one so you know getting information over the summer for changes in um school placement for the fall would be helpful to us so that on the first day of school we're prepared I think fortunately you know the police department and is very good at adapting to where students are and we have a a lot of Crossings so you know when we get requests for new ones they're evaluated and and we place guards as appropriate so I you know we've seen it play out in experience that we have a lot of well-placed crossing guards um obviously there's always room for improvement but would you remind us how many total crossing guards we have well staffed guards is is 30 and then we have an additional um fixed posts for uh police officers so those are at the uh middle school high school husin uh I guess there's two at the middle school right middle school high school and Tuscan is that right Chief no there's one at the middle school still have one they change no uh no spring Bo we have we have a guard there yeah and u i can recirculate that list of U who's where but yeah so it's over 30 posts uh total that we day do we hear anecdotally from these crossing guards like are there like what it's like there like there's tons of kids it's more than it used to be less than I I don't know just do we have any do you ever hear crossing guards yeah so uh my captain meets with him uh I think it's like twice a year and he gets feedback um but yeah there's a lot of kids on um spring and boen that comes they have two guard we have two guards there and we have two guards on Spring and um brunette we have two guards there so that's a lot of kids coming through and then um I think and then at the high school we have a uh we have a officer up top on Academy in Parker and then down below we have a a Crossing y on Valley and uh Parker so those are like the big um and of course the middle school as well Tuscan and Valley is a big one because you got kids walking down to the middle school and you got kids walking up to to uh tus school can I just ask how just take a step back how were the um the placements that we currently have how are those arrived at that's been there since I was a patrol I know I know we're going really back but it's a list that they've just had from always and it never hasn't changed and then when people complain or something happens and we have to look to see I want to hear from yeah from Chief or from or maybe Mr DeLuca uh I think what the chief said I mean they they've been it's it's basically dot to dot to the schools yeah the most schools but we don't know the dot to dot to the schools anymore because the kids aren't going well I know we hear that but she just asked how they came about him in the first place it was dot to dot to school from the schools okay yeah we we actually oh go ahead please chief yeah also we have we have adjusted times though because uh sometimes the schools change times and so we adjusted the times of our guards to fit the school um because we'll sit there you know beginning of the year the people are complaining there's no guard there because we're going from the time last year once we realize that we adjusted immediately so um and so I think we have added guard as well over years and communication has gotten better though with the changes that the schools make right we had that bad year but last year I thought it went much smoother and you guys right right right yeah we had we had a meeting with him and um I asked him like five times are you changing the hours what's the like you know don't so um like yeah we that's those are the hours so we we adjusted it I wonder if there's any way to I mean do a survey of our residents I don't know because I'm I mean we can get the information of where each of the students like we should be able to get the information of where the students in Maplewood are going to school for the school from this from the school which is what Pat's working on but um I don't know in terms of getting like a grasp of the changes I don't know if we're going to be able to get that unless the school district gives us like the data from like now versus like before the in intentional integration plan like to see the change that that that um Deb's talking about I don't know if we're going to see that in the data unless we're we able to compare I don't want to see the change I just want to know where skid kids are coming from and what schools are going to and I don't even but if our guards are at the point to point to point to the schools and that's changed that's what I'm saying because if we have like a whole group on like um Richmond for Richmond for example now going to MMS and previously they went to Psalms then that's a change you know and so that's I think what we're trying to flesh out and I I don't know the best way to do that but what has not changed is and you if I think when you look at the at the map what has not changed is the high visib high traveled roads so you still have boen Avenue Springfield Avenue Valley uh Irvington Avenue uh Ridgewood Wyoming those are still consistent Prospect so those are still consistent and that that is what they're I think this is all predicated on how many cars and how many kids you have to get not only just kids but people across so that that is not going to change where people how people get to the school is going to change but they still have to cross those major thorough fares right but Prospect Street I mean now we have the one at Oakland but until those kids got hit Prospect Street did not have a crossing guard between Tuscan to South Orange right right and so that's the point that we were trying to make and so there might be next year maybe there's other areas and so I just feel like knowing how kid where kids are coming from and where they're going to it's really important to figure out how where we can help support them getting there safely right but they're likely to be Deb on still those kinds of Roads they're going to be either on boen or they're going to be on Parker you know there not going to be on Lexington Avenue course right I understand that yeah like I don't know what's all I mean I only know this side better because I live over here but like I don't know what's going on in Ridgewood either because that place those placements change too I know people on Ridgewood are always worried about cross Ridgewood as well they sidewalk on one side that's why right I just feel like you know more being proactive and having data and even if it's Not Looking Backward but just let's look forward let's talk about next school year P Patrick if you can get that information I think and then in that uh liaison meeting work that out and see if we have to you know do anything differently so he's not in leaz I'm not in leaz on meeting but I'll send an email to uh the school district I'm surprised because when we set it up years ago we did have the two administrators in those meetings but okay we have them Cal that the superintendent comes maybe Pat should come haven't been invited it up right well you're invited now Julie another meeting because when we set this up it was two members of each governing body two members of this of the board the ad and then the three administrators superintendent and the two administrators from the right but since we've been on it there haven't been so P maybe you could talk with the superintendent of the schools and with Julie and just kind of be informed on that because I'm sure you want another meeting but it's helpful for both administrators to be there for the communication of what we're talking AB absolutely I I thought you guys were there nope not Jo Manning hated them but we made him come to all of them um Chief while we're talking about Crossing can you give us an update on the uh the the the student who got hit over by the high school on Academy and and Parker I mean what you know we we what we read is that the driver got some tickets was was the student was the was the crossing guard already gone with yeah so um on on uh you're you're talking about um Prospect in Oakland no this was a student who got hit at Academy and and Parker yeah yeah I believe the the guard wasn't there okay and then the what what this what the school what the district is saying is I think Stanley was quoted saying that you know they're going to reach out to uh the police department and and talk to the kids about you know safe pedestrian travel have they done any of that oh they have not this I know is going to be on the agenda at Municipal partnership meeting okay it's been a conversation that we've been having and the health department also about just communicating safe traveling like with Olivia Shea and I met with the superintendent a couple of times with regard uh since the accident on uh Prospect um and talked about he's got high school students working on um uh education program and being proactive that way so we have communicated about it but it's been it's been the holidays and everything so it's been probably a month and a half since we've had an update so I'll reach out to him again to see what's up because they were moving on it and because we talked about getting information through the schools to the students about safe passage and their own their own safety being a part partner in their own safety when they're walking to school right so so we're trying to get the communication out from the schools we talked about having education programs in the classroom to the kids um so I'll follow up with the super and um see where where we're at that okay um Chief anything about the four-way stop sign on Parker from your Ang uh perspective we we heard from kitner today that it's working well we've we've heard from when it first went up we heard from residents there they were very happy yeah yeah um yeah they seem to be uh not rolling through and stopping um so it seems to be U working pretty good okay anything else on traffic enforcement pedestrian safety we're good all right let's talk about overtime um looks like we're using up a lot of overtime yeah yeah we used a lot for um yeah we used a lot for our burglary details where we were doing uh over the over the summer um and um also the detective Bureau doing f up on investigations for a lot of these boies and vehicle thefts um you know so some of these uh cases led us to like New York and um we went out to process the vehicles um staying overnight and um being being in these areas um also but the the bulk bulk of it if you look at it is um sick replacement or um vacation replacement um we were our schedule last year U was pretty thin on the weekends where we're uh constantly giving overtime to get to our minimum shift so um also so that was also um the issue also we um are some of our dis patch shifts are um are are what we call our quiet times we might have one dispatcher working on that shift and if they use their time that causes overtime as well so um so we we we have that as well we just we just hired a part-time uh dispatcher to fill some of these slots Patrick you got anything on that on the overtime I mean no I we've been tracking this for a while and I think the biggest impact was like the chief it indicated U car thefts in the ensuing investigations I know you know we had changed to 12-hour shifts to provide more uniform um coverage throughout the week and throughout the day that will also have a benefit of um hopefully reducing overtime especially as we go into the weekends where we may have been previously hitting minimums so um you know that may provide some relief this year okay anything else on anybody have anything on overtime if not we'll move to uh uh discussion Malia you um raised the idea of the temporary storage yes thanks I sent a um background email I don't know if anyone got if you guys get a chance to look at it um yesterday so um this I this idea came from a councilwoman in Cincinnati um they just set this program up there and looks like it just launched last month so it's very new um and the reason they did it in Ohio is that they don't have um the like the red flag laws the safe fire um they don't have those the like extreme risk protection order type things in Ohio and so this was the only way that they were able to offer this but when I was looking at the details it looks like it's something that would work really well here even though New Jersey is fortunate to be one of the 19 States Nationwide that does have extreme risk protective orders um I was curious to hear from the chief on how that um Works locally my understanding of it is that it does give law enforcement and family members the opportunity to um petition and go before um like before a court to have a firearm taken away in a situation where there might be a mental health um um um situation but um a voluntary program is one that would kind of go alongside that where um uh members of the community who have a firearm at home um if they have family coming in like say they're having all their grandkids stay um over the Christmas holidays and they want to get the guns out of the house or if they're going on an extended um holiday and they want to protect them from getting stolen um or um you know or there's a situation where they voluntarily want to just store it because you know they're just kind of feeling like maybe it's you know um they've got too many kids in and out of the house or you know for whatever reason um they've set up this program in Cincinnati and they've got like an application that you fill out um and essentially what people do is they make an appointment they go in with the application and the unloaded firearm and um this part I'm I I'm I I'm trying to get in touch with the co the councilwoman in Cincinnati to find out why this part is in there but they do sign over as part of the application permission for the police department to um do a like to fire the the firearm in a ballistic task so that they can run it through these different um um uh programs to see if it's you know been used in a um in a crime um and then pursue those um Avenues so um you know it's it's an interesting idea um I haven't looked in to see like other municipalities that have it so um I can take a look at that but I just wanted to bring this up um is something that you know I had heard that um that our gun registrations had been increasing had increased in Maplewood and um and I have heard just sort of anecdotally that um among like veterans or retired officers who are a you know who have guns they sort of do an unofficial like hey man my family's all coming can you hold you know store my gun for a while um I I just like this idea something that we can offer residents as a safe a safe option they can voluntarily and obviously these would be you know legal guns they have their registration they show their ownership um you know and then um you know they're able to be stored um so anyway just wanted to provide all that information and bring it up to see see what everyone thinks Chief have you heard anything like this before I I I have not um so I will need to um contact other agencies and the state police um usually you know with Firearms we um get our guidance from the state police a lot of our checks are through the state police when we when somebody registers for a firearm but um in Maplewood um I don't think we use the extreme uh risk protective order that often is usually a domestic violence situation where we can take it and um so um you know um I know a family member can uh petition for it also the police could petition for they feels if if it's if it's not domestic violence situation but uh we haven't ran into that before not saying that we would not um also I would have to see if we have the storage for um you know how we would go through the process of it but um I'm just curious to see if any other agency is doing it in Jersey uh we'll we'll find out and then follow up with them to see how they do it okay so we'll just uh keep this as a future discussion item is that good for you Malia yeah great yeah I'll look around and and let you know if I find out any um additional like um municipalities that are using it or get any more details from Cincinnati so we we do have people um that will buy a house and they'll find old guns in the attic and they'll turn them in and then we'll uh we we'll bring them in things like that or you know my grandfather had a old uh you know revolver I found it in a box so I want to turn it in so we we do do that and then eventually we um dispose of it at some point but we we we never like held it and then uh waited to give it back only like in a domestic violence situation right if we do get it back but I think in this case where I mean the red the red flag is one thing but you know you have uh you got your crazy uncle comes over for the h thanks you know for the Thanksgiving weekend you said you know what I think it'd be better I didn't have a gun in the house with him uh and this would be a place to you know to do that kind of thing right that's what you were thinking about right Malia yeah exactly exactly I mean I've heard um of um families who you know tell their in-laws that we're not coming over when you have those guns you know and this you know gives families an opportunity to well temporarily remove the guns you know they wish um they they set up the Cincinnati program it's set up for three months and then at the end of three months you are asked if you want to extend or if you would like to pick it up um and then they extend it for an additional three months and it's a maximum of six months and um you do have to make an appointment and then come in and pick it up um so that's how they that's how they set it up um and we are giving it I I believe that you already are giving out gunlock free gun locks yes yeah yeah I think it's a good idea we should explore it further I support especially you know there are households where there are people in crisis or experiencing things and there might be you know uh gun owners who may decide to take us up on this if we can make it work so I think it's a good we'll keep talking about it um so so uh tomorrow night right we have the promotional interviews yes see if we got the information today so everybody should have gotten their information today we're interviewing three officers three sergeants three sergeants for lieutenant yes and onee yeah one lieutenant and there'll be um a patrol lieutenant and one of our squads so now we the schedule has changed now we have four squads so we have a lieutenant for each Squad and we have um it's about uh two sergeants for each Squad as well so we have a a squad a b Squad the a squad is working four days the B Squad is off the a squad's off the B squad's working so they they just rotate different um their days off okay um yeah and uh are we are we creating a list or we just creating a single Choice tomorrow night a single Choice okay all right um the mayor uh wanted to bring up the Halloween curfew um she received an email from a resident near the 7-Eleven on Springfield AV uh it lives behind it I think and um anyway on Halloween there was some stuff happening on the street there and it ended up where his door was the window on his door front door of the house was smashed um so he's he's suggesting you know we think about a curfew and I Know Chief this Halloween we had a lot of stuff going on um so I think the mayor wanted to raise it to see what your thoughts are and if other towns do something like this and if you could advise us not necessarily tonight but in the future as to whether or not you think from a pleasing perspective it makes sense so um I I worked that night so I was out there um we had a regular patrols amount of patrols there and we had extra offic officers working that night so we did uh have extra officers there um and if you remember Halloween was warm out so we did have um a lot of people coming um so the and at one point we did call for Mutual a so we did have uh South Orange Police Department come and uh the sheriff's department came as well um so it was a lot of people out there um the night started off quiet um then eventually um we had uh just um a lot of juveniles in the area um you know um it seemed like it was um Mischief Night and Halloween rolled into one usually you know back in the day he the M Night the day before not not a day before it's kind of quiet and now seems like to be one thing um and it was a point where we just couldn't um even with all the officers at the mutual Aid we just we didn't have enough officers to respond um so we had to uh prioritize what calls we needed to go to so if someone was getting hurt that's the one we went to if it it was physical property we would get there um after we cleared um officers were did a good job and we actually made um an arrest so when we make an arrest that takes two officers off the road right there um so I don't I don't know if we can do a curfew because I don't I don't know how we enforced that um I don't want my officers um you know um I don't know it's difficult having kids and we're telling them to uh I mean how do we get them to go you know um so I don't you know I mean we we can say it's a curfew but how how do we enforce it without you know having uh more Pro more problems than we're looking for is this a regular thing that happens Chief in your experience or was to this yeah this night seemed a lot worse than most um Halloweens um so I I don't know what what it was U but it's and U I think some a lot of it was um it was just warm in the weather um and it was just um uh a lot of people coming off the buses and uh some legitimately trick or-treating and some were looking for other activities so I would just point out that this year's Halloween is going to be on Friday so I would think that there's going to be lots of parties and it could be a little bit more crazy just thinking ahead also good you know good point on how do you enforce that I personally don't like the idea of a curfew but I also was going to point out that Halloween was on a Friday I don't like the idea of saying we have a curfew yeah I don't either certainly not at 8:00 but even if it was 9 or 10 or 11 like I I have a unless there's like a massive Public Safety threat and there's a pervasive problem around town and it's a a a regular thing I I just don't think curfews are a good idea I think they're very difficult to enforce and you know what's a what's a curfew if we if some kid is walking say they work at Burger King and they're walking home mhm you know is is that you're going to bust them for that I mean it gets to be get it's a lot of police work it's a lot of uh of time spent when I think we could maybe do it differently you know talk we got 10 months to figure out how to do the placing to make sure that you know we're prepared for it yeah you know maybe maybe next year we we do different things with with lighting or we you know we have people stationed at different areas try to like you know we changed our whole fourth of July thing the fireworks thing to make it different so that they're not you know we're not responding we're we're being proactive we're in spaces where where people see us and they tend to stay away from it so okay uh Patrick police off duty employment so there's two pieces to this um one is the RFP that we will advertise in next Wednesday's paper uh to open February 12th and that will be for police off-duty employment Administration and Management Services so company will provide a and I explain this at the TC meaning company provides a software solution for taking in jobs scheduling officers uh getting vouchers from officers who have worked um they take in money from the contractors provide it to us with uh payroll information so we can pay to the officers so it's a much better um process that we currently use because the our current process you know serves the purpose well but it is a a burden on the officers who have to implement it we have police officers who are um taking in these jobs and and it's uh it's a lot a lot of work so when these companies do this uh generally they'll set a percentage of administrative fee that they collect for their services similar to how we currently collect an administrative fee for our services our administrative fee is 10% in 2023 we collected about $80,000 in admin fees so there should be contract with a company and let's say they take 10% and we don't increase our rates that's money that we would not have as um as Revenue but we would get back officers doing uh police work and I think there's a a great benefit in that there's also a benefit in that you know the finance department isn't managing escros and calculating payroll and things that take finance department a lot of time so um we we'll have more information in February after we open up that RFP and see what it looks like and we can make considerations on if the township wants to adjust our own administrative fee to you know maybe be something on top of what that other company charges so that's the uh that's the first piece about outside Duty or off-duty employment second piece is we haven't raised our rate since February of 23 U generally the off duty rate is the overtime rate for the highest paid patrol officer and we didn't raise it last year because uh we didn't have a rate for the highest paid so the now that we have uh uh contracted rates for 2025 the rate will recommend to increase so uh the previous off duty rate was $867 it would be raised to $95 and 18 and for municipal jobs school jobs um municipally supported jobs they charge just the blat rate for the highest paid patrol officer so that'll go um up to $634 so if the committee is in agreement we can have that put before you at the next T committee meeting there is um when I was looking over the resolution one thing that caught my eye that I don't know if you want to um discuss here with the TC but we talk about municipally supported uh events that would receive the municipal rate for police officers and most of them are you know like CHS uh booster club school events even Maplewood stock where you know it's open to all residents but on there is Oyster Fest which is a ticketed event and I don't I just don't know enough about either that event but also similar events that may receive that overtime rate I you may want to have a discussion about um what um what events receive a straight Duty rate as opposed to an overtime rate and what's the what's the uh discounted rate again 60 what it'll be $634 is the hourly rate for the senior patrol officer and so that's charged for all Township events which is you know that's reasonable for school events um the one question caught my eye was about you know outside events where they they may not be open to everybody they may be ticket in events oh it's also I think on that list is paper pill paper mill Playhouse yeah and they receive another rate but in speaking with the chief there were some things that were going to take off of there we're not we don't work at Papermill Playhouse we haven't worked at the Short Hills Mall there were some other rates established there that we're just not working and I would strike from that L I think you should come back to us with a a clean list I have a clean list give us a recommendation don't give it to us now give it to us forther and we should discuss it because we don't we really shouldn't put stuff up until we discuss it at a Township committee meeting yep absolutely so I can I can circulate it uh I'll circulate it this week and then if you just want to let me know if you want to discuss it back here again next month or as a discussion item with the TC I would say put on just to move it put on a discussion item this gets passed by a resolution right that's right it's supposed to be yearly because I did the I did the ordinance change I I wrote it up with the VA back in 23 so yeah yeah we didn't change it last year because again our rate didn't change right okay but now's the right time to increase that so this is good we'll put on for discussion at our next Township committee meeting after we take a look at it and we can great um you know just we want we want to be sensitive to what we we're doing yep yep okay so that's off D I would just mention like Oyster Fest is a ticketed event but it raises money and for a cause so that's just something to keep in mind we can disc but there might be others that do the same and we have to treat you're right and we should make sure that they're all treated fair I agree with that yeah okay um can you move over our uh liaison from the community board on please yes hey everyone how are you goad um so thanks for sticking around for the last hour listening to us uh we wanted to give you an opportunity if you wanted to give us any feedback uh any anything from the the board on police I don't have anything much to add other than our goal is to have a member from the community board on police be at Public Safety every month um and it's my month but I will be able to listen in and report back and just a way to share information because a lot of what we discuss uh in our meetings is relevant in public safety and vice versa so the the communication is always good okay um all right anybody have any questions for Teddy no but I do have a uh just sort of like historical context of having the uh member of the community board on police we we tend we have you know recently and you can do things differently Vic obviously as the chair but we have um invited the community board on police liaison to join us during our discussion as a panelist and not treat them as a member of the public as it were but again you your prerogative as the chair to to conduct the meeting in a different manner yeah I think i' would like to keep this as a panelist because um this is really uh you know a Township committee committee with the chief and we can move people back and forth it's pretty easy okay well thank you teddy we're gonna move you back now thank you have a good night everyone all right thanks Teddy all right Patrick uh you want to give us an oem report yeah uh we have a new Essex County sheriff and the previous Essex County Sheriff was our OEM coordinator so the new sheriff is now our OEM coordinator from the county and so we've had just one kickoff meeting with him that's Sheriff Jones so look forward to working with them you know a lot of their some of their OEM staff changed over but a lot of them have been involved for for quite a while so uh un fortunately we continue to have good relationships with them U we are working on our Hazard mitigation plan Maplewood has a plan that becomes part of the county plan uh good for the county and that we talk about potential hazards uh in our town but also good for us in that it make it may make us available for federal funding should have become available to mitigate some of the identified hazards in the plan so we've been working through that uh for a few weeks now that that'll be submitted to the county this week and you had on the agenda um c training anything going because you were supposed to do some uh re Outreach to them and training yep so we and even last year I want to say we started talking about this maybe late October early November um the county had indicated that they'll have some trainings coming up early this year um I haven't got an update from the chief but I know the chief at least last year was talking to them about what was available I I found one training form so we're GNA we're going to link them to that the training is actually in mood so all right yeah and you'll share that with me too Chief because I want to get involved with with them in that all right got anything else Patrick that's it okay um on the south essic fire department so we're we're pretty much on Pace to get to around 5,000 incidents for the year maybe a little less uh the bulk of them are are the EMS runs we do in Maplewood we do not do EMS runs in South Orange their coverage is from uh the South Orange Rescue Squad and they have an arrangement with uh I guess it's uh Barnabas um so uh again I would say about 40% of the calls that the fire dep Department responds to are related to uh medical EMS calls um we have not fought a lot of fires luckily we uh actually most of our fires are outside and outside the boundaries of the two towns on Mutual Aid uh we do a fair amount of cooking fires um but our response has been good and um which is which is positive we can get there fast and put out those cooking fires then we don't get building fires so that's all a good thing um we do a reorg organization in January and we switch who the chair of the management committee is going to is uh last year was Sheena this year it'll be me uh and then we'll be reappointing Greg lri as the third member the independent member uh which is required by the state um the state uh limits the representation to one member from each town and then those two members have to select the third member uh and Greg has been been serving in that role for a couple years now and it's been working out well so that's about where we are with that any questions all right uh anything else for public at the moment all right um so let's uh let's just vote um Deborah Malia you want to make a motion in second we go into closed motion that we go into Clos second okay everybody's in favor of that all right Patrick you're going to get us of YouTube yes remove good night Teddy