Police Commission - Regular Meeting

We are good to okay looks like all right, so we will Call this meeting to order if we could please stand and for the point of allegiance Thank you Well welcome everyone to the July 9th Wolfboro Police Commission meeting I Will entertain a motion to consider the Wolfboro Police Commission meeting minutes of June 11th 2026 Okay motion is made by The commissioner to my left. Do I have a second? Second. Okay. Motion carries. The minutes for the June 11th police commission meeting are now entered into the record. All right. We will continue with the chief's items.

Thank you and good evening. I only have a few things actually. As I go through the activity and the goings on in June this past month, the major noteworthy cases that I wanted to mention was our ongoing frustration with graffiti in the town. I have spoken with Selectman O'Brien as well as the town manager on this. We do have suspects. They are all juvenile offenders, and we are working with the Division of Children and Youth Families in order to seek an appropriate adjudication for this. A couple of you I know are aware, going through the juvenile process is tenuous at best, it's a struggle. We were attempting to ensure that the actors in this case are properly held to be responsible for the actions. More on that when we know more and we can release more information. As far as that equipment update goes we have ordered a cruiser After a conversation with the chair and the town manager This is a third car Purchased this year you may recall that we had two cars on a warrant article Back in the beginning of the year those cars have finally shown up. They still have to go to Sir, Rochester Nebo, Newington. Newington. They have to go to Newington for upfitting, and we're waiting for them to call us to tell them they have space because they're jammed full of cruisers themselves. The car we just ordered is from McGovern Ford, and that's using some of the money that is in excess from the hourly wages line not being expended. This is going to assist us greatly due to the fact that we are now down three cars. If you're keeping score, that's car two, car three, and car seven, which was down before I even showed up in Wolfboro. The two cruisers are cars two and three, and they will go out to the line for the officers to use in their patrol. The third car that we just ordered, Car 7, will be left unmarked but fully equipped, and that will be used by the detective, who is the full-time assignment. It will also, because it's fully outfitted, it can be used to back up the other cars for regular patrol circumstances if those call. Personnel update.

Chief, before you move on, I just want to point out the fact that this was a discussion that... that we had with the chief about a cruiser because we haven't had a cruiser for a detective in quite a long time. And as the fleet degraded to the point where now we're behind the power curve and we're trying to replace cruisers, the detective cruiser issue came up again. The issue of not having one came up again. And we discussed this at a commission meeting about potentially getting even just a sedan from a dealership and maybe putting a radio in it and whatnot. And through the due diligence of the chief and the captain, they were able to locate a holdover cruiser, a cruiser that had not been picked up. So it comes at a significant discount than a regular cruiser to the tune of about 13K. So it was fortuitous on their part to identify you know, an opportunity, again, maintaining, you know, fiscal responsibility within their budget this year. And they got a cruiser, which means that next year, likely, you'll only ask for one. The plan was two this year, two next year. So, and not only that, but now you have a, you know, detective car that is cruiser worthy. So in a pinch, it can actually be used you know, in a patrol capacity radar, you know, whatever. So I just wanted to add that to, you know, to that item. So thank you.

Thank you. To continue, unless there's more questions.

I've got a question regarding that car. You said it would be unmarked?

Yes, the detective's car? Yeah. Yeah, it will not be marked.

Okay. I was under the impression that the policy requires vehicles, unless they're used by administration, To be marked?

Detective Cruiser can be unmarked.

Okay.

All right. That would fall under an administrative function when he's out doing follow-up. He's not on patrol.

Yeah. Okay. In a pinch. Yeah.

For a personnel update, it's my pleasure to inform the board that CJ Smethurst has successfully completed his probationary status. He's now a permanent full-time member of the police department, and I would imagine he's probably gotten his union paperwork in by now as it is. We still have three positions remaining. You may recall from our last meeting, we were doing background on one. That background continues. The individual has been in law enforcement for over 20 years in another state so that, as you can well imagine, there's a lot of information there. We will be sending Investigator Shigori out of state to complete that background so that we're very clear and we know what it is or who it is we're hiring. We are also in the preliminary stages of another hire. We're waiting on his interview, his formal interview and his executive interview to happen. We hope that's going to happen before the next commission meeting and we are in conversation with yet another person for that third spot if that becomes applicable. Also, we have, you may recall a conversation that I had with you about parking. We've found two people part-time who are expected to start right away. They're part-time, they will be civilians, and they will be downtown enforcing parking regulations. in conversations I've had with the sergeants and with the captain, it was too difficult for the officers to respond to calls, keep their eye on the clock, make sure that they're doing the two hour ordinance parking and they were, they could get down there, chalk tires and then get calls and not get back in time for the end of the shift and then it was all for naught. I find this a better use of the budget and it responds to the needs of the town and their ordinance to the point where they put signs up they want that ordinance enforced and I think that's the best way we can do that. So we have Sergeant Sparrow, who is in charge of parking enforcement. He has founded two people. He did interviews with them. He brought their information to me and the captain. We both reviewed it. We've assented to both of those individuals. And I think that even in the future, one of those individuals might be standing before you for a full-time job. So let's hope that works out well. Are there any questions about that? I would also like to mention July 4th. As you know, we just had a July 4th celebration in town. I'm still getting used to the volume of people that this town draws in on July 4th. I am pleased to announce that both the parade and the fireworks went well. I didn't or I wasn't made aware of any incidences that required law enforcement And according to the fire chief they had one called during the whole thing and it was nothing to do with the event It was a it was a call off in the other section of town This parade was the largest parade in anybody's memory and according to the The American Legion, they had 70 participants in the parade. I think that qualifies us as a very large parade. We changed the exit strategy this year. And thanks to Brewster and the conversation that you might recall from the last meeting, they allowed to use part of their campus in order to get folks off the highway safely and to disembark from the floats so that they could then return to wherever they were parked safely and legally. Unfortunately, some of the participants didn't want to do the safety plan and continue on their way. I have since had a meeting with the American Legion, and we're going to just work on our communication for next year and do better. but I do appreciate all the folks in town who were helpful, smiling, appreciative to law enforcement, and I heard nothing but positives from both citizens and the shopkeepers. We did have some incidents on the parade path. I mentioned one in the agenda with regard to candy being thrown in the street. That is going to be an ongoing uphill battle, I'm afraid, The candy in the street to a to a youngster is just a that it's tunnel vision and one of our dispatchers was watching the Main Street camera and she almost was able to observe a very tragic incident. She said missed it by inches with the kid bending over to get candy out of the street with a float coming. These these events have happened in other communities and We've been fortunate that it hasn't occurred here. And by everything that I have in me, I'm going to make sure that that does not happen here. But I'm going to need the community's support in that. And we'll head it off a little earlier next year. We'll get the word out a little bit better. Fireworks were successful. A lot of positives. I didn't see much of them, but my wife assures me that Compared to others she's seen, these were right up there. Traffic was clear. The roadway was on its own without law enforcement intervention by 1055 PM. That's good compared to the other years we've done it. 1055 is a good exit. No reports of any other concerns other than, geez, there's a lot of traffic here in Wolfboro. Yeah, the fireworks are tonight. Oh, that's tonight? I do want to especially thank New Hampshire State Police who sent a trooper to just cover our calls for us out of town. He had a couple. And Tufton Borough PD, who even though they are struggling to keep their manpower up to speed, they were still standing by just in case we needed their assistance. And thank you to both of those agencies. The next item I want to mention is a traffic radar analysis. Attached to your agenda, you'll find a two-page summary of a forest road traffic radar analysis. And we can certainly post this if you so desire. discovered over the past few months is there's been residents from various parts of town concerned about the amount of traffic on the road, the speed that vehicles are traveling, and whether or not they can get the radar trailer. You may recall a conversation we had a couple of meetings ago about lowering the speed limit on a road, these types of things, and we had to do what we would call a traffic study. Captain Libby has prepared a very clear and concise study of Forest Road. We were interested in how much traffic actually uses the road, which is not a through road in town, but it does go to Cary Beach, and it does connect to other roads that will go through and in other parts of the town. As you'll find, and I had to read this twice, a 50-day period from May 15th to July 3rd The equipment read 73,972 vehicles in one direction. Pass by that sign. That's a lot of vehicles. It also was able to weigh out averages, the 85 percentile speed and the highest recorded speed of 79 miles an hour. In my experience working with radar trailers and gauging numbers from those and statistics, that is not unusual to find one speed way up over ridiculous. And that is typically a driver who knows the signs there and sees how fast they can get the numbers up. And that's the unfortunate part of radar trailers. In fact, there was a time in another police department we used to park our cruiser behind the radar sign, and we had more speeders that day than any other day. Because they see the number, and it's almost a contest. Unfortunately, that seems to be the case here. There are no other speeds recorded that were anywhere near that, however. And the average travel speed on the road was 29.3, which would be consistent with what our observations have been. You'll find the busiest hours are also noted. We've alerted our officers to all this information and asked them to patrol accordingly, and what the assessment and the summary is of the study. I would just ask the commissioner to review it and give us a shout with any questions or concerns they may have about the study, because it's quite intensive.

Was this a study or a request by the community?

Not as much as that.

More as neighbors.

I'm sorry?

More the neighbors that are in the area. Okay. They wanted some assistance from us. They wanted us down there, directed patrols. And I said I'd bring the radar and get some data for them. And this is what we pulled from it.

And due to this result, I'm going to be picking streets just anonymously and putting the sign up and doing similar studies on a less than 50-day cycle because I want to see what it is now in this time of the year. So we'll do 7- and 10-day studies. So is there a plan to go back to these community members?

Yeah, go back with them. I just wanted to get it done, get it here, and then I'll go meet with them.

Great, thank you.

No.

Next thing on our agenda is just a budget update, and I'd ask the captain to go over that with you all.

So the budget's from last week. It hasn't been updated this week. So we didn't get to the July 4th impact on this budget yet, so I'll have that for next month. But everything looks good. PD budget, 3.16 underspent, so we're still looking good. And this is with the new cruiser that's taken out. So it looks really good. Communications, 1.53 underspent. And then overall, I didn't do animal control. It hasn't changed at all. And then the overall is 3.15 underspent, all budgets. And that's, like I said, that's with that new cruiser. The third has already been taken out of the budget. So we're sitting pretty good still.

Good.

Thank you. Any questions on that?

No.

I'll just finish up with some various numbers just so for those of you who are numbers people, I did show you some of our activity. For June, there were 13 arrests made for those to be felonies. I see a disturbing trend of strangulation assaults going on. In the state of New Hampshire, if you assault somebody and you strangle them, that is a felony. It's a second-degree aggravated assault. We've had a few in the last couple months. There were 234 motor vehicle stops, of which 20 received citations. There were 15 motor vehicle collisions. There was actually one boating under the influence of an alcoholic beverage or a drug. And there was, other than that, 56 criminal incidences to include nine other assaults, eight criminal mischiefs, and then numerous fraud, resisting arrest, witness tampering, and criminal threatening. The quick note I mentioned about the fraud seems to be scam-related information. Many people are seeing the scams typically on their home computers and seeing them as a scam. Scammers are getting better, as you would guess. I have seen more folks pushing the button to see if it really is a scam, and that's usually too late. The other fraud that I've been made aware of that's concerning, and I know the two of you will remember this from the old days, was the old asphalt scam. That's back. Somebody is showing up in your driveway, is offering to asphalt your driveway. takes a deposit and you never see them again. It's tweaked a little bit to the point where they're actually doing the driveway and then giving you the bill or following around an actual asphalt company looking for the signs that a lot of these companies will put in your front yard to show that this guy did the roof or this guy did the plumbing just for the advertisement. The asphalt companies are doing it as well. The scammer is seeing the sign going up to the house saying that he works for that company and he's here to check for cracks. And as per your understanding, you'll pay for any repairs that we do in addition to what we've already done. And the asphalt company has no idea he's there. So we're working on a couple of those cases now. It was a real good time to get a detective working. So he's been busy. And that's all I have, unless you have any questions. Great. Any questions?

Yeah, actually, I do have a couple. I wanted to follow up. I had a chance to watch the meeting from last month. And I've also had an opportunity to speak personally with Paul Zimmerman. regarding his concerns for the lobby. And I'm just curious to know what, if any, steps have been made to pertaining to signage, the window, things of that nature.

Wish I brought a picture. Within a week after our conversation with Mr. Zimmerman, that issue was rectified. There is a very large, as you recall, a very large window that opens from the lobby into the dispatch center. Our concern was... viewing too much of what would be confidential information or information that SEGIS doesn't allow us to provide. What we've done is we've cut out an area, say about that wide?

Yeah.

About that wide in the middle of that window so that the person could see the dispatcher, they could see the person.

There's no film on it, no nothing. It's clear.

It's just window. Perfect.

So we're good. And signage? Has anything been addressed regarding signage on the front door?

I met with Fire Chief Zotti. As you know, both he and I share that building. And the responsibilities to the budget for the public safety building. And we also have a concern about the main sign in the front of the building on the lawn that the windstorm blew out. That's his job. Mine is the window. Then we're going to reconvene next week and see who we found, what the costs are, and then we have to go talk to the town manager because it's the public safety building budget.

And then the last question. I had an opportunity to chat with Gage during the parade, and I didn't catch, he mentioned the graduation ceremony. I was curious if you knew what that date was for his graduation from the academy?

Graduation I think is August 21st. I believe that's a Friday. Let me just check.

I'd like to go to that if I'm able to. 28th.

21st.

Do you know what time by any chance?

Usually 2 o'clock. But I'll get updates as they come in and I'll get them out.

Yeah, we'll get some sort of information location. Yep. Exactly where the graduation will be held. Perfect.

And what week is he in now?

Ten. Ten. I think it's ten. It gets kind of difficult. Nine, ten, eleven. You're like, what week are we in again? Is it thirty? Yeah.

Great. That's it. That's all I have. All right, thank you, Chief. Thank you, Captain. Any other questions, Sean? All right. Okay, so commissioner's items. The next meeting date, the next Wolf Road Police Commission meeting date is August 13th, 2026 at 6 p.m. here in the Great Hall. And then I would just like to admit that I actually made a mistake, a procedural mistake last committee meeting when we went into non-public. I neglected to ask for a roll call vote prior to going into that non-public. However, we did, I did realize it once we got into the non-public and we did a whole they won't call vote. So, yeah, so, anyways. Okay, if there are, that's it for any other commission meeting? Commissioner items, anything for you? All set? Um, I do not say, well, I know that, um, uh, Paul had reached out and said that he was not going to be able to make this meeting as a select board rep, Paul O'Brien, that is. Um, and I didn't hear anything from Tom Bell. Did anyone hear anything? Yeah, neither did I. He's obviously not here, so we will move on to... Any public business? And Bernie, the stalwart public representative is here. He has nothing, Bernie? Okay. That's it. All right. So I do understand that we do have a non-public, and I will entertain a motion to enter into non-public under RSA 91A-5.

I'll make that motion.

Second. Second.

Okay.

So the motion carries. So this... Roll call. Roll call. Roll call. Roll call.

A yes.

Yes, a yes. Yes. A yes and a yes. Okay. Excellent. All right. So that will end the public session, and we move into non-public session. Thank you.

Thank you, Bernie.