GilfordGrok: Police Dept Archives

FPC - starting over...but with enough time?

Our friend Chan from Weekend Pundit started a new blog site One Voice In Gilford when he ran for Selectman this past election. The latter was supposed to be for the election, but he is now hoping that this new site will be more successful than his run in that he'll be blogging about local stuff here in Gilford (WP is more "other focused").

With that all said, I trundled on over to see what his take on Gilford was and found this:

I have to wonder what was running through the minds of the Gilford Board of Selectmen during yesterday's meeting.

In March the voters of Gilford decided the Facilities Planning Committee should receive $150,000 to put towards the completion of plans for the addition to and renovation of the police station. The FPC had hoped to work with the architect – Stewart Associates of Gilford– to complete those plans and to work with the original general contractor – Horne Construction of Rochester – to come up with a firm will-not-exceed price.

[snip]

..which promptly turned it down and directed the FPC to go back to square one, sending out new bids for a new architect and new contractor. With this decision 15 months of work and almost $50,000 of taxpayer money was flushed down the toilet. (See Laconia Sun article below)

I'm not part of the inside baseball concerning the FPC, but I do know that folks have been a tad upset about the delay. Chan's post did include some musings about the new "schedule" of that as well:

Bidding a new architect will take a minimum of 6 weeks, with 9 weeks being the most likely time line. During that time the FPC will be able to get little if anything done because it cannot go forward without an architect. Once one is selected, it will take between 4 and 8 weeks to complete the plans started under Stewart Associates. Then another 6 to 8 weeks to qualify contractors and to put out a bid to those contractors. After that the selected contractor and the FPC will need time to work on refining the costs of the project. Not counting the last part, which could take an additional 4 to 6 weeks, that takes the time line of this project out to the end of September/beginning of October, a good month or more past the Labor Day deadline requested by the Board of Selectmen. And that's assuming everything goes right the first time. If everything on the time line takes the longest portion of the estimates, we're now out to the end of October, meaning the Board of Selectmen won't see the 'end product' until November or early December, which still leaves us exactly where the FPC was last December, except that an additional $150,000 taxpayers dollars will have been spent.

Kinda seems like situation set up for failure, time wise. Flush the $50K so far, now add another $150K?

Go read his conclusion(s).

Posted by Skip at 09:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Police Union contract - quick thoughts

From the Citizen:

With contract negotiations still in process, Gilford voters will not see any new union contracts for either Department of Public Works employees or the recently-formed Police Department union in 2008

Town Administrator Evans Juris said Tuesday that an agreement has not been reached during negations and due to the lack of time before the town vote in March, these contracts will have to be put on hold until 2009.

[snip]

The Gilford Police Department union, organized through the Teamsters Local 633, does not have an established contract to keep in place like the DPW does.

Capitalism is risky - when your company does well, the owners can do well indeed. When it does not, the owners can lose everything. However, while luck, the level of capitalization, and timing do have an effect on the outcome, with all things otherwise sufficient and equal, the outcome is mainly dependent on the grit, determination, and brainpower of the principals. It is the ability of the individual to succeed that matters. Yes, the team, as it is put together, is a vital part of that. But when it gets down to brass tacks, it is the ability of those individuals to perform that is rewarded (principals or not).

Some, on the other hand, seek safety within a group - or union. The individual is of less importance in the actual renumeration as in most unions, it is seniority that counts and not always capability (having been around manufacturing plants for over 13 years and having to deal with unions during times of change with new software and new ways of doing things, I know this). Competition within the group is not rewarded - in fact, it is often rewarded negatively.

"They're status quo," Juris explained.

This means that until a contract is established for the department, there will be both no pay increases and no changes to benefits or anything else.

Sometimes, tying your success to a union may all that great in the short term. Especially when your fellow non-union municipal workers may well be getting a pay raise.

"We are continuing negotiations and we are progressing, just nothing will come to the voters until March of 2009," said Juris.

Police Department union spokesmen Officer Steve Colcord was unavailable for comment.

Oops.

Posted by Skip at 09:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Don't tase me, Bro! Take the GilfrdGrok Poll (Bumped from earlier date)

Today's Daily Sun reports that the Selectmen have approved money in the proposed police department budget for the purchase of TASERS-- electrode shooting stun guns. Given the publicity these thing have gotten lately, now that many police departments have purchased and are using (abusing?) them, is this really a good idea for Gilford? Take the poll below. Feel free to leave comments in the comment section.

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Oh, and if you haven't seen the video of the kid recently tased at the John Kerry event, click here. DO we really want to chance incidents like this?

Posted by Doug at 05:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Strictly Business...

Faceless entity...

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Finally, the annual threats of Gilford’s police force forming a union are over. The new police union gives a green light for the Selectman to look at their salaries and wages objectively instead of the emotionally personalized approach taken in the past. The nice thing about unions is that they are, by their own choice, a one face entity. Negotiations for them are being done by a single highly paid professional, focused exclusively on getting the most for its members regardless of the needs of the community.

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Now it’s a business only transaction and should be treated as such. The mythical added expense to dealing with unions is really an opportunity to save money. If we’re going to invest money in a negotiator let’s get one that reduces the budget! Why not invest $10,000 to save $100,000?

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This would be an excellent opportunity to look at more efficient ways to manage resources such as reducing the work force over the winter months when the community significantly reduces its population. This is also the time to set the standard for employee contributions toward benefits. Additionally, the entire departmental budget should be scrutinized and tightened until the details of the contract are known.

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Working families are painfully aware of the growing cost of contributing to their health care and funding their own retirement. The USA today featured an article showing that employers in 2008 will, once again, pass on to employees up to an 8% cost increase in health insurance premiums. Working families in the private sector are also shouldering more of the burden to pay health insurance and retirement benefits for Federal, State and local workers. Today, we read news that the State worker’s retirement system will require even more from your property tax bill. Stack on top of that the potential of a “Hillary like” health scam and working families will have nothing left in their paychecks to pay for their own benefits. You can be sure that the union negotiators won’t care about that!

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Don’t you wish someone else was paying for your health insurance and funding your retirement? Fortunately, the final say on Gilford’s negotiated union wages and benefits will be decided by you, the tax payer, in the privacy of a voting booth.

Posted by Terry S. at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Why it's GOOD that the cops are going to unionize...

When I received a phone call telling me that the Gilford cops decided to create the "us versus them" relationship by saying yes to unionization, my friend Tom, sitting in my office, said, "Well, that's OK. It's good for the taxpayers."

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I couldn't agree more-- especially given that Gilford votes using the Official Ballot thanks to SB2. Instead of the benefits and dollars buried within the many layers of the town's budget, everything will be assembled into one neat package called the "contract." This means that exactly how much they get in pay and benefits will be openly and readily available for all to see. Additionally, the age-old threat to the budget committee to "be nice or you will get unions" will no longer be applicable.

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Given that the police have chosen this adversarial type of union relationship with the town, there will only be one thing left to do when it comes time to vote on things like contracts, new police buildings, comfy cruisers and SUVs and the like:

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Nice going, boys! Now it's going to be a lot easier to just say no! After all, the entity will no longer be that of employees to be coddled and cherished, but instead, will be faceless, monolithic Teamster union "negotiators" from someplace else. It's a much less personal relationship now-- strictly business!

NO! (See how easy?)

Oh, and one last thing... I will demand that my selectmen respond to any hard line put forth by the nameless, faceless, monolithic union types with the same hard line. Fight fire with fire! All bets are now off!

CONGRATULATIONS!!

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PS-- I was asked to refrain from commenting about this issue prior to the union vote, in the hope that the cops would come to their senses and do the right thing and vote NO to unionization. In hindsight, we will never know if the points I raise above had been mentioned and pondered beforehand might have caused some to think deeper than the propaganda their heads have been filled with...

Posted by Doug at 01:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

PD Facility Update

Resident Jack Stephenson has been pushing for what some might called "radical" approaches to energy efficiency in the design and construction of both the police station addition and the new "free" library building. The Citizen reports on the facility planning committee's response in today's paper. While it is not mentioned, I have been told that they are studying the possible use of geothermal methods of heating. This is a great idea. We plan to discuss this type of HVAC system in an upcoming Meet the New Press radio program, much like we discussed wind generation (click here for podcast).

Posted by Doug at 07:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Police Union? Sure, why not?

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I’m not sure why the Gilford police force is forming a union but I suppose it’s expected for them to do so. Given the fact that most police and fire fighters throughout the country are union members, why not? I’m not sure what the advantage or disadvantages are for the police or the community but at least the annual threats of unionizing around budget season will disappear. The selectman can now look at salaries and wages objectively instead of the personalized approach taken in the past. The thing about unions is that they are, by their own choice, a faceless entity. Shouldn’t it stand to reason that if the “negotiations” for them are being done by a single highly paid professional, then it is now a business only transaction?

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The rising cost of municipal services is now forcing political leaders to make some very tough decisions. Back in the days when my dad was a fire fighter, he worked long hours for low wages. He never complained because the city provided his family, a wife and five children, excellent medical coverage and a good retirement program. Somewhere over time the salary component caught up to the rest of the working class while maintaining benefits found nowhere else. In addition to excellent salaries and benefits come a host of other perks enjoyed by this special group of workers. Working hours have been modified to allow them to work another full time job or create their own businesses. After all, they are highly desirable employees because they don’t require any benefits while most other self employed people pay insurance premiums in the thousands of dollars each month.

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Let’s not forget about the free or reduced pricing on most services they seek, such as hotel rooms, cups of coffee etc… Perks are now considered income in every other profession, including gifts and personal miles driven in a company car, must be reported when filing Federal taxes.

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Some where in all this, I’m sure they will demand we pay their union dues too. We already pay similar fees to an association designed to fund lobbyist that propose legislation against the tax payer.

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Don’t get me wrong here; I’m not busting anybodies chops over all this yet. They do a difficult job and I certainly wouldn’t want to do it. Then again, they wouldn’t want to do my job either. I’m simply pointing these things out because we are talking about compensation for a contracted service. I support paying all workers fair wages and benefits as long as ALL things are considered when discussing compensation.

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In the past, most of these benefits were discussed piece meal or not discussed at all. At least with a union, we can discuss the ENTIRE compensation package. The Selectman and voters will have to be mindful of all these things when considering the end result. They will also have to be mindful of the potential HB88 legislation being bandied about at the State House. Should it become law, regardless of the will of the people, this special class of workers (not my title for them, it’s theirs) will be “entitled’ to the previous year’s raises and benefits. It would be wise to not set that bar too high.

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The good news is that all of this will be completely displayed in the public’s eye to be approved by all of the voters and no longer the burden of a few historically compassionate politicians.

Posted by Terry S. at 05:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

More on Gilford's K-9's resource

Doug, in his column in the Daily Sun of , made some observations about Gilford's K-9 unit. I made a couple more, as I had responded to other Letter to the Editors (also in the Daily Sun). However, Chief Markland had a response in the Gilford Steamer (Letter to the Editor, 9/6 - paid subscription) and the Daily Sun (not online) in response to Doug's column.

Clarifying misconceptions about Gilford’s K-9 unit

To the Editor:

[snip]

In the year following the passage of a K-9 Unit, we budgeted $2,500 for the upkeep of the K-9 Program, a significant decrease from the K-9 Unit's inception. Currently we have not exceeded that amount and do not anticipate that we will. We have budgeted $2,500 for the coming year, so the assumption of escalating costs is not true.

My question will be, come budget time, will we find out that this is the true cost of the dog, his training, the handler, and the cruiser? Or, as in the joke that is well known by those of us who have to fill in travel related expense reports "go ahead, find the boots!".

The cruiser that was "dedicated" to be the K-9 Unit was a cruiser in the town's vehicle rotation. This means that vehicles purchased by the police department are rotated to other town departments as needed after a few years of patrol use, thus maximizing the usefulness of the vehicle's initial purchase.

This is fine, and most citizens would expect that this would happen to the point that the vehicle will keep working (face it, cruisers pile up mileage real quick, and even with great mechanics, they will last just so long).

The matter of "keeping the dog busy" is misconstrued as it pertains in this opinion. One of the most important parts of keeping a K-9 dog highly trained in its specialties is to use the dog often in real scenarios. The police department has a standard policy in place in the deployment of the K-9, a policy utilized by K-9 Units nationwide. We must maintain the dog's ability to perform in a high standard of competence in order to substantiate the dog's actions in legal matters.

And this is one of the main points that Doug in his column, and I in my Letters did agree on. We all agree that the dog must be active in order to be useful.

The problem is "does the needs of Gilford provide a an overwhelming percentage of the dog usage in those real life scenarios? In fact, while we are paying for the dog, the handler, and the cruiser for the K-9 unit, what percentage of official calls are strictly for Gilford, and which are for "outside use?

Continue reading "More on Gilford's K-9's resource" »

Posted by Skip at 08:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Gilford K9 serves area communities... free of charge!

Some stories never seem to go away- and never stop causing the fur on my neck to stand-up, so to speak. The Gilford K9 is one such topic. After losing the battle against the town's purchase and deployment of the police dog, my prediction of ongoing and escalating costs has come true. The dog, training, food, veterinary care and the cost of a dedicated cruiser certainly must cost the Gilford taxpayers a pretty penny. My question was, and still is- Does Gilford really need such a law enforcement tool? Do we have enough of a need to justify the program? Can we keep him busy? Well, no, but if we serve an area larger than Gilford, he stays busy enough...
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Stefanie Phillips reports in this week's Gilford Steamer (online subscription required) that

The loss of the Laconia Police Department's canine, Yogi, in July meant more responsibility was placed on the only canine left in Belknap County. That canine is Agbar, the Gilford Police Department's three-year-old Czech-born German Shepherd.

Gilford's K9 officer

and Agbar are now first on the response list in towns where they used to be back-up and were called out twice in one week recently, one call being in Laconia.

Both the Laconia and Gilford canine units were called in the past to respond to several area towns' calls including Belmont, Alton, Tilton, Northfield, Loudon and Meredith. The first responder called depended upon the distance and location of the call. When asked about the added workload, Parent [K9 officer] said the pair have been managing just fine and are on call all the time. Parent's shifts re scheduled at night when most of the calls are made. "We are designed to be here when stuff happens," Parent said.

The Citizen also carried a similar piece about the Gilford police dog. From the August 23rd story, in addition to reporting on the towns which Gilford's K9 will serve, the article tells us this:

While Parent's calls will extend to other departments in Belknap County, particularly Laconia, the Gilford Police Department does not seek compensation for these service calls. Parent did note that the additional calls provide Agbar with valuable on-duty experience. Responding to assist other departments are considered good-faith efforts to help build relations between departments. "It's just law enforcement helping law enforcement," added Parent.

Since when do I, as a Gilford taxpayer, have to provide services in other towns... for free?!!!! I don't care if it "good training." I don't want to pay for it. If there is such a need in the area, then let it be met at the county level. This is a bunch of BS! I really wish I knew someone on the budget committee or somewhere else that could do something about this. While I'm fond of many people in other towns in the area, I don't feel I am obligated to provide them with police dog services.
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This is just another one of those "little things" that add up to excessive taxation and governmental budgets in this town. If people would focus on the this type of spending and waste as much as they did to their assessments, perhaps those doing the spending would be forced to tighten their belts- thus rendering assessments less important- as taxes might stabilize or even lessen.
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Oh, and by the way- I don't care about "building relations between departments. Sorry. Go have a beer someplace after you punch off the clock if you want "relations."

Posted by Doug at 05:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Facilities Planning Committee

Lots of things can happen when one goes off on vacation....including this project once again. Certainly it is better named now - instead of a single standalone building being the subject of discussion, now it is the entire Townhall, as the decision has been made to put on an addition.

GilforGrok will certainly be willing to chime in from time to time with our views - we hope that you will too. We certainly wish our blog friend DCE from Weekend Pundit luck in his efforts to help bring this project to fruition (sorry, still thinking about the Corpse Flower!).

I had commented in the local papers about the previous process, and I put forward the same thing that I said before - will it be too big, or not big enough? A fundamental flaw that I saw was the lack of an analytical effort to try to do an educated guess on the the size of the needed facility by using "call" growth (where a "call" could be a traffic stop, an actual call into the Dispatch center, or an arrest - see the Gilford Police log when it appears in the papers). Reasonably reviewing the past call history and projecting forward some rate of growth (3%, 5%, 9% ?) would yield some ideas of manpower needs in the future, et. al., driving the size of the needed facility. What I wrote:

Continue reading "Facilities Planning Committee" »

Posted by Skip at 08:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

An addition it shall be...

It's official- the charge to the committee studying the facility needs of the police department will be to solve them through the use of the current town hall with a potential addition to that structure.

The August 15th Laconia Daily Sun reports the committee has a

simple charge- determine the most cost effective way to address the space needs of the police department, with an addition to town hall given priority as the primary solution.

Selectman Dennis Doten was quoted by the Sun article stating that

"everything is on the table" with regard to the use of the current space at town hall, including moving the offices of the School District- which occupy space on the lower floor, which is accessed from the rear of the building- out.

Once more, I offer the following plan to solve the inefficiencies of the current setup:

(1) Move the SAU office out of the Town Hall building. (2) Move the Planning Department and all related persons to the vacated SAU office. The existing customer friendly entrance configuration is ideal for the form of business transactions that office handles. (3) Expand the Town Clerk / Tax Collector’s section into areas vacated by the planners. (4) Study exactly what records and evidence must be kept and perhaps classify into different levels, thereby creating a realistic storage/retrieval system. (5) Construct a multi-story addition right behind the existing sally port. (A “sally port” is a garage area where a police cruiser with a criminal can drive directly and securely into the building.) The bottom of the new addition would be the new sally port. The existing sally port can be renovated to create more efficient booking area. (6) Close off part of the existing lobby for “secure” waiting area. (7) Explore storage options. (8) Maximize efficient use of all existing areas.
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The work could be done in phases through two budget years, minimizing impact on the taxpayers. By attaching a multi-story addition directly to the rear area of the present police station, work could be performed with little disruption to the daily department activities. Openings between new and existing areas would be created during the very last stages of the project.

Posted by Doug at 01:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Of Additions & "Design-Build"- Fixing the PD Facility

With the Gilford Selectmen seemingly headed in the right direction for solving legitimate police facility needs- utilizing the existing town hall with a possible addition- I offer the plan I suggested back in 2002 as a member of the committee tasked with studying and resolving the Gilford police department’s space issues and again in 2003 as a candidate for selectman...

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(1) Move the SAU office out of the Town Hall building. (2) Move the Planning Department and all related persons to the vacated SAU office. The existing customer friendly entrance configuration is ideal for the form of business transactions that office handles. (3) Expand the Town Clerk / Tax Collector’s section into areas vacated by the planners. (4) Study exactly what records and evidence must be kept and perhaps classify into different levels, thereby creating a realistic storage/retrieval system. (5) Construct a multi-story addition right behind the existing sally port. (A “sally port” is a garage area where a police cruiser with a criminal can drive directly and securely into the building.) The bottom of the new addition would be the new sally port. The existing sally port can be renovated to create more efficient booking area. (6) Close off part of the existing lobby for “secure” waiting area. (7) Explore storage options. (8) Maximize efficient use of all existing areas.
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The work could be done in phases through two budget years, minimizing impact on the taxpayers. By attaching a multi-story addition directly to the rear area of the present police station, work could be performed with little disruption to the daily department activities. Openings between new and existing areas would be created during the very last stages of the project.

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There are two other main considerations to keep in mind for the project. First, we do not need the services of an architect. Working directly with the builder, a motivated facility planning committee can create the overall design and scope. Second, we must be wary that those still harboring ambitions of a free-standing megaplex don’t attempt to derail the concept of utilizing the existing space by claiming it somehow “unfeasible” or “too cost-prohibitive.” Remember- this is what is happening in Laconia, with certain entities standing to monetarily gain successfully convincing that city’s “leaders” that renovation is more costly than demolition/new construction. We cannot allow that to happen in Gilford.

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As has been mentioned by selectman Connie Grant, the “design-build” method ought to be given serious consideration for the project. For those who may not know what that means, the website constructionlinks.com has an informative article penned by W. Samuel Niece:

“The term ‘design-build’ refers to a range of alternatives to the traditional project delivery system. A useful way to look at design-build is by what it is not. Traditional design-bid-build is a segmented, sequential process in which the owner first contracts with a design professional to prepare detailed, suitable-for-construction plans and specifications (or sometimes has them prepared by its in-house engineers), then uses the detailed plans and specifications to solicit competitive bids for construction, and finally awards the construction contract to the low bidder. In design-build, one entity performs both design and construction under a single contract.”

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Niece lists the chief advantages to the client using design-build: (a) cost savings, (b) earlier completion, (c) reduced claims exposure, (d) usage of newest technologies, (e) overall project optimization, (f) reduced administrative burden, and (g) earlier cost visibility. Why wouldn’t we do it this way?

Posted by Doug at 07:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Should the Gilford PD get TASRs?
	Yes
	No
	Yes- Can't wait to see Joe get "tased" at the next town meeting!
	Yes- It makes us safer
	No- The use will be a self-fulfilling result.
	No- Get rid of the dog, too!
	Yes- We don't have enough lawsuits against the town as it is.
	Yes- everyone else has 'em!
	NO, not under any circumstances do we need these in a town like Gilford!

pollcode.com free polls

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April 13, 2008

FPC - starting over...but with enough time?

January 24, 2008

Police Union contract - quick thoughts

November 14, 2007

Don't tase me, Bro! Take the GilfrdGrok Poll (Bumped from earlier date)

October 10, 2007

Strictly Business...

October 07, 2007

Why it's GOOD that the cops are going to unionize...

NO! (See how easy?)

Oh, and one last thing... I will demand that my selectmen respond to any hard line put forth by the nameless, faceless, monolithic union types with the same hard line. Fight fire with fire! All bets are now off!

CONGRATULATIONS!!

July 17, 2007

PD Facility Update

June 02, 2007

Police Union? Sure, why not?

October 02, 2006

More on Gilford's K-9's resource

August 24, 2006

Gilford K9 serves area communities... free of charge!

August 21, 2006

Facilities Planning Committee

August 15, 2006

An addition it shall be...

July 21, 2006

Of Additions & "Design-Build"- Fixing the PD Facility

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