|
|
Now, thanks to an opportunity provided by a first-time regional state grant process, they may not only get their own truck inspection squads, but a training facility and revitalized communications between every involved department.
Area law enforcement officials, including Newington Police Chief Richard Mulhall, Wethersfield Police Chief Michael Custer and police in nearly two dozen area agencies, have been working to shape three grant proposals for the Dec. 3 submission deadline.
"The timeline was a little tight, but we've done our best. Now the question is going to be how are they going to divvy it up?" said Custer, who developed the regional training facility application. "These are great ideas that would never be funded if they were left to the individual towns to pay the tab, simply because towns just don't have that kind of money."
In September, the state Office of Policy and Management was charged with administering an $8.6 million grant process to encourage regional cooperation and cost savings.
Communities were given the go-ahead to craft projects that would include multiple towns, using shared resources at a cost savings and benefit to all.
When Mulhall and the Capitol Region Chiefs of Police Association heard about the grant, they began tossing around projects that otherwise wouldn't be funded but would enhance policing capabilities and skills throughout the entire area.
The result was three grant applications totaling close to $3.5 million that would dramatically increase each town's safety, as well as save money.
"We all have truck safety issues," Mulhall said. "I don't have an Avon Mountain, but I do have a Berlin Turnpike. It cost Avon hundreds of thousands of dollars to investigate both accidents. But if we had three regional truck teams working together with shared equipment, that would lighten the load."
Mulhall is putting the final touches on a grant application that would pay for three traffic enforcement teams covering nearly two dozen communities in the midstate region, including Newington, Farmington Valley and the area east of the Connecticut River, including Glastonbury.
The $343,000 cost of the proposal would include money to train officers in truck inspections and serious accident investigations in all three areas, lightening the load on individual departments.
"The state has a limited resource in truck inspectors. There are only 24 to 30, and the state police should be on the highways," Mulhall said. "They are never going to be able to service each town on a regular basis, able to service each town on a regular basis, but if we are a team working together, we can do it for ourselves."
Meanwhile, Custer is shaping a $1.5 million proposal to build a regional training facility that would have quarters for police canine and tactical team training and house an indoor shooting range to help officers remain firearms-qualified.
A third $1.4 million proposal would, for the first time in state history, allow more than two dozen police departments to electronically share information immediately on suspects and incidents - a capability police say would save lives.
"Connecticut doesn't have a lot of structure that makes it easy to regionalize services," said Jocelyn Mathiasen, special coordinator for the Capitol Region Council of Governments, which is helping the towns submit the grants. "But the reality is, sometimes it's not that much more expensive to do it in five towns than in one."
The grant is designed to encourage regional participation in projects and services. Towns were notified in September that $8.6 million would be available to pay for a variety of regional projects with the grant application deadline of Dec. 3.
The various regional planning organizations in the state, including the council, were responsible for guiding the submissions and choosing which projects would be worthy of presenting. The council has 25 to 30 of them. The state's other regional planning organizations are also expected to submit several grant proposals each.
The projects aren't limited to public safety. They can range from shared public works initiatives to shared public records initiatives, but all must take one year or less to implement.
After the applications have been submitted, each town expecting to participate in a project must seek the approval of their governing body by Dec. 31 to get the funding. OPM is expected to announce in mid-January which projects will be funded.
Mulhall said regional training and information sharing is always important, but the need became particularly obvious after the shooting death of Newington Officer Peter Lavery three years ago while answering a domestic dispute call.
"Newington has been pushing for regional services for some time," Mulhall said. "Right now when we run someone's plates, we can only find out if they're wanted by another agency, [not] what other incidents they have been involved in. Ever since the death of Peter Lavery, we've had several projects in the works. This would be a way to spread the cost and the resources around."
