Five residents take closer look at police work

Goffstown Editor — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 18:42:00 GMT

BY MATT SCHOOLEY

Area police departments are teaming up to show residents just how they work and will host a Citizens Academy for five residents in Dunbarton, Allenstown, Pembroke and Bow.

The eight-week course will give residents the chance to experience classes in police procedures such as fingerprinting, foot-imprint casting and a mock trial with an actual judge sitting in.

“I think what it does is it brings us together in a community- based way,” said Bow police officer Diana Scott. “We have more of a positive interaction with people in our towns. It’s not just a uniform and a car and an arrest. They get to see us and see that we’re average people, and they can put a face with the name to make the connection with each department.”

Residents in the participating towns went through an application process including a background check, and five applicants were selected by the police departments.

Allenstown Police Chief Shaun Mulholland said he looks forward to showing people that what happens on police TV shows isn’t the same thing that happens in his department.

“The most important thing is that they’ll get an overview of what we do on the street,” said Mulholland. “People watch TV and get somewhat of a jaded view. They watch these shows where within an hour every resource is available.”

In reality, officers trying to solve a case locally are often faced with a drawn out process.

“There are some things like DNA testing that can take up to a year, and on TV they do it within 15 minutes,” said Mulholland. “They always get people to confess within an hour timeframe. The real world is a different place.”

April 7 will be the first class, and every Tuesday for eight weeks the academy will take place from 6 to 9 p.m. in a variety of locations.

Mulholland said getting citizens familiarized with the faces of his department is one of the biggest benefits of the course.

“One of the biggest complaints people have is that they don’t know the police officers who work in their town,” said Mulholland. z“There’s such change in personnel that people don’t get to know these officers. It’s critical they have that relationship with us.”

Scott also is looking forward to being able to interact with community members.

“They would be more apt to feel comfortable to come and talk to us and ask question,” she said. “We aren’t just a reactive service, we’re proactive. We want to know what we can do to make the community a better place.”

Bow dispatch center raises fees

Bow Editor — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:34:00 GMT

BY JENN McDOWELL

The Bow Dispatch Center will see more revenue in the coming year from the four other towns it services as the town attempts to bring the center’s costs for service more in line with its financial capability.

It costs about $400,000 to run the dispatch center, said Bow Police Chief Jeff Jaran, and under the new fee system Bow will see more than double the amount it currently collects from Epsom, Pembroke, Dunbarton and Allenstown. That includes running equipment as well as paying eight employees, five of those being full time.

The new payment system adds a $10,000 base fee to the costs associated with each town’s service call numbers from 2006. In all of the towns, that amounts to at least a 100 percent increase over what they currently pay.

Bow collected $79,000 between all four towns last year, which, Jaran said, barely funds the salary of one dispatcher. With the new fees, Bow would collect $165,000, leaving about $235,000 to Bow taxpayers.

The increased fees came from discussions with the Bow Board of Selectmen on how to get more revenue for the town. They were forced to tighten their belts for the 2008-09 year.

For 2008-09, Epsom will pay $43,000 for Bow Dispatch services, up from $19,000 for the current year; Pembroke will pay $59,000, a jump from about $30,000; Allenstown will pay $41,000, up from $21,000; and Dunbarton will pay almost $23,000, more than double from the prior year’s $11,000.

Jaran said the affected departments were understanding of Bow’s plight, being in the midst of budget seasons themselves. Many of those towns have been forced to shed some extra weight from their budgets as well.

Bow service calls now account for almost half of the overall call volume, which makes the new distribution of costs fair across the board, Jaran said. In 2006, the year upon which the new fees are based, Bow Dispatch took 6,195 calls from Allenstown; 6,682 from Epsom; 10,072 from Pembroke; 2,605 from Dunbarton; and 18,980 in Bow for total of more than 44,534 calls.

Bow has seen a 12 percent increase in the town’s portion of the total call volume between 2006 and 2007, most of which is attributed to officer-initiated activity, additional officers on the streets and, thus, higher arrest numbers, said Jaran.

“We’ve got more officers doing the job. That alone spikes your calls for service,” said Jaran. “We’re just busier overall, right across the board. You can’t really point to one thing in particular.”

For 2007, Bow Dispatch received a total of 48,139 calls, with Bow’s portion of those amounting to 23,193, he said.

The four other towns have taken the fee increases well, Jaran said, and understand they are still getting exceptional service for a relatively low price.

When plans for changing the fees began brewing in summer 2007, the original proposal was to charge a flat rate of $50,000 for all towns. Jaran said he wanted to see a more equitable means of determining what each town should pay, which resulted in the current plans.

Police from some of the towns have said they looked into other dispatch services, such as Merrimack County, but found there were not yet the facilities and resources to make such a move.

Pembroke Police Chief Scott Lane said he has looked into folding into Merrimack County dispatch services, as well as those town-independent services in Concord and Hooksett, but said Bow was the only viable option.

“I am very happy with Bow’s service. It was fortunate that our fees were as low as they were for as long as they were,” said Lane.

Dunbarton Police Chief Christopher Connelly agreed, saying Bow Dispatch is the best service he’s dealt with in more than 20 years of law enforcement experience and that the increase in fees are more than fair. He added he also looked into other dispatch avenues, but said it wouldn’t save money at this point to switch the information system and frequencies over.

“Really, Bow continues to be our best option and is really in the same ballpark where we could go with other services,” said Connelly. “I think it’s an equitable way to do business based on the calls for service.”

Bow News : allenstown

Five residents take closer look at police work

Bow dispatch center raises fees