By MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
for Glasgow News 1
The three city departments responsible for various aspects of public safety continue to constantly be on the lookout for new recruits, and the department heads are already working on the next fiscal year’s budget requests.
April Dunbar, assistant director of the Barren-Metcalfe Emergency Communications, which handles all the 911 calls for the two counties, told the Glasgow Common Council Public Safety Committee that the center has 13 full-time and three part-time employees in addition to two administrative positions.
“We have one lady who is currently in the academy; she still lacks another week and half to go,” Dunbar said. “We have one scheduled to go to the academy April 28.”
She said she has some interviews with prospective employees set for next week in hopes of hiring for the three full-time positions they’re still short.
Glasgow FIre Department Chief William Rock said, in response to a question from Councilman Freddie Norris about what his ideal staff number would be, that they would be fully staffed at 39, including the command staff, but he’d love to go to 42.
Glasgow Police Department Chief Guy Howie said he currently has four officers in academy training, but two are actually there and the other two are attending virtually, a relatively new thing DOCJT is trying with having the first two to three weeks of classes remotely and then bringing recruits in person.
He said he had one new hire, “a pretty impressive young man,” who came in from a different law enforcement agency, Western Kentucky University police. That officer, John Wallen, was sworn in by the mayor at the full council meeting that immediately followed this committee meeting. The new GPD canine unit was also introduced at that meeting.
Mayor Henry Royse asked about the wait time for the academy.
“If we hire this next group of people, if they stay, it’ll be next year before they go to the academy,” Dunbar said.
The mayor said he was among some people who would be going to Frankfort this week to talk with state legislators and “we’re going to be woofing about that, because how can you staff the 911 dispatch and the police department or the fire department if people come to apply and then you can’t get them in the academy?”
Howie said that it’s his understanding that part of the backlog – and they’ve actually had to cancel some classes – due to a lack of instructors, because some have left the academy to get better pay elsewhere.
“They’re losing high-quality instructors because of the pay,” he said.
Budgets and miscellaneous
Dunbar also said that Beverly Harbison, the director of the center, intends to ask for a vehicle to be in her budget for the upcoming fiscal year that begins July 1, and the mayor said Harbison has already talked with him about it and he can see that there is a need sometimes for someone to have transportation to the academy if their household only has one vehicle for example.
Dunbar and Rock almost simultaneously noted that they have a lot of continuing education classes and trainings the dispatchers have to attend as well in Frankfort, for example.
The mayor said sometimes the dispatchers can catch a ride with police hirees who are also going to Richmond for their separate training at the Department of Criminal Justice Training Center, but it doesn’t always work out for that to be possible.
Howie said he believes a carpool like that is in the works with the next ones he’s sending to Richmond.
Rock said he’s begun working on the budget with an eye toward the projected growth in the county, “but it’s still a work in progress,” and he’s still gathering information. That discussion continued for quite a while, including the areas of the city where the most growth is anticipated.
The fire chief said that although some previous chiefs have asked for a third station, but he doesn’t want to do that until he has plenty of people to staff one.
“I won’t ask for a firehouse before I ask for people. I think you need people overrunning each other before you try to send them off to another firehouse,” Rock said in response to a question from the mayor about how much further to the north and west the city can grow before the ISO rating, which is used to determine property insurance premiums, is affected by not having a station close enough.
Rock said he tries to add things like staff positions and equipment relatively gradually so he doesn’t have to do it all at once.
“You either get ahead of it or you play catch up for a long time and hope nothing goes bad,” he said.
Howie said he’s also been looking at trends regarding the number of calls they have each year to have an idea of how many officers he needs in coming years. He echoed what Rock said about being mindful of the city’s growth.
“If we don’t get ahead of it, then trying to play catchup is horrendous,” Howie said.
He also told the committee that a spring break event is being planned to take place in Twyman Park similar to the Faith in Blue event at Gorin Park last year.
“So, for those kids that aren’t going anywhere for spring break, we’ll give ‘em a little something to do,” Howie said.
He said the department has had some successes with the Flock cameras it uses to ping locations of cars with license plates that are being sought, and he’s probably going to ask for another in his upcoming budget.
A “noncrime success” he used as an example was that a dog bit a person at one of the city parks and the people with the dog put it in the car and didn’t provide their names or anything, so the person who was bit was facing the prospect of having to take a series of shots to prevent rabies. Using a combination of the regular security cameras in the park and the Flock system, they were able to learn the identity of the individuals with the dog and also learn that there was no need for the man to take the shots.
The mayor said the police chief, parks and recreation director, public works superintendent and he were going to be meeting the following day to review placement of all the cameras to make sure they’re being used in the most efficient way.
Norris asked Howie how it was going with the Park Avenue substation, and Howie said they’ve set up a Narcan box there so it can be accessed, with instructions, if someone is having an overdose. The police chief said the officers attending the academy virtually are doing so from that location, and a Barren County Sheriff’s Office recruit is doing so with them.
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