Pledge: Pres. Sam Fulginiti
Prayer: Rev. Ed Cornell
Song: No Song
Brents Card Game Winner: Christina Burnham
Sergeants Report: Joe Arcari
Raffle Winners: Chief Spera, Charlie Norz, Charlie Renshaw
Happy Bucks: Lots for our guest - the Chief, Sam X3 who was happy to convince him to come, Joe was happy to see him in uniform - likes that military look, Rev Ed celebrating his 50 year wedding anniversary, the upcoming district conference - Bill O. is looking for people to join him for a day, Michael Spera was happy to join us for lunch and "dining with the best", springtime, John Donnelly was 5X happy for the incubator project in full swing
Announcements:
Joan Michaud announced a fundraiser called the Ducky Dash to benefit Bare Necessities, Inc. which provides diapers for babies of low income families. More diapers means more frequent diaper changes (rather than waiting too long between changes due to low supply) and better skin health for the baby. The annual event takes place June 29 at the Indian River next to the Clinton Town Hall.The club approved a $75 sponsorship.
Bill O'Shaughnessy will be attending the district conference on May 18 in Meriden. He would like to see 4-5 people attend and learn about various new programs being offered. Please let Bill know if you can attend.
Program: Sam introduced our speaker OS Police Chief Michael Spera
Most people think Old Saybrook is a small town and some wonder why we have 25 full time police officers. Chief Spera told us why in an informative and well organized presentation showing, by the numbers, the need for this police force in Old Saybrook, the commercial hub of the shoreline. Emergencies constitute a big part of what the police do. Old Saybrook is not immune to the issues we see happening all over the country. As a small town, we just don't see the volume that a big city would. Private family matters, such as child sexual abuse, are kept out of the news and other public media. For first time juvenile offenders, Chief Spera has the discretion of diverting an arrest. He feels everyone can make a mistake and having a record at such a young age can have serious lifelong consequences so a second chance can keep someone on a straight path. Law enforcement nationwide is under a lot of scrutiny these days and Michael is concerned that this is keeping better candidates away from a career in law enforcement. He is seeing fewer applicants.The OS Police did about 24,000 things in 2018 including arrests for various infractions and alarm responses, assaults, burglary, damage/vandalism, motor vehicle accidents, etc. Chief Spera is concerned about the legalization of marijuana saying that more than 50% of all DUI arrests were marijuana and drug related, not alcohol. Because Old Saybrook is the hub of the shoreline, people come here to shop, enjoy our restaurants, the scenery, etc. This places a burden on town resources including the police department. The call center handled 46,981 calls in 2018, about 4300 were 911 calls. There were 3,361 motor vehicle citations of which 70% were from out of town. There were 508 criminal arrests where people had to be cuffed. The new police facility has 7 cells and they are frequently at or almost capacity.
Michael gave figures on traffic patterns and volume for different parts of town. The corner of Rt. 1 & 154 (Mystic Market) can see 24,000 cars in a 24 hour period. Old Saybrook has 93 food establishments and the WalMart garden center is their #1 center for all WalMart stores in the northeast. June is the most active month of the year, December the second most active in terms of car traffic. Police officers wear body cams now and Michael brought one and passed it around for us to see. They sync up with the car camera and turn on automatically when the officer exits the car. Michael showed videos taken by a body camera. It shows the difficulty of the job in making split second decisions that can have repercussions. Tasers have been introduced to the department with hesitation by Chief Spera but they can be invaluable in helping subdue an uncooperative and potentially dangerous person as we saw on a video. We also saw video of an auto theft and was told of the sequence of events that took place at two local dealerships on the same night. Despite being shorthanded, the arrests and apprehensions were made following a chase.
The police force is noticably young. There are 10 officers with less than 3 years on the force. Thats because several officers who were hired at the same time, retired at the same time. As Michael said earlier, it is difficult to find qualified people for this job and staffing and retention has posed a challenge. Chief Spera does not favor legalization of mariquana. It could lead to more accidents and uncooperative people who are getting questioned or arrested.
md
