By MELINDA J. OVERSTREET
for Glasgow News 1
Glasgow’s police and fire chiefs each expect new arrivals of entirely different natures over the next few weeks.
The police department is getting a staff position only recently created and the fire department has a new truck in production that’s been anticipated for a couple of years. Plus, both are welcoming new regular personnel.
The items were highlighted during a meeting of the Glasgow Common Council Public Safety Committee earlier this week.
Lucas Tinsley, chief of the Glasgow Fire Department, said the construction of the department’s new ladder truck – a midmount aerial apparatus – is in the final stages.
“We are anticipating probably about a month out from it being in service here in Glasgow,” he said.
Four members of the department were flying to Wisconsin, where it is being assembled, this week for the final inspection once it comes off the production line.
“They will have a couple of days up there going over that truck with a fine-toothed comb to make sure that it meets all the specifications that we had … and looking really good before they sign off on approval of that,” Tinsley said.
He said the truck will be in Wisconsin a few more days after that for any final touches or changes that need to be made, and then it will go for a couple of weeks to Shelbyville, where a few features will be added before they’ll take delivery here, where tools and other equipment will be added to the truck and firefighters will have three days of training on it.
“So that’s exciting,” he said. “We’re in queue for the engine, so it’s not hit the production floor yet.”
Anticipated delivery for that one is around the end of this year or very early next year.
“We’ll have a substantial fleet once we get those two trucks in,” the chief said. “Our oldest apparatus will be year model 2017, so we’ll be sitting very, very good as far as apparatus are concerned.”
He passed around some pages with photos of the new ladder truck on them. He pointed out that the ones they have now have rear-mounted ladders, and with this new midmount, the base of the ladder comes just behind the cab of the truck as it extends as much as 100 feet in length. He added that it has an elevated platform and bucket at the end of it as well, which will better secure anyone working on it, and two hose nozzles come from the end of the ladder, so as long as the supply is good, “you can put a whole lot of water out.”
“So we’ll actually have some better reach and not quite have as many positioning problems because of the extended reach,” Tinsley said.
Councilman Freddie Norris, committee chair, asked whether they could cover just about any building in town with it, and Tinsley offered as an example the courthouse, where it could put guys on the roof. Currently, there’s only one place they can park to do that, and it just barely gets them there. Now they’ll be able to park farther away and still have better reach, he said.
Depending on parking and time-of-day issues, he said, he doesn’t anticipate being able to access any of the current buildings here.
Councilman Tommy Burris asked whether the new ladder truck will have anchors or jacks, and Tinsley said they are called riggers or outriggers. The center area of the truck will have two riggers that extend to the sides of the truck, and the front and rear will each have two riggers that come straight down, he said. These help provide stability to the truck as the weight of the ladder extends in different directions.
Burris asked whether it will require all new tools and equipment. Tinsley said the new aerial will rotate the current Ladder 4 truck out of service. It is a reserve vehicle, so items from it will be moved to Ladder 2, which will become the reserve, and items from it will go to the new truck. The chief said he thinks they can mostly equip the new one from the older trucks, but they need to keep a certain level of items on the older ones to reduce any time spent switching if the need arises.
Tinsley also reported he has two new employees who had just started their second week of training in Greenville and have 12 more weeks to go, and he was expecting good results upon their return. He said those two guys were with the department about two weeks before they left for training, and he believes they’re really good candidates and will be excited to have them back.
Police department
Glasgow Police Department Chief Guy Howie said that in last year’s budget, they had talked about a nonsworn position of social worker/victim advocate.
“We’re seeing increasing challenges as it relates to noncriminal calls for service that are more of a quality-of-life issue that falls back on homelessness, mental health issues, drug problems, that lead to all these issues, your sworn officers are not equipped to deal with those sorts of problems and be able to follow up and provide the resources that they need,” he said.
He had looked at other agencies that implemented a program with this type of position and found them to be very successful, he said.
Howie listed some of the responsibilities this person would have, such as crisis intervention, some case management, resource coordination to help guide people through what’s available, support and training of officers, provide de-escalation techniques, community outreach and networking with other agencies, support, guidance and education about the justice system for victim witnesses, and the roles within that system.
“This is a pilot program that we want to implement, for a 12- to 18-month program, to evaluate the impact that it’ll have on our community,” Howie said.
He said that in addition to the salary and benefits for this person, they would include some money for training and development plus operational costs as well. A portion of the funds could come through reallocating other department funds, but using funds available to the city from what is referred to as the opioid settlement – an agreement stemming from a lawsuit against opioid manufacturers – is what he was hoping to accomplish.
He said programs like this are an approved use of those funds and, in fact, may be one of the best ways to use them.
The chief then deferred to City Attorney Rich Alexander, who reminded the members that the mayor has the authority to create new job positions by executive order, and he had previously signed such an order that created this one. That order had also established the job description, according to a notice last month.
He said the full council was being asked to use the opioid settlement funds, and the committee was asked to make that recommendation to the council. Alexander said he had double-checked that this was an approved use of the funds.
Councilman James “Happy” Neal asked what happens when those funds run out, and Howie said at that point, after the pilot trial, the money would need to come through the city’s normal revenue sources.
Mayor Henry Royse said there are very specific documentation requirements attached to using that money.
Councilwoman Elizabeth Shoemaker asked whether this person would be driving anyone anywhere, and Howie said they would not be responsible for transporting anyone.
The conversation continued with questions about qualifications, other cities that have such a program, hours of availability, and other related topics.
Howie said that using the opioid funds allows them to see how well it would work before using taxpayer funds to do it.
“If it doesn’t work, we’ll back up and punt and go from there,” he said, “but I only foresee success out of it.”
The four council members on the committee voted unanimously to recommend using the opioid settlement funds for the program to the full council, which met minutes after this group and also unanimously approved it.
Howie said he had made two conditional offers of employment that day and expected to make two more offers later in the month, contingent on polygraph testing conducted by the Kentucky Department of Criminal Justice Training, and he was interviewing a lateral candidate – someone who’s already trained – the following day. Provided those all come through, that would bring him up to full staff.
The police chief said they had five replacement police-interceptor vehicles in the budget for this fiscal year, and he ordered all hybrids to try out that are “operationally on the road.”
“Early results appear that they are getting 4 to 5 miles more to the gallon than that of the straight gas engines, so we’re pretty excited about that,” Howie said.
He added that when officers drive through neighborhoods at low speeds, the electric engine kicks in, “and you can’t hear them coming, so it’s pretty interesting, and if they’re sitting there idling, they’re using the electric engine and not the gas engine. So, early indications appear that they’re going to work out real well, so with our next vehicle replacement this year, we’ll – if the indication continues that they’re saving money and gas and wear and tear – then we’ll probably do the hybrid vehicles again.”
Howie said the department had already been working with the county schools for back-to-school traffic, and it was in “full readiness mode” for when Glasgow Independent Schools started its academic year Tuesday and athletic events.
After a few questions and comments from Norris about traffic-safety concerns along Scottie Way, the conversation moved along.
Cigar bar?
As the other business wrapped up, Royse said this committee seemed to be the most logical of the council committees to address the subject. He said he has consistently received a request from someone who would like the council to consider changing the city’s tobacco-use ordinance to allow for the operation of a cigar bar.
Alexander said Campbellsville has a no-smoking ordinance but approved an exception for that possibility and some other cities have proposed them, but they’ve also gotten voted down in some cities, he said.
Norris suggested putting it on the agenda for the next regular meeting, which is in October, for a closer look.
“I certainly would not support it, because I was behind the no-smoking,” he said, but he added he would be open to hearing more information about it.
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