Hello Mayor and council members. As the summer is winding down, we are still feeling the heat out there. Our recent wind storm brought back some memories, not good ones, of the same type of wind event we had in 2020 that resulted in the major fires we will not soon forget. It was a bit strange that it happened again during the same week as before. Fortunately, we did not see the same fire events that we saw in 2020. Still, it put a strain on some of our resources as PGE performed a public safety power shutdown in much of the Mt. Hood corridor. This included a very small portion of homes that were in the city limits of Sandy. Some of the folks that live up the mountain had no power for days. To my knowledge, this was the first time that PGE has done this in our area. Most of my weekend during that incident was spent in meetings with PGE staff and other emergency managers throughout the area. There were some lessons learned, mostly with communications and public advisory issues.
Our three vehicles have finally arrived and have been delivered to the business we use to install all of the equipment. The problem now is were still waiting on some of the parts that are needed to complete the installation of all the lighting, radios, cages etc. They are hopeful they can begin installation by October 31st. If everything goes according to plan, we should see the vehicles in service by the end of November. This has put a strain on our current aging fleet as half of our patrol vehicles are 2014 models and have high miles and increasing mechanical issues. This delay in delivery of our vehicles was mostly COVID related as the manufactures struggled to keep up with demand while dealing with the shortage of certain critical electrical parts.
Our newest recruit, Scott Jones is now in the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training basic police academy. This academy is 16 weeks. Officer Jones completed a pre-academy in Multnomah County before going to DPSST basic police academy. It’s a long road with training. Officer Jones is scheduled to graduate from the academy on January 19th, 2023. After completing the academy, he will begin the field training with our staff that will last anywhere from 12 to 14 weeks. So far, he is doing very well.
School is back in session which means our School Resource Officers are back in the classrooms at the Oregon Trail School District. They are very excited and busy. The kids seem to be happy to back to a somewhat normal school year. Speaking of our SRO’s, we now have a revised/updated contract with the District which will be presented to council during a work session at the November 17th meeting. This process took a bit longer than previous contract negotiations as there were some significant financial changes made. I am excited to present the new contract for council review.
That is all for now. See all of you soon. Chief Roberts