Another busy month for the police department. With the July 4th celebrations and the Sandy Mountain Festival in the span of two weeks, your police were very busy. This years celebrations went very well. We had very few incidents during the celebrations. Our staff did a very good job of planning out these events. It’s always a bit stressful for everyone but this is when our staff performs well.

After the events is usually when many of our staff plan their vacations. This is also challenging for administration. We have to fill the vacant patrol slots while minimizing overtime expenditures when possible.

We are now getting closer to the end of the Estacada contract. October 1st will be the final day for police services there. We are currently planning schedule changes to be ready for that date. Our goal is to maximize our coverage here in Sandy. There will be some changes to current shifts to accomplish this. Also, council approved an additional School Resource Officer for the Oregon Trail School District. This was a welcome addition and I’m currently working with Superintendent Bayer regarding the schedule for the two officers we will have in our schools. This will allow for better coverage and additional police presence for our youth. The program has been a huge success thus far. The additional officer will start at the beginning of this school year.

June, the start of summer and with that, the police department is even more busy than usual. Summer programs and festivals are already being planned for with two of them this month alone. The Longest Day Parkway Ride was very successful and went off with very few issues for the police department. We also had Noah’s Quest the following weekend. These events put extra demands on your police department as they require additional security. This means posting additional officers at each event for traffic control, general security etc.. We are now planning for the Sandy Mountain Festival. We are looking forward to everyone attending to have fun and we are committed to providing them with a safe environment for families to come and enjoy the festivities.

I recently finished an updated security analysis for the Oregon Trail School District and presented that to their administration. It was a long process as it involved site visits to all schools in the district ending with a written report/presentation. It was received very well by the school district. We continue to have a great relationship with the district and they have been very open to suggested security changes. They really do take the safety of their students and staff very seriously. Additionally, I have been working with Superintendent Bayer for some time now regarding an additional School Resource Officer and we have come to an agreement that I am very happy with. I will be presenting that to council in July.

Schedule changes are being worked on in anticipation for the end of the contract with the City of Estacada. I am working with my admin staff on these issues in order to be ready when our officers are back in Sandy. The goal is to maximize our coverage here in Sandy with the resources we have.

Bring on the summer.

More news regarding an additional SRO for the Oregon Trail School District. I have finished working on this with Superintendent Bayer and we have come to an agreement that will soon be presented to council. This is great news for your police department. An additional officer in the schools is much needed to keep up with the growth of our school district and increase safety at our schools.

In other school related news, I am currently working on an updated security analysis for the entire school district. Site visits were completed recently and I am now working on the final report. That report will be submitted to Aaron Bayer when completed. In short, our school district has been doing an excellent job with safety and security.

We now have all officers back to work and no one currently out with injuries. As a result, I expect less overtime. This is crucial this time of year with summer events just around the corner. We are currently preparing for those events.

The contract for police services for the City of Estacada will officially end on October 1st of this year. I am currently working on any impacts this may have with our department. Budget concerns as a result of the loss of this contract are also being addressed.

With the Sandy Police Department moving away from the contract with the City of Estacada, our focus has been on the budget impacts as a result of the change. City Manager Yamashita has worked with our finance director and myself to minimize the effects of the budget shortfall this may cause. I am very pleased with all the hard work everyone is putting in for the good of our department.

We are in need of all the officers here in Sandy. Our community is growing at a pace that seems almost unbelievable, yet we have not increase our sworn officer number for quite some time. Bringing these officers back to Sandy represents a huge opportunity to increase police coverage and other opportunities that I have been working on for some time now. More on that later.

It seems we have had some terrible luck with injuries to officers lately. Just when one comes back to duty, another injury happens. Currently, Officer Kevin Way is out with a non work related injury and is slated to return to duty on May 18th. He is resting at home and doing well.

I have been working with Oregon Trail School District Superintendent Bayer for some time now regarding an additional School Resource Officer in Sandy. We have come to an agreement and will present that to council possibly in June. More to come on that as well. This is great news for our department and the school district.

Summer is just around the corner with the first major event happening in mid June. The police department is already preparing for this.

The schedule bump happens in September and March so officers are changing schedules according to what shifts they chose based on seniority. Its always a challenge for my administrative staff making the schedule work during the transition week but once again, they made it happen and all officers are in their new schedules until September when we will do it all again.

With the schedule bump, we were able to finally fill the vacant shift we had for the last six months. Officers Herrera and Wetherbee are both back to full duty and we are finally injury free, knock on wood. This will alleviate all the overtime the department accrued during the time when officers were injured. More importantly, it will take some of the pressure off of my staff from working many extra hours.

I have been working with City Administrator Carey with the city of Estacada on our current contract for some time now. As of the date of this report, the city of Sandy Police Department will no longer provide police services for the city of Estacada after 10/12/18 give or take a week or two. I met with Ms. Carey on 04/09/18 at which time we discussed how we could make this a smooth transition from our service to county service. I am obviously still working on budget issues created by this transition.

Recruit Officer Garrett Thornton graduated from the basic police academy on March 16th. He finished in the top five of his class and represented our city well. We expected no less. He is now in field training and is doing well. We expect him to be on solo duty sometime in early June of this year.

All members participated in active shooter training this month with the Port of Portland Police. The training was at PDX and provided officers an opportunity to practice the latest tactics and keep up their skills. The timing of the training was a bit ironic considering the aftermath of the tragic events in Florida. Your police department takes this training very seriously and I am committed to providing the necessary training to our officers.

Lt. Shawn Burns is now back to full duty which is a welcome relief to our management staff. Officer Manny Herrera is also returning to full duty soon. The officers are scheduled for our semi annual schedule bump and we will finally be able to fill the open weekend swing shift position again. We have been filling that position for the last six months with overtime and or a Sgt when they are on duty so this is also a welcome relief.

I am continuing to work with finance regarding the Estacada contract. As of this time, the contract is still set to expire in early October. My efforts are being focused on figuring out how to bring the three officers assigned to Estacada back to Sandy without any layoffs. More to come on that in the next few weeks.

As we have started the new year, there are new challenges in the upcoming months for the police department. Staffing issues mostly with officer injuries continue to plague the department. As stated before, Officer Herrera is now out with injury so the returning Officer Wetherbee was placed in Officer Herrera’s patrol shift. I was looking forward to being able to fill our weekend swing shift, a patrol slot that has been open since the middle of last year. The shift is currently being staffed with overtime and or a Sergeant when they are on duty. This has had a significant impact on my overtime budget but it cannot be helped at this time. Officer Herrera is doing well and will mostly likely be back in about two weeks but only for light duty.

In records department news, I am currently having an audit done by an outside contractor. I felt this was necessary to ensure proper records keeping in compliance with department policies and state and federal law. Proper records procedure is crucial to our mission here at the Sandy Police Department. I will review the report from the auditor when it is complete and inform council and the appropriate personnel of any changes that may take place as a result of that audit.

At the time of this writing, I am unsure what is going to happen with the Estacada Police Services contract. As you now know, the city of Estacada gave official notice of their intent to not renew the current contract for police services. I have began working with finance on my budget to prepare for this. It is unknown at this time whether Sandy PD will continue to provide police services for the city of Estacada after September of this year.

Even with all this activity, I am optimistic about this new year. We have had many challenges before and working together, have always found a way to solve whatever we are faced with.

In 2017, officers handled a total of 16,069 calls for service. That translates to 1,339 calls per month and an average of 43 calls per day.  As you can see, your officers were very busy in our growing community.

To begin, I’d like to apologize for this report being a bit late. With that out of the way, the police department continues to struggle a bit with staffing issues. Overtime is up and I have been concerned about the officers working so much overtime to cover the available and open shifts. Officer Wetherbee was cleared for duty recently but the injury of another officer put us back in the same situation. Its unclear at this time how long Officer Herrera will be out with his recent injury. Officer Herrera suffered the injury while trying to apprehend a suspect who ran from police. He is doing well and recovering although it may be several months before he is cleared to return to full duty.

Officer Garrett Thornton continues to do very well in the academy. I am getting regular updates on his performance and he is representing our agency very well. He is scheduled to graduate in March of this year and will then continue his field training after graduation.

Lt. Shawn Burns is also dealing with a back injury and is not cleared for full duty at this time. There is no time table for his return as of right now. Lt. Burns is working in a light duty capacity with limited hours at this time.

On a more personal note, I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday season and wish you a happy new year.

Ahhh, the holiday season begins. To much turkey and not enough sleep. I hope all of you are enjoying this season as much as I am. Some good news to report for the police department this month. We were notified of the status of our COPS grant application and I’m pleased to inform everyone the city of Sandy Police Department was awarded a grant. The award documents have been signed as of now but we are still in the planning phase of this project. The grant itself, $125,000, is for a new officer to be hired by our department. There are, of course, stipulations to the grant award. If the award is excepted by our city, we are responsible the remaining two years of salary for a total of a three year obligation. Of course it is our intent to hire someone and keep them on permanently. The funds the city is responsible for are not in the current budget so I plan to meet soon with the city manager and other city officials to work on this project.

I’d like to thank Sgt. Sean Lundry for dedicating so much of his time with our COPS grant project. He worked diligently on all the federal forms and writing that is required when submitting the grant for consideration. The city of Sandy is one of just a few agencies that received the grant award. I’m very proud of that. Great job Sgt. Lundry.

Lt. Burns had a recent injury that led to him being out for the last couple of weeks. He is recovering and already back at work on a limited basis. The prognosis is good and I’m hoping he will be back to full time within the next two weeks.

I had my first update on Officer Garrett Thornton who is at the police academy for the basic course. He is doing well with all of his studies and training and near the top of his class. Way to go Officer Thornton. We are excited for him to graduate and start his field training here early next year.

Officer Garret Thornton was sworn in on October 2nd and started his work schedule with the Police Department on that day. Officer Thornton is our newest full time police officer and was formerly one of our reserve officers. He is excited to have the opportunity and we are all happy to have him as the newest member of our department. Officer Thornton began his field training immediately and has just started the police academy in Salem. He will spend 16 weeks at the Basic Academy before coming back to us to continue with his field training. We are hoping to complete all of his training by April of 2018.

An update on our fleet. All of our new vehicles are in the rotation with the exception of one, our code enforcement van. Code Enforcement Officer Moody anxiously awaits the arrival. The current vehicle he is driving is old, not safe and certainly not fuel efficient. The new van has shipped and we are waiting for it to be delivered to our upfitter for the appropriate equipment to be installed. We hope to have the vehicle on the road before the end of the year.

In other news, our own Officer Wetherbee is still on light duty. We are hoping to have him back to full duty by February of 2018. This has put a strain on our already short staff. He is doing well but is excited to get back to his duties as school resource officer for our department.