In April, we continued to work on getting our new software “RegJIN” up and running.  The biggest task now is re-devising our processes to work with the new software.  Staff is working long hours and having to ensure processes produce the products that we want.

On April 15, 2015 we completed a department wide fire arms qualification.  Everyone did well.  There were three officers unable to attend and make up will be schedule for them in the near future.

Chief Yamashita participated in science  programs at both Kelso Middle School and Firwood Elementary.  At Firwood, she was a judge and enjoyed seeing the brilliant minds of the students at work.  At Kelso, she did a presentation on how police use science in their jobs.

We have spent the better part of March sending staff to training in preparation of our April 14th Go-Live date for RegJIN. Everyone had to attend a minimum of a four day class for the training. We also have three officers, Olmos, Coates and Hodges assigned as trainers and subject matter experts. They attended two weeks of training and have been helping with classes. Diane Reed will be our system administrator.

New reserve officer Garrett Edmonds joined us in March and is well on his way to getting up to speed on our procedures and policies. He seems like a very good fit.

We continue to work with OTSD to finalize emergency management programs. We are also starting the same programs with the Estacada School District. Their hands on training begins in May.

We conducted Emergency Vehicle Operations Course training (EVOC) in February.  We structure our training based on the last years history of accidents and mishaps.  In our case we had a few slow speed backing accidents in 2014.  The course was set up and instruction given by Officer Kevin Way, our EVOC instructor.  What is particularly noteworthy about this training is the cost.  We had a few hours of overtime and fuel but that was it.  We conducted the training on a Saturday, using a small portion of the Sand High School parking lot.

We also continued work with Estacada in our efforts to find funding for a School Resource Officer.  I completed a draft IGA between the school district and city and am awaiting responses.

ADMINISTRATION

We have all been training in the new RegJIN software.  The classes run about a week long and are requiring we use overtime to back fill while the officers are in training.  I will say however, that after having received the training I am very excited about this new software and what it may mean for the regions LE agencies.

Officers Herrera and Olmos responded to the school shooting at Reynolds HS last year. As a thank you from students and staff  have been asked them to attend a “Hero’s Banquet” in honer of all responding officers, EMS and Fire Fighters.  I am very proud of these fine officers for being willing to run to the aid of others.

Officer Willcox, is training with Officer Bickle while he waits for his turn to go to the DPSST Academy on March 23, 2015.  He is doing well thus far and is proving to be a good addition to our team.

Our call history shows that our call volume is down a little over last year.  The graph below shows the trend over the last five years.  This is SANDY calls only and does not include the work being done in Estacada.  That will include that information in subsequent report when we have been at it a little longer and have several years for comparison

What the future holds:

In the years prior to Chief Yamashita’s arrival, several large regional projects were deferred most likely as a result of the financial and political climates at the time.  Regardless of the reasons, the “bill” has come due on several large regional or multi-regional projects.

Computer Aided Dispatching (CAD) – CAD is the software that our 911 centers use to dispatch police and fire to 911 calls for service.  The system currently being used is no longer supported by the company (Tiburon).  The Clackamas County Communication Center (CCOM) did an RFP and compared vendors, products and prices.  The board making the decision, opted to stay with Tiburon and we are in the process of upgrading the software.  As you can imagine, this also required upgrading a lot of the hardware.  We knew this was coming a few years ago and set aside a small amount of money, with the plan of doing so each budget until the bill came due.  Currently, it appears that a large portion of our costs will be offset by Grant funding.

Digital Radio Systems – Our current radio system is a C-800 system, which was an upgrade from the originally analog or VHF systems used.  Many of the requirements for changing our communication are brought on legislatively and deal with the ability to communicate across multiple disciplines and jurisdictions.  Known as “Interoperability”, these requirements forced us to upgrade several years ago to the system we have today.  When completed over a decade ago, the hardware infrastructure of this system was state of the art.  Today, the system is falling apart.  Technicians are literally buying used parts off of craigslist and other sites in order to make repairs.  Over the last year or two we have seen a huge uptick in communication issues and the need to take parts of the system down for repair.  The only fix available to us now, is to replace the ENTIRE radio system for the Clackamas and Washington Counties.  The cost on this program is huge.  The Sandy PD portion alone will run between 1 and 1.68 million dollars.  That price does NOT include the cost of the new radios themselves.  As a group it was decided to go to the voters and ask for a bond.  The estimated cost of the bond to all tax payers, depending on the level of equipment we purchase will be between a few cents a thousand all the way to about $.15 cents a thousand.  We will undoubtedly need everyone’s help in getting this bond passed because the only other alternative at this time is to self-fund the project by taking out loans.  That will require an annual debt to the City of approx. $100,000 to $168,000 dollars annually, for ten years.

Possible Changes to the Estacada Police Services Contract – Estacada has a full time Code Enforcement officer that has been in poor health and likely unable to return to work.  I was approached by the city to come up with an amendment to our police serveries contract that would allow them to contract for full time code enforcement services form SPD.  That contract currently is under review by Mr. Doughman.  I would hire an additional CEO, to fill that role.  As with the original contract, I would ask that they guarantee the position for a long enough period of time (2 or 3 years) to ensure that the employee would be able to be re-absorbed by the City of Sandy, should the contract work end.

Estacada School Resource Officer – The ESD has asked for a school resource officer.  We have been working with both the ESD and the City of Estacada to finalize a plan that allows both of those agencies to split the cost of the SRO.  I draft agreement has been completed and is under review by Mr. Doughman.  That agreement would be for a minimum of three years.

Benefits to SANDY – Both of the Estacada contract services discussed here, would benefit Sandy.  First the SRO would be a day shift officer, covering mostly the school but available for calls during his/her shift.  The two contract officers would then work more of a night shift allowing for better coverage of Estacada then we get under the current 80 hour contract.  The benefit to Sandy comes when officers assigned to Sandy don’t have to cover calls in Estacada during non-contract hours.  The addition of the Code Enforcement officer will allow for vacation coverages when either the Sandy or Estacada Code Enforcement officer is away.  This two frees up patrol staff that would otherwise cover for code enforcement during vacation.

Property Room Monthly Report (Juli Smith)

Items Received:              36                                               Year To Date:                 36

Items Purged:                   47                                               Year To Date:                 47

Total EOQ Items Since Inception 2012:                                                                        2,516

Total EOQ Purged:                                                                                                  1,148

Total EOQ Items In Inventory                                                                               1,368

Property still in CLASSWeb as of January 2015 = 1,420     End of Month =  1,415

Trips to Crime Lab:                                     1

Number of Items Submitted:                   7                        Year To Date:                          7

Sales:   The Property Room had sales of $15.00 this month.  Yearly sales total $15.00.

• $339.00 in Property Room funds were transferred to City Hall.

• Backpacks exceeded storage space and were purged.

• Clothing laundered and donated to Action Center.

• One court appearance this month.

• The Krogstad car from a cleared manslaughter case stored at the City Shops, was released, freeing up storage space and allowing for an upcoming cleaning at the Shops. .

We closed out 2014 by taking 14,070 calls for service which is up from the 12,647 from 2014.

Officers made 3623 traffic stops in 2014 compared to 3931 last year.  I suspect traffic stops were down a little because call volume was up.

We continue to do community outreach, particularly with schools and kids groups.  Here is a picture of Officer Herrera visiting one of our Head Start Schools.  I am not sure which “kid” had the most fun, but suspect it was Officer Herrera.

In an effort to clear up some property room space, Juli Smith decided to try to hold a sale of bikes. Her thought was that we could offer bikes and scooters at very reasonable prices. She chose this time of year thinking that there may be some families that could benefit form this opportunity. Boy was she right. We had a grandfather come in and pick up two bikes for his grand kids. He wanted to keep the bikes at his house for when they visit. He explained that they had outgrown the bikes they have. Another single mother, working four jobs, was allowed to put a down payment on the bikes she needed for her kids. We worked with her and were able to get her two really nice, look like new, bikes for the holidays. We spread good cheer, helped a few folks out and made a little money for the city all at the same time. Win-win-win!

Administration

The Generator failed to fire during a power outage and a diagnostic service was performed. A sensor was found to be at fault and a simple override procedure can be used to have it start should it happen again.

Sgt. Burns has been in contact with the Portland VA in an effort to help them meet and have contact with any homeless veterans that may be in our area. He has collaborated with many of the local churches.

As laws change so must our procedures. As a result of requirements established by the District Attorney’s office regarding our interviews with suspects we have added a new camera. The new camera is located in our interview room upstairs. This system is a closed loop system that will allow us to audio and video record our interviews as needed. Because it is a closed loop system, we do not need to worry about hackers gaining access or other tampering. We can burn CD’s/DVD’s and thumb drivers directly from the system and submit them to the district attorney or others as needed.

Sandy Police Officers will be taking patrol shifts in Molalla during the MPD Christmas party in December. They will reciprocate as needed. These types of details are always fun for staff and gives them a change of pace.

Training

On November 8th, the SPD participated in a Firearms training that incorporated the Taser. We practiced decision making and transition skills.

All the officers have been trained on dealing with aggressive dogs. The training is free and put on by the Department of Justice. It can all be done on-line.

Evidence (Juli Smith)

 Items Received:              43                                             Year To Date:               698

Items Purged:                   24                                             Year To Date:               472

Total EOQ Items Since Inception 2012:                                                              2,405

Total EOQ Purged:                                                                                                1,027

Total EOQ Items In Inventory                                                                               1,378

Trips to Crime Lab:                                                                                                      2

Number of Items Submitted:                 15                   Year To Date:                       115

Sales:   The Property Room had sales of $15.00 this month.  Yearly sales total $190.00.

• All ammunition for destruction was turned in to Clackamas County Bomb Squad.

• All old tires for the Crown Victoria units no longer in service were cleared from the City Shops and sent to Les Schwab for recycling, clearing up space at the Shops.

• Letter sent to Krogstad with timeline for claiming/removing the car involved in a manslaughter case from the Shops.  This will also clear up valuable space.

• CLASSweb cases being researched and evidence being destroyed has been whittled from 3,740 items down to 1,420 items over the past 3 years.  Work continues on the more difficult cases.

• Two firearms stolen from Sandy in June 2013 were picked up from Portland Police. It took several months to get them cleared and prove that they were from the Sandy theft.  One had never been entered into LEDS/NCIC as a serial number was not provided by the owner.  I had enough descriptors to prove to Portland Detectives that the gun belonged to our victim.

Oregon Trail School/Sandy PD Cooperative Program  –

We had a busy month in October.  A lot of our time was spent in finishing up our projects with the Oregon Trail School District.  We completed a Table Top exercise with administrative staff of the OTSD.  We finalized plans that will aid both first respondents and the district in the event that a school needs to be evacuated and students reunited with their parents.  We also finished up the last of the Active Shooter Training; now each school and every employee has been trained.  Lastly, we also conducted Active Shooter training with the OTSD Board.  The board members were given an over view of the program.  Their training included an opportunity to get physical and try some of the techniques.  The program is very well received and we have branched out to include other agencies and private business.

Out last project to complete for the OTSD was another vulnerability assessment of the facilities.  As council may remember, shortly after I arrived in Sandy I completed an initial assessment of all the schools in the OTSD.  Since that assessment, the OTSD has made sweeping changes to school security.  With those changes and the training completed, it was time to complete another assessment of the OTSD.  That was completed at the end of October, the final report is pending.  I can tell you that the work done by OTSD has been wonderful and has greatly improved the safety of our students.

Safe Guarding Our History – The Sandy Police Department had maintained paper reports as far back as the 1970’s.  Those reports were in paper form and stored in our storage garage at the Public Works center.  This was concerning.  In the event of a flood or other disaster, those records would be lost, or worse, blown around the neighborhood for others to access.  To eliminate this liability we hired back retired SPD employee Sandy Lopez for a few months each year for the last couple of years.  She has been busy scanning all of those paper files into Laser-phish and shredding the original paper copies.  I am happy to report she finished that  task this month.  She scanned and shredded four decades of police reports into a searchable, usable, backed up electronic system.  Once that huge task was complete she moved on to other documents I felt important to have in this format.  Old law suits, agreements and other documents it is important that we maintain in a safe, reliable way.

Building issues – Julie Smith and Shawn Burns have been working on a few issues related to the building.  The electronic back door was not locking when it should, the sewer was backing up and we have a problem with the generator.  I guess we are still working on the bugs in the “new” building.  The door was corrected with some new hardware, the sewer issue was corrected by a great plumber and the generator issue is pending.

Training – 

All of the staff have been taking free on-line training.  The sworn staff as taken training provided by Department of Justice on dealing with aggressive dogs.  You  can Google, “dog shot by police” and find several stories that lead to police liability.  Trying to mitigate that issue, we thought the training would be helpful.  We learned how to approach aggressive dogs using body language and other tools to keep the dog calm.  The training also provided alternative uses of force, such as a fire extinguisher, bite stick and others.  We have also continued to use the free On-line training provided by CIS and Lexipol.  Using these free sources of training have made it possible to meet our training needs without a negative impact to the budget.

September started off pretty standard until the 36-Pit Fire was ignited.  Estacada and Sandy Officers spent 436 hours working security at Timber Park in an “Over Watch” position.  We spent time making sure that the personal and professional equipment at the park was secure and monitored who went in and out.  All of the hours are reimbursable by the USFS under a special agreement I was able to work out at the start of the fire.  I was also able to have conversation with Mt. Hood USFS staff and they told, based on our good work and cooperation with them, they wanted to have an agreement in place for other events that may arise in the future.  SPD Staff stayed in touch with EFD, USFD and other agencies to ensure that no evacuation of the town itself would be needed.  Preliminary plans for an evacuation were considered just in case.  While a devastating situation, the silver lining was the opportunity look at our emergency plans, staffing and supplies and consider what we need to have for future events.  We were, overall, pretty prepared and the the fire had minimal impact on service to our Sandy residents as the work done was on reimbursable overtime.

We continued to participate in the new RegJin work group.  As council may remember, we signed an IGA several months ago.  The IGA was non-binding but allowed us a place holder should we opt to participate.  Also as a reminder, RegJin is a new records management system that will be in use over a five county area.  As of last week, Clackamas County SO was the last agency to decide to participate.  With them coming on board, it is now every law enforcement agency in Clark, Washington, Multnomah,  and Clackamas County.   Marion County will be the fifth county and will come on next year.  Given the participation by all other LE agencies we feel that we just can’t ignore the wonderful opportunities that this data sharing will provide.  We will transition from our current Records Management System (EForce) in RegJin sometime in April of 2015.  There is minimal start up cost and the maintenance/participation fees are very similar to our annual maintenance fee with EForce so the budgetary impact should be low.  As you can imagine a project of this size is slow moving.  We are currently in the planning stages that will allow us to train over 5000 police officers and support staff in a logical and organized manner.

Code Enforcement

It was a busy month for Officer Moody.  He took in 33 new complaints and cleared 38.  He took two dogs to the county, placed the radar trailer at several locations and wrote 19 reports.   He also wrote 23 tickets this month, mostly for expired tags/illegal parking.  He also continues to work as our court bailiff.

 Administration – Chief Yamashita

I received a letter from the prosecuting attorney’s office regarding the fatal accident we had several months ago.  As you will recall a gentleman was hit and killed in the area of Beers and Hood Streets.   The officers that worked the case did an outstanding job; providing the DA with what they needed.  The suspect agreed to a plea deal that will require that he spend the next 85 months in prison. The victims family was very satisfied with the outcome.

On the 28th we held a blood drive.  Our goals were for 40 attendees with 27 pints donated.  We had all 40 available slots filled, and we were able to collect 34 pints.

Diane Reed continues to work on the alarm permit program.  Overall most folks are getting the problem resolved with warnings.  One business in town had several violations and refused to get a permit for quite some time.  Fines were issued and the problems are all resolved. Overall alarm calls are down, meeting program goals.

We have a range day planned for our quarterly training and I would like to invite council to come along.  If you are interested please contact Chief Yamashita.  The range is scheduled for Wednesday September 17th.

All of the new police cars are on line and being enjoyed by officers and citizens alike.  We are still getting double takes as the cars move through the streets.  We thank the council for allowing us to update our fleet.

We also are now in compliance with the proper software, utilizing the new Getac Tablets.  They are much better than the laptops and meet the federal requirements for security.

Evidence/Property Room  – Juli Smith

Items Received:              50                                               Year To Date:               486

Items Purged:                   34                                               Year To Date:               233

Total EOQ Items Since Inception 2012:                                                                2,200

Total EOQ Purged:                                                                                                     949

Total EOQ Items In Inventory                                                                                  1251

(Numbers for items received and purged include only cases logged into EvidenceOnQ. Purging  on ClassWeb cases continues but is not included in the count)

Trips to Crime Lab:                                   1

Number of Items Submitted:                 12                 Year To Date:                        73

 Sales:   The Property Room had sales of $75.00 this month.  Yearly sales total $165.00.

• Worked with Lebanon Police Department for the return of property to a citizen visiting our area.
• Initiated a new Drug Scale program for patrol.  Scales turned in on drug cases that have been cleared are being cleaned and issued to officers for use in the field taking rough weights.  First scales given out and 5 officers next in line.
• Took in property that was not accepted by Troutdale PD.  The resident was a Multnomah County citizen.  Was able to return items of value in under 24 hours from receiving it.  Owner was the ex-State Treasurer for the State of Oregon who stated “this restores my faith in humanity”.

Administration – The Sandy PD wrote 207 reports in July after responding to over 800 calls in Sandy and a little over 200 in Estacada.

We have been working with several business owners regarding the smell of marijuana coming from other business or residences near the businesses.  While the users have medical marijuana cards they hare smoking in violation of the Clean Air Act, however, according to ORS we are not allowed to enforce the Clean Air Act.  I did read case law that allows us to do our own Ordinance.  You should see that coming soon.

We are gearing up for our annual training with the Oregon Trail School District.  We are also having meetings and organizing an exercise to put our training and plans to the test.  I will keep you posted on dates and times, as you may want to observe.

Code Enforcement- Code Enforcement Officer Moody responded to 37 new code complains this month.  He also had three dog bite complaints.  He wrote 12 citations and 16 reports.  He also caught two people applying graffiti to city property.  Their case is pending in court.