This week, we handled 821 calls for service. Of these calls there were: 24 accidents, 51 - 9-1-1 hang up calls, 29 disturbance calls (domestic or other), 38 traffic complaints, 18 assists of other agencies, 190 traffic stops, 39 arrests, 3 missing or runway persons and 3 abandoned vehicles. So, as you can see, another busy week!
Also this week, in an effort to clear an abundance of Rolla Municipal arrest warrants, Central Dispatch has issued a challenge to each shift of the Patrol Division to attempt to clear by service, as many of the warrants as they can before the deadline of May 15th. So far, the telecommunicators are in the lead with 10 warrants cleared as compared to the Patrol Division’s 3. We will keep you posted on the progress. Rolla Municipal warrants are arrest warrants issued by the municipal court for defendants charged with a violation of Rolla city ordinances.
On Wednesday of this week, Cpt. Jason Smith and Lt. Jim Macormic traveled to Springfield, Missouri for the annual Missouri Intergovernmental Risk Management Association (MIRMA) Employment Practices Seminar. The seminar covered topics having to do with Police Personnel Management such as Hiring and Firing, Employee Discipline, Sexual Harassment and Discrimination, Employee Rights and Expectations and many other topics. Guest speakers on the preceding topics included Vanessa Cavalla who is the account executive for the HELPLINE program for MIRMA, W. Dudley Carter, who is a principle in the St. Louis based law firm of Behr, McCarter and Potter, P.C., and Richard Behr of the same firm who has over 17 years of experience defending professional negligence cases including medical and legal malpractice. The seminar was a one day event hosted by MIRMA.
At last Monday’s City Council meeting we had the opportunity to say goodbye to retiring city council members, Ward 3 Representative Sue Eudaly and Ward 6 representative Donna Hawley! I would like to personally thank each of these women for their time and dedicated service to not only the citizens in their respective Wards, but also to the entire City of Rolla. Thank you ladies for your service. We also had the opportunity to welcome 2 newly elected council members Geoffrey Horning who will be representing Ward 3 and to Tony Bahr who will be representing Ward 6. We welcome you to city government and appreciate your interest in serving the citizens of Rolla. Welcome aboard! In other business, the city council approved to allow the Rolla Police Department to apply for several Missouri Department of Transportation grants, which will enable the police department to conduct driving while intoxicated enforcement operations, hazardous moving violation enforcement operations and also provide funding for necessary equipment such as radar units, in-car camera systems and possibly traffic enforcement vehicles. In 2009 the Rolla Police Department received $25,000.00 in traffic grants. This year we received $45,000 in grants and for 2011 our requests will exceed $95,000.00
In support of Operation F.R.I.E.N.D (Forming Relationships in Each Neighborhood) and the Neighborhood Watch Program we will be announcing dates and locations of our upcoming Town Hall Neighborhood Watch/CERT informational exchange meetings. For Operation F.R.I.E.N.D. the entire city was divided up into 32 individual “beats” or districts and then an officer was assigned to each district. The focus of the operation was for each officer to become familiar with the layout, citizenry and day to day life practice of the residents within the district. The officer would spend as much time as possible in their assigned areas to be better in tune with what criminal element the area was most susceptible to realize. These 32 districts were then included in much larger Neighborhood Watch “Zones” that were created by dividing the City of Rolla into 3 somewhat equal areas. During the month of May, we will hold a Neighborhood Watch/CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) meeting in each of the 3 “Zones” that are free and open to the public. Topics discussed will be the Neighborhood Watch Program, the advantages, philosophies and why they work, and also to introduce the CERT program that will offer training to everyday citizens such as Fire Safety, Disaster Medical Operations and Light Search and Rescue Operations. We hope we can better prepare a core group of citizens to be ready to take action in the event of a catastrophic situation where professional emergency services responders may not be able to be on scene immediately! We will announce the Town Hall meeting dates and locations next week!
In closing, we would like to recognize and congratulate this week’s Employee Spotlight Amanda Jones! Up until Saturday, Amanda was known as Amanda Rogers! On Saturday she married Ron Jones who is an officer with the St. James Police Department. Amanda and Ron stay busy with Ron’s daughter Allie and Amanda’s nieces Cadey and Elizabeth. Amanda is a graduate of St. James High School and most of her family lives in Vichy, Missouri. Amanda does a great job keeping everything under control on the evening shift. Though she has only been here since July of 2008, Amanda has progressed quickly. Amanda does a great job with her callers and is able to keep her cool through the most stressful situations. She has had the misfortune of working in dispatch the night her house caught on fire. Though she did not take the initial call, you can imagine how stressful that must have been. She was able to keep her cool and continue working until we could get a back - up dispatcher in to take over for her! She is truly a professional and we are proud to have her on our Central Communications team!
We would like to congratulate the new Mr. & Mrs. Ron Jones and we wish them both the best!
Have a great week!
Chief Mark Kearse
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