6/24/1987 BOARD OF SELECTMEN Minutes

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I i } 1 • y I 4 t I Board of Selectmen Page Five Regular Meeting Wednesday, June 24, 1987 the Department Head is the Harbormaster and what we 're saying is the Chief of Police , the Deputy Chief and other supervisors in the Police Department do not want to be liable for Zack of supervision or lack of training of these men because they have police appointments of the Police Department unlike the Harbormaster. . .their authority comes from another area of the general laws . If you find it within your powers as the Board of Selectmen to get together with the Harbormaster and appoint these two gentlemen as Assistant Harbor- masters , that's p to you. What we 're saying is cont .rning appoint- ments Of Spec .al police officers ,, we would be remiss as Mead of the Department and Assistant Head of the Department not to bring this to yourattention because it is a reality and not just what you might think isn' t a problem. You do have an AssistantHarbor-. master appointed who is working the John's Pond area. if you feed, there should be more waterways patrol, I think at this particular tine. . .the Police Department is not divesting ,itself o responsi- bilityon the waterways , we will assist the Harbormaster if he needs it and in a lot of cases , he may need it; but for the Police Depart- ment to have patrols out there now, whether it's a. regular, police officer or a special, vire do not have the money and we cannot provide training". Deputy Chief Cooper said that waterways police have been paid for their services on occasion and they have also gone out and taken it upon themselves to work without compensation. "But we are liable for injuries and r IIZ-F which is S-trlictly for police officers andfor any type of disabilities and may also be held liable for any training. . .Police Department, Police Chief, Supervisors and it can all the way to the Police Commissioners which is the Board of Select- men. Special police in6luding waterways police initiallyreceived sometraining but i they haven't .act any up-date raining b cause . . . w will be cut this year, but re years past, we were level-funded. . . we couldn' t mage up the training. We 've only got three sergeants who are the ones who conduct the training for the most part which includes making up lesson plans and up-date different things so there 's lot of preparation bes.odes conducting the class itself"'* Waterways police work mostly on J'ohn's Pond and once in a while at Popponesset. Mr. Govoni and Mr. Lund maintained that the re as-on for the terminations of these appointments is not financials Mro Govoni 'referred to the services of the waterways police as "freebies". Mr. Lund said that he received compensation once for work performed at P oppone s s e t and that was two and one-half years ago, Both mere maintained that the level of training they have received is sufficient for the kind of work they are called on to perform with I r. lurid stating,, "We are not out there to arrest anyone although I dial do it once and took the offender to court, we are not like police officers , we are out there to make the waterways safe. we are out there to s pot. . .you don' t need gins in our job because these are kidswe 're talking to. Payment work at P ones � or Pp set did not come from the 'own. it is not anything to do with what mrs Cooper says". Mr.' Gottlieb said, " e 've gone through some difficult times on the qtr and puttingdifferent in different people fe rent areas t o have a substantially t nt i a l ly improved situation, i