Amherst has excellent police and fire departments. We expect that; we think we're entitled to it. But are we willing to support them when they need it?
When a student was murdered in Amherst, the Amherst police, not the state police, did the investigation. The Amherst Police Department was the first one in the state to take a new four-hour training about racial profiling, and it is contributing to the collection and analysis of data throughout the state to determine the scope of the problem. Amherst police, working with the University police and other departments, as well as landlords, has prevented a recurrence of the horrible 'Hobart Hoedowns.'
But the size of our force has not grown, despite increases in the kinds of crimes that require a lot of time, such as domestic abuse, assaults, robberies, and reported date rapes. When the Chief, Charles Scherpa, talked to the League of Women Voters recently, he used a presentation he created in 1997 because the department hasn't changed much in nine years. There are three basic shifts, each with three patrol cars (north, central, and south), a station officer, etc. There is also an evening overlap shift, since the busiest times are 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. On weekends between St. Patrick's Day and graduation, the afternoon shift has to stay on duty until 3 a.m. and on big weekends the night shift comes in early. During the six busiest months of the year, no one can take any vacation time.
What has changed? We've lost almost all 'community policing.' In 2000, we had police officers walking a beat in the center of town, a bicycle patrol, and a mounted patrol. We had highway safety officers looking for speeders, the Citizens Police Academy, after-school homework help and other programs for young people who needed attention to divert them from criminal activities. No more.
All sacrificed to more urgent duties and earlier budget reductions (last year the department had a $60,000 budget cut).
For fiscal 2007 budgets, the police initially asked for five new officers. That's about the number of people it would take to add one more officer, three shifts a day, seven days a week, 50 weeks a year. No one really thought they would get that many, but the need is there and had to be presented. The Finance Committee wants to retain the current size of the department. As of this writing, the Select Board wants to cut it by two (to save $80,632).
Another urgent need is for more dispatchers. They are the ones who answer the phones for 911 calls - police, fire or ambulance. They are terribly under-staffed; any time one of them can't come in, one of the others must work extra to cover for them. With so much stress, people quit. The Select Board wants to save $76,660 by not hiring the requested two new dispatchers. The Finance Committee wants to hire them, but expects to pay for one of them with increased fees for ambulance service. In the meantime, the Fire Department won a grant from the Department of Homeland Security, which it are using to increase the staffing levels. Both the Finance Committee and the Select Board are counting savings in overtime from the Fire Department in their list of cuts, but any significant reduction in overtime would mean that staffing levels have not, in fact, increased. The Select Board even wants to cut a public health inspector (one of the people who makes sure places that serve food are keeping surfaces clean, hot foods hot and cold foods cold). Public safety, of all kinds, is one of the prime responsibilities of government. Much as I value the services we have gotten used to having in Amherst, I believe that when money becomes tight, we should cut back on the optional services rather than the essential ones. Charlie Scherpa has been on our police force since 1970, working his way up through the ranks. No one knows the department better than he does. Astonishingly, he hasn't been asked about what the force needs or what these cuts would do to it. As he commented to the League members, the police do not have a committee to advocate for them. We citizens must do that for ourselves. They work for us, they meet our expectations, and they deserve that support from us. Elisa Campbell is a former Select Board chair.