Finance Committee Leaves $50,000 Public Safety Study in Budget Proposal

The Finance Committee accepted a proposal from the Public Safety Commission to include $50,000 in the proposed budget for a public safety study.

The decision followed a presentation by commission member Gary Allyn, who argued that the study is long overdue.

“We’ve been beating this dead horse around since 2004,” Allyn said.

The commission is charged with maintaining the public safety, and the idea of a study is central to that charge. Funding had been approved and a contractor hired, but the study could not be undertaken, and so in 2007, the money became unavailable, he said.

The town's growth and the presence of Mohegan Sun are only a few of the issues that add to the need, he said. There are retention issues in the fire departments, there are pieces of fire apparatus that need to be replaced, and that's just the beginning.

"All of these fall under the purview of the public safety plan," he said. "Having a contractor come in and look at the public safety system, the money that we spend, and make recommendations on the gaps, where we are today, where we want to be 5-10 years from now…" is vital, Allyn said.

A stakeholder committee would set the rules and require the contractor to supply information at various points throughout the process.

"We need a snapshot of what we need today," Allyn said. That same stakeholder group would determine where we need to go in the future.

“There’s no silver bullet," he said. "This is closer to a silver bullet than what we’re doing now. We’re building a 6 million police station - but is it going to work?"

The study would touch on the  correctional facilities, traffic flows, training issues, water and sewer upgrades and more, he said. It would look at whether the town has the right equipment to protect the public safety, and whether that equipment, and necessary personnel, are in the right place.

Allyn brought up the relatonship that the town has with the Mohegan Tribe.

Mohegan Sun, he said, “is the biggest target in the state of Connecticut. They don’t have the resources. They would be overwhelmed in the first 30 seconds. And they’d be calling us. Our roads, our resources.”

Town Council Vice Chairman Ellen Hillman attended the meeting and, at the end, said that the Water & Sewer Commission feels so strongly about the public safety study that if the costs go over budget, they would fill the gap. Hillman is the council's liasion to the Water & Sewer Commission.

Councilor Russ Beetham made a motion to cut the Public Safety Commission's budget proposal by $50,000 - in essence, to cut the public safety study - but there was no second, so the proposed budget goes to the Town Council intact.