Source: http://www.swrpd.org/?m=20190123
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 10:57:41+00:00

Document:
Fraud report in the 5700 block of York Rd.
Disabled 18 wheeler on Colonial Valley rd.
Theft report in the first block of S Main St.
Alarm in the 6300 block of Hoff Road, Heidelberg Township.
Assisted ambulance in the 5800 block of York Road, North Codorus Township.
Assisted ambulance in the 5600 block of York Road, North Codorus Township.
Suspicious circumstances in the 3900 blk of N Rohrbaugh Rd, North Codorus Twp.
Mental health call in the 3800 block of Sharoden Drive, North Codorus Township.
Criminal Mischief in the 5300 block of Waltersdorff, North Codorus Township.
fight in the 100 block of North Main Street, Spring Grove Borough.
Field contact in the 1900 block of Stoverstown, North Codorus Township.
Ambulance assist on Glenville Rd.
Struck deer in the area of Sinsheim and Pine tree, Manheim Township.
Suspicious person in the 5600 block of Stormy Hill Rd.
Disabled 18 wheeler in the 1800 block of Stoverstown Rd.
Damaged Verizon pole in the 6300 block of York Rd.
TRAFFIC ACCIDENT – OTHER ACC. INVEST.
Hit and run on Northeast St. at East College Ave., Spring Grove Borough.
Erratic driver on York Road in the area of Iron Ridge Road, Heidelbeg Township.
Medical emergency in the 4800 block of Copenhaver Road, Manheim Township.
Mental health crisis in the 6800 block of Lineboro Road, Menheim Township.
EMS call in the 1800 block of Dubs Church, Manheim Township.
Service call in the 3700 block of Cannon Lane, North Codorus Township.
Suspicious circumstance in the 6100 block of Thoman, Heidelberg Township.
Domestic in the 6400 block of Pamadeva Road, Heidelberg Township.
Check the welfare in the 500 block of Packinghouse Road.
EMS call in the 4500 block of Walters Hatchery Road.
911 hang up call in the 2000 block of Noss Road, North Codorus Township.
Domestic located at 25 East Third Avenue, Spring Grove Borough.
Assist fire department in the 4700 block of Bentz Road, North Codorus Township.
Domestic in the area of South Water Street, Spring Grove Borough.
Suspicious circumstance in the 4000 block of Little John Dr.
EMS call in the 4400 block of Zeiglers Church Rd.
Criminal Mischief in the first block of E College Ave.
Ambulance assist in the 1500 block of Emig Rd.
Horse loose in the 2400 block of Ridge Road, Manheim Township.
Assist fire department in the 5800 block of Wool Mill Road, Manheim Township.
Domestic in the 1900 block of Jamestown Lane, North Codorus Township.
Non criminal complaint in the 7300 block of Intersection Rd.
Traffic related incident at 100 blk of W. Hoke St.
Animal complaint in the area of York Road and Menges Mill Road.
Disturbance in the 7300 block of Intersection Road.
Disturbance in the first block of N Main Street.
Suspicious circumstance in the area of W Hoke Street and Chestnut Street.
Drug investigation in Manheim Township.
Disorderly subject in the 100 block of South Main Street, Spring Grove Borough.
Domestic in the 3600 block of Aldinger Road, North Codorus Township.
Theft in the first block of E Third Avenue.
Death in the 2100 block of Slagel Road.
Suspicious circumstances in the 7300 blk of Intersection Rd, Manheim Twp.
Unattended death in the 5700 blk of Ambau Rd, North Codorus Twp.
Suspicious persons in the 5500 Stormy Hill Road, North Codorus Township.
Juvenile disturbance in the 2000 blk of Stoverstown Rd, North Codorus Twp.
Field contact in the 700 block of High Rock Road.
Police information in the 2200 block of Brownstone Lane.
EMS call in the 1300 block of Marburg Road.
Theft in the 7400 block of Intersection Road.
Miller, S. Stambaugh – Manheim Twp.
PUBLIC COMMENT: W. LeFever, a resident of North Codorus Township (NCT), asked if any progress has been made that will allow the NCT supervisors to represent the majority of the NCT residents and stay with Southwestern Regional Police. M. Bollinger replied that there is a lot going on behind the scenes. Some of the Police Board members met with some of the police officers this evening; the Board will be hearing some ideas from the Chief to cut costs; there is movement forward to try to get some reconciliation. L. Miller asked W. LeFever how she knows she represents the wants of the majority of the NCT residents. She replied that she has spoken with hundreds of residents, and the great majority wants to stay with the police department. She realizes there are individuals that do not want to stay. J. Rebert, a resident of NCT, stated that he went on the police department’s website and saw the minutes for August and September, but not October. Also, the financial reports were not on the website at all and he could not find the Chiefs Notes or the calls for service. Chief Bean stated that the company that used to maintain our website no longer offers that service so we had to totally revamp the website using another company and the October minutes and the crime stats just haven’t been posted yet. We have been working with the new company for (4) months, and he expects everything to be up-to-date within the next 30 days. V. Nickell stated that when the Board voted to start posting the minutes on the website the approval was for the minutes only, not the financial reports or the Chief’s Notes. J. Rebert asked if he could obtain the financial reports if he submitted a Right-To-Know request; V. Nickell replied yes. J. Rebert asked how many vehicles the department has; Chief replied (9) – (7) patrol vehicles, (1) Chief vehicle, (1) Detective vehicle. J. Rebert stated that years ago there was a Reserve Fund started that was 10% of the budget, where is that listed on the budget? V. Nickell replied that it is not a line item on the budget; it is a separate bank account that is listed in the Treasurer’s Report. He then asked if we utilize that bank account to pay bills. V. Nickell replied that there are times when funds are transferred on a temporary basis until the quarterly payments come in from the municipalities. The Board is informed at the board meeting when this occurs, and it is reported in the Treasurer’s Report. The funds are put back into the Reserve Fund as soon as all the quarterly payments have been received. He then asked if the “Letter of Agreement” was still in effect between the municipalities that the Police Board would approve transfers before funds were used out of the Reserve Fund. V. Nickell replied that years ago the Board passed a motion allowing the Chief to approve temporary transfers, with the Board being informed at the following Board meeting. This was done due to the need to be able to make timely transfers when funds are needed at the end of the quarter. He then asked about the traffic enforcement, he saw a lot of disparity between the municipalities last month. Chief Bean explained that NCT was 150 hours short, and to make up the time the officers concentrate patrol time to make up the hours, resulting in more tickets and warnings. Heidelberg was over in hours, so they have less time committed to patrol, resulting in less traffic enforcement. J. Rebert stated he had some other concerns regarding NCT being shorted on time, but he did not want to take the time during the meeting to continue discussing it; he was satisfied with the Chief’s explanation.
MINUTES: Review of the minutes of November 14, 2018. Motion by L. Miller, second by B. Whyland to approve the minutes as presented. Motion carried unanimously.
In researching the history of our legal fees for 2018, R. Shearer found that they range from $800 – $4800.
W. Tilley explained that the only regular charge for last month was attending the Board meeting and reviewing the documents for said meeting; the rest of his time was spent on researching the NCT withdrawal.
The invoices are paid before the Police Board gets to see or approve them.
R. Shearer asked why there is a separate line item for the NCT withdrawal. W. Tilley explained that you need to keep track of these expenses in accordance with the Articles of Agreement. In an effort to be transparent, he had spoken with V. Nickell and decided to create a separate line item.
W. Tilley stated that he has completed most of his work on the NCT withdrawal, so he thinks that will probably be the highest invoice we will have.
R. Shearer doesn’t think it was appropriate for W. Tilley to decide to make a separate line item for this expense; it should have been brought before the Board.
R. Shearer stated that the March invoice for $4800 listed work done on research of a municipality withdrawing – at that time he asked who had requested that research, as he doesn’t believe anyone on the Board had requested it. It is his understanding that when a solicitor does something that costs the Board money the Board should agree on what was done, especially when the legal budget is currently at 176% for 2018.
W. Tilley stated that he was given (4) tasks to complete by the Police Board, of which he completed (3); the legal fees for October include this work.
The hourly fee for attending the meetings is $195. The October invoice is for a total of (1) hour charged to regular legal fees due to the fact that most of the meeting was in Executive Session to discuss the NCT withdrawal. He doesn’t think the items discussed in public session were charged to the NCT withdrawal.
R. Shearer stated he is going to listen to the minutes and see how long the public meeting was. V. Nickell stated that the invoice charged .20 hours to review documents for the Board meeting and .80 hours to attend the meeting.
R. Shearer stated that the Board approves the bills after they are paid; they are just “rubber-stamping” them. W. Tilley stated that if there is a dispute over a paid invoice a credit can be issued.
Motion by R. Whyland, second by L. Miller to approve the Treasurer’s report as presented. Motion passed unanimously.
Chief stated there were 336 calls for service in November; year-to-date 3,800. We average around 4,000 and may be a little higher than that this year. There were 214 traffic stops and 36 criminal charges were filed on 21 offenders. There weren’t any questions regarding the crime stats.
Chief introduced Dr. Kirsten Witherup, the professor from York College who is in charge of conducting the resident survey. Chief explained that he had reached out to York College in the spring of 2018. He felt the department has been doing really well, and it was time to see what the community’s opinion was. York College conducted a survey for us once before, several years ago. A copy of the proposed survey was e-mailed to the Police Board members a couple of weeks ago.
York College has conducted similar surveys for Spring Garden Township and West York Borough police departments.
The proposed survey includes a cover letter and (4) pages of questions.
The survey includes both close-ended and open-ended responses, which they believe will be valuable for the type of feedback we are attempting to obtain.
The first section addresses demographics, giving an understanding of who the responders are.
Section two looks at community safety. Responders rate community safety issues on a scale of 1-5. These types of questions are throughout the survey, essential to aggregating the number count and having a numerical statistic to provide with regard to community feedback. There are also some open-ended responses – i.e., what can the department do to make them feel safer? This type of question gives a more textured understanding of how the community feels and what they want.
Section 3 explores topics of police professionalism and areas for improvement.
Section 4 addresses resident interaction with the Department and satisfaction with said interaction.
Previous experience has proven that it would be unreasonable to send the survey to all 18,000 residents of our municipalities. You need a representative random sample of the population. For example, the National Crime Victimization (NCV) survey uses a subset of the population and generalizes it back to the population of the United States using a random sampling. Everyone has an equal and known chance of being selected to participate in the NCV survey, and they use a rotating design of households. They survey 60,000 households of the more than 300 million people living in the United States.
We want to survey a subset of our population to say that if anybody in the population were given this survey they would answer in a similar fashion. In calculating the sample size, they will need to send out 1500 surveys to get 377 (25%) responses back. This allows them to look at a margin of error +/- 5%. She thinks this will be a good way to reach our residents and get the feedback we are looking for.
If we do not get 377 responses the feedback will still be valuable; this is why the survey includes the open-ended responses.
R. Whyland asked her to expand on how the feedback will be valuable if we don’t get the 377 responses. Dr. Witherup said the margin of error would be 6-7 % instead of 5%; it wouldn’t have as much statistical power, but would still be statistically valid.
R. Whyland asked how significant the Part 1 (demographic) questions are. Dr. Witherup stated these are important so that when the findings are reported back to us we know the demographics of the population surveyed. He then asked if we know what the demographics of the population are today. Dr. Witherup stated she would get that information from Chief Bean; then she would be able to ascertain how closely the subset of the population surveyed matches it.
The Board will be going into Executive Session (ES) to discuss how to reduce costs. It needs to be discussed in ES due to the fact that the discussions will include personnel issues.
Accidental Shooting at Santander Bank – Since the last Board meeting the officer has been criminally charged in the aforementioned. The charging documents clearly state there was no ill-will on the part of the officer. The DA has all of the information and will meet with the officer’s legal representative; they need to figure out where to go from here. Chief expects a swift resolution. Shortly after the charges were filed the Loudermill hearing was conducted and the officer was taken off administrative leave with pay and placed on administrative leave without pay.
The Department website is still in the process of being updated. It is extremely important that as much information be available as possible.
The Department received a $100 donation from the Hanover Exchange Club and 100 stuffed animals from PetSmart for Santa to distribute at the SG Community Center Christmas Breakfast.
Chief transported 250 pounds of prescription drugs from the drug drop-box in the lobby to the solid waste authority for safe, proper disposal.
Press Release – At about 11:30 on the night before Thanksgiving a resident on W. Highland Avenue in Spring Grove Borough called 9-1-1, stating there were two suspicious males walking through their yard. Officers found the suspects; one at Rutters and the other in the parking lot of Kennie’s Market. They had 35 stolen items in their backpacks, to include a handgun. Items were stolen from unlocked vehicles in the neighborhood. Chief encouraged Board Members to stress to their residents to always call 9-1-1 any time they see suspicious activity, and to always lock their vehicles.
R. Shearer asked why the Board is discussing the cost cuts in ES and not in public. Chief stated they will be discussing personnel issues. Cost cutting methods have been discussed in public in previous months’ meetings, this is new information and involves personnel.
2019 MMO – V. Nickell had distributed information regarding the 2019 Uniform Pension MMO last month. The Board will discuss it during Executive Session and vote on the MMO after reconvening into Public Session.
L. Miller stated that he expressed his concern last month with how W. Tilley had handled some issues, and is now concerned with the fact that he did not have the Real Property Agreement. R. Whyland is the one who brought attention to this agreement and he thinks Stock & Leader should have had it on-file.
W. Tilley explained that the Real Property Agreement is no longer a Department contract. The way the Real Property Agreement is structured, is that once the building was paid for and they received the deed (in 2007) the Department had no further involvement at all. It is an agreement the municipalities would have on-file because it is their individual obligation, not an obligation of the Department.
When R. Whyland brought it to his attention he made sure all the Board members were aware of it. At this point, it is not a Department contract; that is why it wasn’t on his radar. He was looking for agreements where the Department would either receive some kind of benefit or have an obligation to pay something out.
R. Whyland stated that the SGB manager, A. Shaffer, is the one who actually discovered it.
M. Muir, Manheim Township Supervisor, stated that the main reason the agreement was done this way was so the building wouldn’t have to go out for bids. That is why they leased the building for a short amount of time.
M. Bollinger stated that this is a very relevant document, and he expressed great concern that it was not brought forward by W. Tilley last month. According to the Agreement, the remaining municipalities have ten (10) years to pay NCT back their share of the building (tentatively $480,000 + interest). Stock & Leader should have had the document in our file.
W. Tilley explained that it was not in our active file because the departmental obligation was fulfilled in 2007 and at that time the Agreement was archived. He doesn’t think anybody keeps copies of agreements that are no longer applicable.
R. Shearer stated that NCT has a lot of documentation that Stock & Leader doesn’t have, and they shouldn’t be surprised by some of the things that come to light if they go through with the withdrawal.
M. Bollinger stated that if the Board decides to retain a different attorney, it will cost an estimated $10,000 – $20,000 just to get them up to speed. B. Hilt stated that she discussed this with SGB Council and they also think it will cost too much to have another attorney/law firm take over.
R. Shearer asked when is it ever a good time to replace legal counsel. He would rather have someone come in now and get up to speed so we do not have these issues with our legal counsel in the coming year.
M. Bollinger stated he was unable to attend the Heidelberg Township meeting. He requested N. Markle (Township Treasurer) to ask their Board at the meeting and to get back to him if they had a suggested replacement. To-date she has not gotten back to him, so he assumes they want to stay with W. Tilley.
L. Miller stated that he posed the question to the MT solicitor. After conducting his due diligence, their solicitor stated that he does not think a replacement is needed. He also said it would be costly to replace legal counsel at this point. That being said, their solicitor also stated that if the MT Board of Supervisors has lost confidence in present legal counsel, they need to act accordingly.
R. Whyland suggested this be tabled until the 2019 budget and cost concerns have been resolved. He agrees that it would be too expensive to hire a new attorney.
M. Bollinger stated that W. Tilley is “on notice”, and things need to be more transparent moving forward.
Meeting adjourned at 9:32 pm.
Board reconvened into Public Session at 9:30 pm. Motion by R. Whyland, second by L. Miller to approve the 2019 Uniform Pension MMO with a 5% contribution from the officers.
Meeting adjourned into Executive Session at 8:15 pm to discuss personnel issues, with action to be taken on the 2019 MMO when reconvened into Public Session.
V. Nickell stated the department received (2) Right To Know requests from R. Shearer since the last meeting, one for the officers’ schedule and one for the audio of last month’s Police Board meeting. She wanted everyone to be aware that this information is available.
R. Shearer asked for an explanation of the decision from the State Ethics Commission regarding NCT being recused from future Executive Sessions due to a conflict of interest. M. Bollinger replied that they did not say yes or no. With that said, he apologized for the fact they were recused from ES two meeting ago, and in future he does not see any reason why NCT cannot participate in ES when discussing the possible withdrawal. The rest of the Board agreed with this assessment.
2019 Animal Control Service (ACS) Contract – V. Nickell stated the ACS contract with Michelle Klugh is the same as last year, with no increase to the retainer fee ($1,225). She clarified that in addition to the retainer fee she also charges for her time and mileage when she goes out on a call. Motion by L. Miller, second by S. Stambaugh to approve the contract for ACS in 2019 from Michelle Klugh. Motion carried unanimously.
Motion by R. Whyland, second by L. Miller to table the discussion. Motion carried unanimously.

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