##VIDEO ID:jvHXJRP3zzY## okay all right all right well good evening thank you for joining us for the uh December 11 2024 Public Safety Committee meeting um tonight's lineup will go as follows our uh report from our office of emergency management um bit from business administrator warry followed by our chief of police narrative we're going to push uh the fire Department report back a little bit um second if we have folks here for discussion I'm hoping they will be um then we'll have discussion open for um any dis items in particular that they sorry that we I'll be talking about our Traffic Safety a little bit more about the car thefts a little Clarity on some connections and things that have been said rumor wise on maplewood online and in our uh Facebook and social medias posts um hopefully by then committee DeLuca will be here and then he'll give his report from the fire from South ethics fire department and then we'd move into our public comment um portion of the meeting tonight I would love that if we could go into executive just for a few minutes to talk about some things and then we will return to the main room and agent close the uh meeting out until we adjourn for our meet for the next meeting on January 8th of next year so unless anyone has anything to add or any questions about that I give the mic to business administrator wary thank you Miss K for OEM two items uh the first we are working with the county they are updating their Hazard mitigation plan of which Maplewood has its own section we had a call with them uh yesterday they have a consultant working on the project who's doing actually a fair amount of the work which is very helpful to us so we had a call uh with them yesterday going over you know all of our departments and in hazards especially natural hazards you know what our responses will be what we think we would benefit from in terms of um preparedness initiatives and it's helpful both for the county to understand that but also it's helpful for us because when the federal government looks to give out uh money for emergency preparedness they consider the items that we've included in these Hazard mitigation plans so it's useful for us to as a a financing tool so we're working with them on that update it's due in early January so a quick turnaround uh but we'll have no issue meeting that the second piece is today Winchester Gardens held a drill on alotment so where somebody a u one of their residents walks off without proper approval or notification and uh Mr duuk and I had attended a tabletop that they held uh for a lopment last month this month they did a fullscale drill um Mr Duca attended with um the member of the police department Sergeant clay Bauer and I know he had given U some information to the township committee and Sergeant clay Bauer and Mr duuke were able to give some information to Winchester Garden so there were some positive takeaways I wasn't able to attend unfortunately uh but I spoke to Mr Duca today about it and said there were some positive takeaways so you know that's always great for OEM with the police department to be able to participate in those things and we're glad that Winchester Gardens reached out to invite us that is my report very cool a quick question on that um that uh drill were they going to be using the Nixle alerts to send out um notices of if there was an alotment or did we not want to or is that not being done it would just be emails like Mr DeLuca sent no it could be done I mean the email that Mr Duca sent was just to the township committee to make you aware of what was going on which is something that might happen in an actual uh scenario um if you we always have nixel available to us uh for the police department to put out an alert to the public if necessary so let's say we felt that you know someone had walked U off of the property and may be seen in the community among other things we could use nixel to ask the public to you know look for and notify us that they see the individual okay and then my other question which was listed on the agenda um I know that with all this rain obviously um I'm assuming that we are now officially out of the water restriction or are we not yet no we are not yet so those continue it will put something out probably next week reminding residents um that uh we're still under water restriction but yeah we are in continuous contact with New Jersey American water and because the drought that had was so long and the reservoirs and aquifers were um were so um so low we will likely be underw restrictions for some more time or until significant significant rainfall and that includes the ban on burns as well no so that's separate from water restrictions so the burn ban ended almost immediately after the first rain it was actually during the first rain I think we were just a couple hours into it when the state lifted the band so that is that's lifted oh good to hear thank you yep um does anyone have any questions for Mr warry no but I never knew that a lopment was anything other than getting married escaping a senior housing now you know Mr DeLuca was nice enough to include that definition in his email to the TC I wonder if I'll hear it on the a man inside that um series on sorry I'm Punchy it's been a very long day I've been up since 4:45 yeah that's going to be our life because of the holidays that's the nature of things all right um I'm gonna pass the mic on to Chief Sally um did you need to share the screen or did you want me to put up the metrics uh yeah you you share the first page okay let me grab it real fast for my downloads all right it would be nice if I actually scrolled the right side all right here we go welcome Mr DeLuca we were just going to go to um Chief Sally's um report and then come back to you that way you have a minute or so to catch your breath and get your bearings okay um no no need to scroll down just um you zoom scroll up so don't see the robbery information right NOP and there you go yeah yep that's all I need uh so definitely in what happened okay so the uh if you look at the right side of the screen um the chart uh 2023 compared to 2024 um robberies are down so last year in October up to October we had nine robberies in 2023 up to October 2024 we have four um aggravated assaults are uh it was 13 uh last year 10 this year burglaries are slightly higher 25 to 30 5 thefts as you see has increased 174 to 223 Auto thefts have decreased um slightly 47 to 42 so um those are the the stats uh up to October and um as I was describing uh pretty much over the whole year is that we had those U home evasion style burglaries that has um hit um everywhere in the state um the the New Jersey Supreme Court um put out a directive it's a directive 13-24 um pretty much uh just to summarize that is that they added um home invasion and residential burglary to their uh mandatory um um imprisonment so there's a whole list of different crimes that is mandatory for imprisonment and home evasion and residential burglaries have been added to that due to um this amount of burglaries we're seeing so um that that's been added uh to the list and um that's that's pretty much the update for for the uh burglaries and that's pretty much the crime up to October yeah of course the car thefts are um you know the keys in the car running uh the usually around this time of year you know we have a lot of Amazon Packaging and UPS and FedEx and um package steps and we still have um you know shoplifting in on Spring um so that's that's the increase the aggravated assaults um the uh aggravated assaults are um are pretty much um domestic violence so how do we know that because we uh tend to um because we we arrested the people for that is is pretty much um all of them mostly cleared so that's usually a you know that's the indication as a domestic violence Chief in regards to um the domestic violence um I know that there was the um the the number and the additional training that went out to some of the officers and such um for addressing those is there any kind of material that we could put out to the public letting them know hey there's a if you need to get away or if you want to talk to somebody before things get too far um here's the numbers you should reach out to just as another uh push because this time of year is stressful for so so many people and I'm just wondering if there's something we can do to kind of besides the gigantic one that's got all the details on it maybe one geared specifically for DV because that's got yeah I can ask Sergeant Phils he's charge of our domestic violence Response Team um she's Le on down to the county so she can get that information uh we just graduated as I said last month uh seven uh the vience response team um uh volunteers so they're they're out there as well so we can get that those documentations out yeah pick up some and I guess once we get them we can get them to some locations like near the fridge and the library and such just so people have it handy um or's something else you had mentioned it tickled my brain and I was like H oh the package thefts um has there been um a push or have there been any kind of clearers utilizing like the the ring cameras and the the the the different videos because my my alarm system for example every time anybody steps on my top step I get a notification do you want us to videotape and protect this package um yes yes so we we we have made a few arrests and also we used use uh you know what would get from the rank cameras or whatever what have you we use that as evidence to try to make identifications okay does anyone have any further questions for chief Sally oh all right thanks Chief all right Mr Dela we're gonna bring it back to you for any updates on our S6 Department fire operations thank you so uh we're uh on Pace to uh probably get to about 4500 incidents a year um and uh again most of those are ems somewhere in the vicinity of over 40% um most of the fires that we fought in the last uh in September which I have is the last month I have uh we're outside the town thankfully so we're still doing a lot of uh Mutual Aid outside of town um we are well on the good side of the EMS billing we will bring in um you know plus or minus $400,000 this year which is a good number um and that helps cover our cost that we're charged for EMS services so that seems to be working very well uh the billing process and that's that's good again it's a third party bill um we don't go after anyone who whose insurance company or um uh Health uh coverage doesn't you know car insurance doesn't uh pay so um but that if we can maintain that kind of Revenue year after year that will help a lot with how we assess our provision of EMS Services we uh also um will be appointing two former Maplewood firefighters as provisional captains um it seems like uh you know we're moving forward with that and uh so now we have a full compliment of Deputy Chiefs and we'll have a full compliment of captains which will help with some of the overtime awesome and they're fully staffed over at scfd well I think now we're uh we may um we may need to bring on a couple people with civil service it's it's quite different than when we were non- civil service as far as list management so we're waiting um uh for civil service to uh do their thing so that we can bring people on but we have been doing interviews and been looking at um prospective candidates so we're probably down one uh if not two firefighter ERS at the moment all right and are they looking at a diverse group of of uh candidates like you know this is women or any people yeah it's a you know state civil service test so um the way it works is that you can you can hire locally which is what we would prefer to do and I think the last person we hired off the list was from Maplewood um and then after that you go to the county and then after that you go Statewide so uh hopefully you know we we have not seen uh the whole list yet until we bring people in we really I don't believe they identify anyone by race um but hopefully we will get a more diverse that has been the sort of the Achilles heel of of the fire service for a long time at least at least our fire service here okay all right and I just give back one other thing um as you know today we had a a drill over at Winchester Gardens um they are going to make their Emergency Operations plan available to us so that we could review and give them any suggestions so uh Patrick and chief um when we get it you know we'll we'll get it to you Chief so you can have some of your officers take a look at it um you know it's a fairly detailed plan it's sort of like our Emergency Operations plan and then we'll ask Chris arama over at uh scfd to take a look at it and give them any suggestions we have awesome because we don't want anybody going Al loping you like that Al loping all right um is that 4500 that you listed as far as like um uh EMS and fire calls is that about average is that a good number yeah that's about average I think there was some uh expectation that it might be over 5,000 but it it seems uh it seems that the Way South Orange when there were separate fire department um counted their incidences different than the way we did so um now that we're all on the same page uh 4,500 is about right maybe between 4,500 and and a thousand 5,000 um again you know uh it's actually 48% has to do with medical rescue and that you know under 5% is fires and that's a good thing you know we don't want a lot of fires true all right well thank you very much does anyone have any questions for commit M DeLuca all right we're gonna move on to the discussion items um just really wanted to quick check in Chief um and and for other folks on the committee who may have driven in the areas and stuff like that get some feedback in regards to the status of the cones um and the uh the speed limit signs that are in the middle of the street um I've noticed that the ones on Parker haven't been as destroyed haven't been destroyed yet which is a good thing the last time they went up they were dead by the end of the month but they're still there and they're actually still in place so it does seem to be either because of the construction maybe that was going on down there and people started avoiding Parker or what but it does seem that there's a little less erratic um driving going on in the morning has that been kind of the feedback you've gotten from your officers Chief yes I think the the the cones are good in these locations um I mean it seems like it makes the road seem more narrow um and and hopefully slowing uh also with the traffic counter hopefully slowing uh traffic down so I think they're uh but I think Mr DeLuca raised a point last time that you know if we can get some more uniformed um traffic cones that are you know we got small medium large and um if you can just get a bunch of large cones and and put them up that would help okay Patrick I think we were gonna We asked Paul to do that I can follow up on it I will say that if you're if you're in the area Oak viw in the morning you're it's bumper to bumper because you're not passing people on the right who are making lefts Oakland Oakland is that what I said Oakland yeah Oakland and Prospect right no you said o but um Oak yeah but that that was the intent so that's good that it's has slowed the traffic in the mid part of it's almost like a stop sign or even a light because of the way it is that you know people aren't going around and there has been no noticing of uh like once folks get past that aggressive like speeding up my apologies my dog walks around with her little heels clicking and it sounds like nail like heels go to the carpet um it's it seems to be backed up all the way till you get to um you know Prospect and um tusin because you got the light there and then and then once you get the got the four-way stops on so there always there like constant stopping slowing and but you haven't noticed as folks are like say making that crossover over Harvard that immediately the aggressive driving begins again they haven't noticed no I actually um observed a uh a legal U-turn because somebody was impatient of waiting in traffic and I stopped them yeah that was the one time I Patrick like get him will we see that on the report well you give um being that we're we were a little tied up and I didn't have backup I didn't have the uh equipment to you know um issue but um they were given a strong warning for that okay one and done just if I could fill you in on Parker we are installing a four-way stop at Parker and suffk woohoo and um that contract has been approved and um we'll be putting out either the end of this week or beginning of next week we'll be putting out the electronic sign boards that say uh traffic pattern change is coming in the next whatever and then they will be doing the striping and we're waiting for the push button the high intensity push button signs and then we'll have a four-way stop on Parker which which will dramatically change the traffic pattern there okay it'll slow people down it'll it'll just calm everything on Parker because it won't be a straight shoot right as it is now from essentially boen to prospect right now Chief will there be officers made available in the mornings when that first goes into effect just to as an encouragement in addition to the stop sign and the Flasher um so that we have officers available our first concerns the traffic um the crossing guards and the uh but if if officer is available yes okay because there probably some upset drivers who will not pay attention to those boards and will be shocked when they come down that Hill first the first week that they they experience it okay thank you um so I don't know what all you can report back other than what you shared already Chief in regards to the car thefts um we had a gentleman come to the township committee meeting um unfortunately he's not here tonight um who had a concern about it um and had asked questions in regards to like highspeed chases and why we don't and and such so um we just wanted I just really wanted to quickly whatever you could share in regards to updates on what is happening whatever yeah again um the the directive we received is very important so um you know so it makes it once we have these type of uh burglaries home evasion style taking the car um that if we make an identification and we have enough probable calls to make the arrest um that that will be on a warrant and that person will have to be imprisoned so um that's that's a update that we received also um we' have done last in uh just this month alone in December we've done uh four um home home surveys we have officers come out and uh speak to the residents um who have been a victim of this burglary um how to um make their home safer and uh hopefully potentially prevent this from happening also we have officers um you know we we we know the locations that potentially might um this might happen and we have officers in those locations at around those certain times um the since uh November to December it burgs have decreased um we haven't seen um the great uptick that we had over the summer so they have decreased so um I would like to say some of our efforts have um have uh you know lessen this um as far as U Pursuit you know it's it's it's always uh you know kind of risk award uh situation you know um most of these crimes are property are property crimes um and we do not want to pursue if it's not safe so there's a lot of factors that go into a Pursuit the time of day traffic weather um uh potential apprehension of the person um the you know the best thing we have is our is our radio and our dispatch to notify other towns that um might be on our border that they come and assist so um you know we're not we're not chasing uh vehicles um in other in other uh jurisdictions and um and on the highways and things like that but we are getting out the information to other uh municipalities that will assist us in that and our detectiv are pretty good in getting uh information from other agencies and making identifications without the pursuit um we just need enough information from the plate and possible identification of who's in the car um other than that um you know we don't want uh anybody getting hurt um in a Pursuit not you know I'm not just speaking of police officers but residents you know resident who's driving down the street and doesn't know what's happening and a car is you know going on a high rate of speed we we don't want that to happen so um that's why we um you know we restrict our our Pursuits that's good well thank you I'm glad that and and I'm hoping that the folks in the community he that you are in Communications with other um departments so it's not like the person crosses our border and they disappear in The Ether but there's somebody on that other side keeping eyes out for them and possibly even passing information to maybe the next town that they go into that the pursuit is being done but it's visual not physical um thank you can I ask Chief a question um Chief the the AG uh order so if you catch someone doing a home burglary does that mean you hold that person until they uh are appear before a judge or do you give them a ticket with a court appearance yes so um we we we hold them so we hold them uh we issue a warrant so a warrant has to be signed by a judge okay and then and then they um are in custody that's that's that's the change how long is not um they have a formula and is yeah I don't know how long they it would be but it's not just a a citation correct okay correct that's that's positive I think it's I think it's a whole different animal when somebody breaks into a house right yes and it's it and it's also being applied juvenile wise is it or is it just adults cuz a lot of again yeah but again it's it's a form def with juveniles so um um I'm not 100% sure what juveniles but I I know there's a formula they do when they put a juvenile in custody and also um you know as far as as far as these steps you know these burglaries you know um years ago a burglary most burglaries were during the day you know is usually um breaking in the house when nobody's therec and you know most people pre-o were going to work um and then they would you know uh check the driveway see if the car's there ring the doorbell make sure nobody's there and then uh conduct the burglary here um we we fortunately we have not seen any of these people um confront the homeowner and once they are confronted they do leave and it's kind of like this but it's at night and they know people are in there but they just trying to go in there get the keys and come out without being detected but still that's you know you know the safy for that because people are actually home so I think that's why they changed that rule for this very good so um the next thing on the agenda um social media and Facebook has taken off with a couple of items in particular the one in regards to the gentleman that is currently being in held in custody for the the shooting of the uh United Healthcare Executive um supposedly this person had used an ID that had a Maplewood address and all the rumors flew um from this the address doesn't exist to this person has no connection to Maplewood is there anything that we can share with the public to let them know what's happening and where they should be sitting um in this and that there is or isn't anything that yes we we we did checks on this and um he has no we the Maple Police Department has not had any contact with this person or any history with this person or no firearm was issued to this person from us or you know nothing no uh no contact UM the New York uh City police department has not reached out to us regarding his investigation um so um as far as we know this is just a fake IDE why he picked this address we do not know but um no no no ties to Maplewood and the police department put out a statement to that end yes okay well Mr wary and I had mentioned or at least talked in the beginning about something that Mr Mr daffis um Comm dafis who is unfortunately unable to be here tonight um I don't know if that's something we want to keep for executive or should we bring it up here the discussion was on drones and I don't mind discussing it here only because I think that everybody including our law enforcement Partners have been had said publicly that you know they don't know where the drones are originating from um and asking the public that if you see pictures to report it to the FBI I'm sorry if you see drones take pictures report it to the FBI um but you know we know as much as the public knows and I think that you know a lot of departments up to the Pentagon today local sheriff's department um State Police and Homeland Security FBI have all said the same thing that they're not sure where the drones originate or who's flying them but asking for the Public's help um in taking pictures and submitting those to the FBI and also you know what the FBI has said um and what the governor said earlier this week that there's no known threat from these drones but you know it's obviously concerning all right and um Mr Mr uh daas had said that they were going to be issuing out some FAQs that we could use um to share with the public in regards to what they can do how to report it um and and how to just stay calm for starters more than anything stay calm it's right now there doesn't seem to be a threat threat that they can identify but us a on the side of caution take pictures like you had mentioned and how to do it um we haven't I haven't received any emails but I did hear some chatter on social media and it's just kind of started um because mostly focused on North Jersey than us um here in a bit of Central Jersey is there a central Jersey I mean I guess it is us there is a formal it became formal okay so are we in it no we're North we're not we're North okay so uh there was a meeting today I think of some elected officials Chief there's a meeting of chiefs tomorrow were you invited to that it's at the Rock I did not know of that but I'll uh yeah that's what that's what I what the news said tonight that tomorrow there's a meeting of chiefs so you might want to just uh if you're not going to be there find out from a colleague you know what's going on on but I think that's exactly right that no one has answers at the moment yeah they gave um they they give out a number though a drone tip line uh is 1 1800 call call FBI 1800 call FBI um you of course you can call us and we'll report it um we have a um law enforcement reporting portal that we report this information to so if we um if we get calls we we will'll notify um the bigger agencies okay all right great um Mr would we put that out in our socials that number or should we wait we can put it out next week with our community news email blast I don't we we haven't seen any drones over Maplewood yet and I think that number has been very well publicized so think there's an urgent need for us to put it out but we can certainly get it out with next week's email blast great any other questions is there anything anyone would like to bring up in discussion that I do not have on the agenda do we have anything from the community board on please we have a representative I believe somebody yeah is here I can move her over so she can say hi do that and see if she has anything y hey everyone I don't really have anything to report there you go but I'll welcome I take any questions if you have anything for me let me know no I think we're looking we're good thank you for being here all right um well I would like to move as an executive I don't know if there's anything additional in regards to thefts that you wanted to share with us Chief if there isn't then maybe we don't need to go into executive I I would like to go in and I want to go about some person El stuff okay so Mr where will be able to just before I just wantan to I just want to salute uh the the officer who uh Saturday night I was driving down Prospect and there was a pizza delivery guy behind me who was not pleased that I was going 25 mil an hour so when we got to the stop sign at Prospect in Harvard um this guy who was behind me went around into the other lane and went past me um you know I was stopped at the stop sign and he went around me and no sooner did we get past that then a cop flew out of Harvard with the lights on I guess cuz you have someone station there often on Harvard and Prospect and uh what I say yeah Harvard and Prospect and um uh they you know they nailed that person and explained that they weren't supposed to be doing that and whatever else so it was a good good police action and it wasn't me behind him delivering that's near your house it wasn't you I don't think you deliver pizza on the weekends I don't have time yeah side hustle how she a side Hustle but I don't have time those Christmas cookies don't pay for themselves all right then so we're gonna move into executive Mr W if you could uh just give me a moment all right