Public Safety Commissions Sends Correspondence to BOE

"The spirit of this commission is to have the SRO's (School Resource Officers), in the schools while you are negotiating," Public Safety Commissioner and Common Council member Tom Serra said to Acting Police Chief Patrick McMahon.  "This, in my opinion, is absurd.  They should still be in there."

Serra's sentiment was echoed by other Public Safety Commissioners, all of whom agreed to sign a strongly-worded recommendation to the Board of Education that officers should be returned to school while Acting Chief McMahon negotiates for SRO standards with Board representative Bill Brady.

"I don't how the Board of Education, or any principal can deny having an officer on premises," commissioner Phil Pessina said, agreeing with his Council colleague.

McMahon, who would not reveal specifics of his negotiations with Brady did say that he had two conditions which must be met if officers are reassigned to schools.  First, the Chief of Police would decide which officers would be assigned, though consultation with the Board of Education would be considered.

"I don't veto principals.  They're not going to veto officers," McMahon said.

The second condition was that McMahon insisted officers must be in uniform, and armed.  McMahon urged Public Safety Commissioners to attend the next Board of Education meeting to express their concerns.

In another matter concerning the Board of Education, Emergency Management Director Bruce Driska explained that the Board of Education had scheduled and then canceled two important annual School Emergency Preparedness meetings in August and September.

Driska indicated that the cancellation may have been tied to a "newsworthy event" in which the Board of Education clashed with the Police Department.

Acting Chief McMahon asked all members of the Emergency Preparedness committee to meet on Thursday September 14 to discuss issues of safety at the school, and invited school representatives.  No school representatives attended.

Another safety meeting has been scheduled by the Board of Education for Wednesday October 20.  Driska expressed concern that, given prior experience, that this meeting too would be cancelled.

The Public Safety Commission voted to send a letter to the Board of Education urging them to hold the safety meeting as scheduled.

Commission member and Common Council member Deb Kleckowsi questioned the Acting Chief on the topic of school bullying.  McMahon stated that he had only received one recent complaint on the topic, and that he had volunteered department services for discussion of the topic, but that he had heard nothing from the Board of Education.

The Emergency Management director, and the city's IT director Bill Oliver also presented the commission with the need to install an emergency generator at City Hall to prevent loss of data and communications in the case of a power failure.

Oliver recommended an engineering study which he estimated would cost the city $15-20,000.  He said that City Hall would need a 650KW generator which could cost approximately $1 million.  Commissioners Loffredo and Serra suggested that the Emergency Management Department and the IT director seek a less formal estimate for the cost of emergency power generation.