Great Barrington — The town’s Police Department has hired five new officers, according to Police Chief Paul Storti.
Chief Storti spoke to the Selectboard about the hirings during the board’s regular meeting on Monday, January 9. The department’s five new hires are Dylan Cook, Samuel Riva, and Robert Lamont all of Great Barrington, along with Caleb Kollmer of Lee, and Westley Reel of Lakeville, Conn.
The department currently has 14 officers, but once the five new officers graduate from the state’s police academy on September 1, the department will have 19 officers. “We were able to offer our own exam and establish a list of 10 candidates,” Chief Storti said. “From there, we were able to select five officers. This was a big move for us and the right thing for the community.”
Meanwhile, the department has been accredited for the third time by the Massachusetts Police Accreditation Commission (MPAC). According to the organization’s website, the accreditation includes a voluntary assessment program and the establishment of professional standards for the department to meet. The accreditation lasts for three years, and the first time the department was accredited was in 2017. “They look at all sorts of things, including your physical plant, and equipment, and they make sure that you comply with the policies that are established,” Chief Storti said. “We had over 326 standards that we had to comply with. Getting accredited is a team effort where everybody in the department maintains a high level.”
Chief Storti also credited the department’s Executive Administrative Assistant to the Chief of Police Cara Becker for her help in being the department’s accreditation manager. “The officers pitched in where they needed to be, and the command staff was there every day [during the process] helping out, showing that we were deserving of this,” he said. “I’m really excited that we got through it with almost no corrections. We call it ‘corrections’ as it is something that the state wants to see changed or fixed because you are not doing something correctly. We only had four minor corrections. I won’t even say what they were because they were all where we had to change a word or two in a sentence in our written policies.”
Chief Storti added that the town’s Police Department is the only department in Berkshire County that is accredited.
In other business: Chief Storti was asked by the board about the town’s parking ticket program. Several months ago, the department switched over to using handheld digital devices to issue and record tickets. “The process is much more efficient and it is a lot easier to track [violators],” he said. “It has resolved some of the parking ticket processing issues that we were dealing with.”
However, Chief Storti said that it was challenging for the department to get out-of-state violators to pay their parking tickets. “[The department] does not have as much ability or influence to notify [an out-of-state] registry and have any type of consequence attached to the renewal of their registration or operator’s license,” he said. “We have added a parking boot fee. When we identify an out-of-state vehicle that is continually violating parking regulations and not paying their fines, we do have some legal authority [to use the parking boot] to influence that person to pay the fines.”
Selectboard Vice-Chairman Leigh Davis asked Chief Storti how the department feels about its body camera program. “Every officer is really happy that we have it,” Chief Storti said. “It’s really working out really well. We are still working out the redaction part of it, and I’m not sure if that’s going to be an issue in the future. But so far we’ve been able to manage it without any type of redaction software to help expedite that process.”
Chief Storti spoke positively about the use of body cameras by the department. “It brings to light so many different positive things,” he said. “As far as our interactions, it’s a great tool for us to be able to look back and see how we interacted with somebody and whether or not we can do it better. As far as the public goes, they’ve been absolutely fantastic. When we have an interaction with somebody, we let them know that this interaction is being recorded. Everybody has been okay with that. It’s a great learning tool and I’m glad we have it.”
