Greenburgh PD

[esu78 0]

Read the following

email pfeiner@greenburghny.com

town supervisor

to help save jobs and help these officers.

THANK YOU

HOW A 5% CUT IN POLICE SERVICES COULD IMPACT YOU...

Release Date: November 30, 2007

During the budget hearings I asked department heads to provide members of the Town Board with a list of possible cuts. Chief Kapica followed up on the request and submitted the following statement. If his department is cut by 5% there will be a savings of $750,000. The tax increase would go from 23% to 21% if all of the following cuts are made.

PAUL FEINER

As per your request, I have re-examined the Police Department's budget in an attempt to find other non-essential areas where cuts can be made. Even though you previously informed me that you would prefer not to cut programs, I am assuming that your new posture on this makes everything fair game and obviously, I would prefer to eliminate programs rather than diminish our ability to respond to calls from the public or investigate crimes. The elimination of our Drug Abuse, Resistance Education Program (D.A.R.E.) would result in a savings of $10,090. If you intend to do this, you will need to advise me very soon as the schools will need to find an alternative curriculum to address the drug and alcohol issue in next year's school year and we will need to advise Ardsley that we cannot assist them with their DARE program. The elimination of the Summer Youth Camp will save about $32,050 and elimination of all other Community Affairs Programs ( 3 on 3 basketball; our Police Explorer Post and the Youth Court) will realize $7,430 more in savings for a total of $49,570. I think we would need to refund a contribution made by Pat Lanza that was specifically for the Youth Camp in the amount of $5,000, which would reduce these savings to $44,570. All these programs continue to be well attended and have been enormously successful. I have also done some preliminary calculations as to the impact of a 5% budget cut on the Police Department. Essentially, such a reduction, which would approximately result in a savings of $750,000, would require laying off 14 police officers. In order to somewhat mitigate the devastating effect this would have on the department would require the following action; 1) Reduction of the number of patrol sectors in town from 7 to 6. This would increase response times but help offset the loss of 6 positions; 2) Eliminate all community policing and housing posts. This would offset the loss of 7 positions but obviously have an adverse impact in Fairview and Hartsdale; 3) Eliminate one position in the department's training unit, which would affect our ability to train personnel. While this reorganization would help offset the loss to the Patrol function, it would provide no backup resources to address filling the positions of officers lost to long-term disabilities (presently there are four), child birth, attendance at school, etc. Realistically, to further mitigate this would result in the loss of one traffic officer and several detectives who would need to be returned to the status of police officer and assigned to patrol. This would obviously affect our ability to investigate crimes. Under this scenario, our ability to provide services would be seriously reduced. I have not projected 10% or 15% cuts because it would be impossible for us to function with any effectiveness under either of these scenarios. IN CLOSING, I WISH TO EXPRESS MY STRONG OBJECTION TO ANY CUTS IN POLICE DEPARTMENT PERSONNEL. WE ARE BARELY ABLE TO KEEP PACE WITH THE DEMAND FOR SERVICES WITH THE PEOPLE WE HAVE. TO REDUCE PERSONNEL LEVELS WILL ENDANGER THE PUBLIC AS WELL AS THE POLICE OFFICERS WHO SERVE THEM WHILE SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASING RESPONSE TIMES AND RESULT IN CUTS IN OTHER POLICE DEPARTMENT SERVICES THAT PEOPLE IN GREENBURGH HAVE BECOME ACCUSTOMED TO AND DESERVE. Chief Kapica

[Guest]

The last thing Greenburgh needs is LESS police on the street!

[x635 4,066]

Paul Feiner could care less about the Police Department and it's EMS division.

It's bad enough we have an EMS call in this town, and we lose two Police Officers off the street for a couple of hours, or a Paramedic when an officer makes an arrest, but now to reduce Police Services more?

We can find $30 million to build a new super-library, in the INTERNET AGE, but there's no money to fund a 24/7 Greenburgh ESU unit, similar to those run by White Plains and Yonkers? (Only GPD's would have ALS ESU though!). Where are the Town's priorities?

I have lived in Greenburgh for all of my 28 years, and I feel we have one of the better Police Departments. They provide a wide variety of specialized services, and I think there's many other ways to cut costs in this town besides losing Police Officers. It's bad enough I really don't even feel safe in my neighborhood walking at night-the cops are overworked as it is.

I've emailed and talked to Paul Feiner about this, he really, really does not actually care about the service provided, I believe he only cares about how the service provided reflects on him. You can't even talk at a Town Meeting, you have to "register" in advance, wait, wait and wait, and then have a couple of minutes to speak- they literally have a timer like on a game show. And I can't even really say what I want to say due to my employer not realizing I also live in the Town I work in- so my real passion to tell the Town what I think is suppresed.

Just more of a reason I'm trying to move out of this town........but I'll ALWAYS support GPD.

[INIT915 1,119]

Pure political posturing. Similar to the annual NYS vs. WC dilemma that raised it's head as NYS threatened to stop paying WC for the Parkway patrols. Every year we heard about iminent layoffs...

[SgtGumby311 0]

Hats off to Chief Kapica!!!!!!

[NJMedic 96]

How did this document become public knowledge? Was it part of a newspapers article or an official town press release. Sounds like th police chief is saying "Hey, you want to cut the PD budget this is what is going to happen". Looking at the photo of the chief on their website he looks old enough to retire rather then try to find a way to cut their budget and have police services suffer.

[27east 19]

And yet the people re-elected Feiner overwhemlingly. The same people who voted for him are now complaining about the tax increase. What is that old saying about taxes and democrats, especially a very liberal one like Feiner?

[INIT915 1,119]

And yet the people re-elected Feiner overwhemlingly. The same people who voted for him are now complaining about the tax increase. What is that old saying about taxes and democrats, especially a very liberal one like Feiner?

Everyone wants increases in salary, services, etc, but no one ever wants to know where the money is coming from. And all politicians raise taxes, Republicans and Democrats.

[gpdexplorer 46]

This is a matter that hits close to home for me. About for years ago, I joined the GPD Explorer Post. Prior to leaving for college, I was very active in the post. The explorer program is method for many of Greenburgh's youth to gain an interest in law enforcement. The program is run by some of Greenburgh's absolute finest, currently under the direction of Sgt. Gramaglia, P.O. Dandreano, Det. Schulze, and P.O. Rashad. The explorer post works closely with the Community Affairs Division. We would attend the 3-on-3 basketball programs, assist with traffic details, and the Greenburgh's Child Safety Passenger Team, who install the most child car seats in the state, among many other things. It will be very sad to see this program bite the dust. Through my participation, I was one of 30 explorers nationwide to attend the 2005 National Law Enforcement Explorer Academy, sponsored by the US Army Military Police at Fort Leonard Wood, MO. The explorer program can, and has, provided great training opportunities to Greenburgh's youth, much of which will hopefully shape the way they lead there life. Say it ain't so Mr. Feiner.

[Oswegowind 17]

Everyone wants increases in salary, services, etc, but no one ever wants to know where the money is coming from. And all politicians raise taxes, Republicans and Democrats.

Exactly! That is why I love it when they call and say, "I pay your salary!". Well, don't b**** about your taxes and then tell me that!

[dadbo46 50]

While I am not at all a Paul Feiner fan, it is prudent for every manager to communicate with his/her department heads and determine where expenses can be contained or reduced. That does not necessarily mean that heads need to roll, but, perhaps there are some programs that are not useful/effective. Also, there may be a better way to do business and achievce $aving$.

The Chief's response to the supervisor was a "protect the kingdom at all costs" response. Not a good from a department head.

Edited December 14, 2007 by dadbo46

[Jared1979 19]

you dont need police officers being laid off that would be a major blow to the dept. Cutting programs for the police dept like the dare program does not sound good to me. If you cut ems that would really bad for the town. Remember democrats run the town and everything they say about lowering taxes is a bunch of lies.

[SageVigiles 1,194]

This is a matter that hits close to home for me. About for years ago, I joined the GPD Explorer Post. Prior to leaving for college, I was very active in the post. The explorer program is method for many of Greenburgh's youth to gain an interest in law enforcement. The program is run by some of Greenburgh's absolute finest, currently under the direction of Sgt. Gramaglia, P.O. Dandreano, Det. Schulze, and P.O. Rashad. The explorer post works closely with the Community Affairs Division. We would attend the 3-on-3 basketball programs, assist with traffic details, and the Greenburgh's Child Safety Passenger Team, who install the most child car seats in the state, among many other things. It will be very sad to see this program bite the dust. Through my participation, I was one of 30 explorers nationwide to attend the 2005 National Law Enforcement Explorer Academy, sponsored by the US Army Military Police at Fort Leonard Wood, MO. The explorer program can, and has, provided great training opportunities to Greenburgh's youth, much of which will hopefully shape the way they lead there life. Say it ain't so Mr. Feiner.

As a Danbury Police Explorer, I've had the opportunity to compete against and work with GPD Explorers on multiple occasions, and they've always posed a formidible challenge. (Though gpdexplorer can account to how badly Suffolk County dominates regional competitions...) A loss of any Explorer post, much less that's really coming along like Greenburgh would be a loss to the Explorer Community regionwide. Hopefully they will make it out alright.

[gpdexplorer 46]

Thanks for the kind words SageVigiles. The competitions were great and you guys always did great and Suffolk County always dominated, since they have two posts.