Meeting August 2, Tisbury selectmen approved a contract with the consulting firm of Strategic Policy Partnership, LLC, based in West Tisbury to take a look at the Tisbury police department. This week, selectmen described the underpinnings of their decision.
“We’re really taking looks at all our departments, and I think we’ve spent a lot of time the last couple of years reorganizing the department of public works,” selectman Tristan Israel told The Times in a phone conversation Friday. “I felt that it was time to look at the police department.”
Mr. Israel told The Times on Wednesday that he attended a workshop on policing at the Massachusetts Municipal Association’s (MMA) annual meeting in Boston in January. He said that the workshop talked about policing methodologies and training.
“That got me interested in taking a look at our own department for a snapshot of what’s going on and what we can do to improve,” Mr. Israel said. He also said they would be remiss if they didn’t.
Asked what prompted the town to hire a consultant, selectman Larry Gomez said, “Basically to review the police force and see if there’s any changes that can be made. As time goes on, you don’t want a department to be stagnant. You want them to be up to date and that personalities are doing well with each other.”
Selectman chairman Melinda Loberg said that selectmen have been talking a lot about upgrading policies and procedures in all their departments, not just for the police. She said that the police department is working on getting accredited, and as a result they’re going through a lot of evaluations to meet the criteria.
Ms. Loberg said that although they’ve called in the consulting firm in the past, this time it’s for different reasons.
“In the past, we’ve had some difficulties with the police force in terms of morale and leadership. We had a period of time where police chiefs changed often and other internal problems,” Ms. Loberg said. “That’s not the case this time. We’re looking at making sure we’re doing the most we can with our police department. We have a lot of new personnel and it’s a good time to look at policies and procedures.”
Police Chief Dan Hanavan told The Times he looks forward to any recommendations that will help to “improve and enhance the department.”
The cost of the contract is approximately $19,000. The contract has a completion date of Dec. 1, 2016, but looks to map out the next two to three years.
The chairman of the consulting firm, Robert Wasserman, has conducted reviews in the past for various towns, including Tisbury. Robert C. Haas, the firm’s senior consulting associate and retired police commissioner of Cambridge, will conduct the groundwork.
This is not the first time Mr. Wasserman has been called on to examine the Tisbury police department. In 2000, the Tisbury selectmen hired him to study internal problems in the police department. Mr. Wasserman also reported on police issues twice in 2009 and once in 2010.
The proposal said that the goal is to interview and survey staff in hopes of better developing and improving the department. It looks to review current and develop new job descriptions and it covers promotional processes, the assignment of distinct responsibilities to officers, the improvement of orientation training for new employees, and “establishing groupings within the department where officers would have a Sergeant overseeing the group for administrative purposes.”
