TOWN OF HOWEY-IN-THE-HILLS POLICE DEPARTMENT

Transcription

1 TOWN OF HOWEY-IN-THE-HILLS POLICE DEPARTMENT 111 North Palm Avenue, Howey-In-The-Hills, FL Office: (352) Fax: (352) March 30, 2009 Randall G. Smith Traffic Safety Administrator Florida Department of Transportation 605 Suwannee St., MS-17 Safety Office Tallahassee, FL Dear Mr. Smith, The Town of Howey-In-The-Hills, in Lake County Florida is pleased to submit the Highway Safety Concept Paper for the Impaired Driving and Speed/Aggressive Driving to implement In- Car Video Systems. Attached to this letter are the required application documents. They are the following: Informational Form, Statement of the Problem, Proposed Solution, Proposed Objectives, Evaluation, and Concept Paper Budget Form. As the Chief of Police for the Town of Howey-in-the-Hills, I fully support the submitted application and project as identified in the requirements. If you have any questions regarding the application, please call me at (352) or me at howeypdchief@comcast.net Sincerely, Curtis D. Robbins, Sr. Chief of Police

2 STATE OF FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION HIGHWAY CONCEPT PAPER Agency: Howey-In-The-Hills Concept Paper Title: Howey-In-The-Hills Police/Impaired Driving Program/Speed and Aggressive Driving Amount Requested: $28, Priority Area for Concept Paper: Community Traffic Safety Impaired Driving Motorcycle Safety Occupant Protection/Child Passenger Safety Pedestrian/Bicycle Safety Police Traffic Services Roadway Safety Speed/Aggressive Driving Traffic Records Type of Request: Type of Project: Initial Continuation Local Statewide Head of Agency: Name: Chief Curtis D. Robbins, Sr. Title: Chief of Police Address: 111 North Palm Avenue Howey-In-The-Hills, FL Phone: (352) Extension: Project Contact: Name: Frank Watanabe, P.E. Title: Project Manager/Town Consultant Traffic Engineer Address: th Place Suite A-100 Vero Beach, Florida Phone: (772) Extension: 1911 Fax Number: (772) Inc. FDOT USE ONLY: Concept Paper Number: Postmark Date: Date Received: Entered Into Database: Assigned Module: Planner Assigned: Date Assigned: Planner Received:

3 Statement of the Problem: (Give details about the traffic safety problem that you want to correct. Include at least three years of crash, injury, fatality, and citation data to show the extent of the problem.) Howey-In-The-Hills Police Department located in Lake County, Florida is experiencing unprecedented growth of 6% due to the increase in the Town population for the past few years. This increase in population for the Town and the County has contributed to the need of essential police safety equipment to adequately address the enforcement needs of the Town and Community. Besides servicing the Town for enforcement and safety, Howey Police provides regional assistance to other agencies (AOA) as calls are requested to service cities within Lake county, which encompasses approximately 953 square miles with 20 cities within its borders. As well, Howey Police routinely provides assistance to the nearby cities of Groveland, Tavares and the unicorporated areas of Lake County. In addition, Howey Police officers' provide local and regional support to the various State roadways, such as SR 19 and the Howey Bridge. Both of these corridors are heavily used regional highways with average daily traffic of over 13,800 vehicles per day. The Howey Bridge is a narrow two-lane bridge and when an incident occurs on the span of the bridge, Howey police are the only available response units from the south side of the bridge. The benefit of in-car video systems, is to ensure adequate service and enforcement for the Town and the Regional needs. As noted, the Town provides local and regional support for various law enforcement and safety functions. The in-car video systems will provide the following benefits: Safety to the responsing officers on call, evidence for courts and juries, reduce officer's court appearance time and will serve to protect the officer's due to the fact that Howey officers are solo units with no back-up officers. Such units as well can assist to protect the department from unwarranted nuisance complaints. The units will also remind the officers of their own conduct during stops. The agencies and municipalities they assist within Lake County and abroad are:. Lake County Sheriff's Office, Lake County Fire Department, Florida Highway Patrol, Florida Department of Transportation, Astatula Police Department and Tavares Police Department. In addition to local responses, Howey Police have responded to natural disasters such as Tornados that have occurred in Lady Lake, FL and the Fruitland Park Area. They have also gone out of state to assist the State of Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina. As mentioned, the Howey-In-The-Hills Police Department is predominately the lead agency to respond to calls for incidents on the Howey Bridge (SR-19). The bridge is the only north/south corridor that crosses Little Lake Harris connecting regional traffic from Central Lake County to the Turnpike freeway. When an incident occurs on the bridge, Howey Police is typically the first response unit due to it's location. In 2007, Howey responded to over 25 incidents on the bridge. Howey provides regional assistance through AOA's, in addition to covering the Town of nearly 2.97 square miles and 24.2 miles of local roadways.

4 Proposed Solution: (Explain the countermeasures that you plan to implement to correct the problem and how the funding that you have requested will support those countermeasures.) The project, is to purchase 5 digitial in-car video systems and to install these digital systems in five existing Police vehicles. The Town currently has three in-car video systems in operation which has assisted the officers in recording the calls and providing the following benefit: Provide permanent record of the call and stop Reduced Agency Liability Increased Successful Prosecutions Reduced Officer Court Appearance Time Improved Community/Media Perception of Police Improved Officer Safety Useful In-Service Training (Post-Incident) Heightened Officer Performance and Professionalism Simplified Incident Review & Report Writing* The implementation of these video systems will assist the Town and the region in providing the necessary response to the surrounding communities. It is essential that the Town of Howey update their existing in-car video systems. The existing video systems are outdated, with units nonfunctioning and difficultly aquiring replacement parts. The in-car video system is essential in the every day service of Howey Police, given that they respond to a wide variety of calls. In addition, Howey provides regional assistance through AOA's. The calls for 2008 reflect the following: Traffic related (which includes citations and warning) : 937 Traffic Crash Investigations by Howey Police: 24 Reckless driving calls that were reported: 13 Assist to Other Agencies (AOA): 180 Disabled or abandoned vehicles: 87 Suspicious complaints (persons, vehicles, incidents): 79 BOLO calls (Traffic related calls dispatched by LCSO to Howey Officer):53 Escorts (funeral, dignitaries,etc): 16 Hazardous situation calls: 23 Misc call for service(examples: disturbance/fight calls, assist to motorists,etc.): 63 Calls that involved the Howey Bridge in some form or fashion: 36 responses. The Town has also started a new traffic safety program known as Traffic Monitoring (99t). An example would be if a citizen or citizens called in and complained about speeders on Lakeshore, a case number is identified as it is a request for service and logged in. This also includes sitting at Revels Road & 19 and monitoring the school buses. Officers do not log each of the monitored school buses. For 2008, the Town has logged in 296 incidents where officers field visited the site, monitored the traffic situation and in some of the cases, provided enforcement with written citations. For each of the above logged in traffic calls, if a unit is needed to respond or monitor, the benefit of having the in-car video system, is that it will assist in recording the situation if needed for citations given as noted above.

5 Project Objectives: (List the short term goals that you have for the project. Some should be quantifiable, such as, To reduce the number of people killed and injured in crashes by 5% compared to last year s statistics. ) The major short term goals and objectives of this effort are the following: 1. Provide a reliable in-car video camera system, which will record and transmit in real-time (via wireless streaming video) the vehicle pursuit. 2. Provide wireless video transmission capability over a radius of at least 100 miles. 3. Provide a reliable in-car video camera system, which will record in real-time the occupants in the back seat vehicles during transport. 4. Provide ability to store the video file for later review and use. 5. Provide low-light video display and recording capability. 6. Provide a system which is efficient and user-friendly. 7. Provide an integrated GPS capability to track the CBP vehicle. 8. Provide a system with safeguards to account for the chain of custody, while in Customs Officer s possession. Evaluation: (Explain how you will determine if the project is a success.) As part of the project, the Howey Police department will review the progress of the system use inwith six months of implementation. The progress check will verify the effectiveness of the ib-car video with the above listed project objectives. Based on the six month data collected, the police will evaluate the effective use of the in-car videos and provide any needed adjustments for second six month period. An annual report of the effectiveness of the in-car video system will be prepared and presented to the City Council.

6 CONCEPT PAPER BUDGET List each item for which you are requesting funding and the estimated cost of the item(s). Equipment that has a unit cost of $1,000 or more should be listed in the Operating Capital Outlay section. BUDGET CATEGORY TOTAL FEDERAL MATCH FUNDING STATE LOCAL A. Personnel Services B. Contractual Services C. Expenses

7 CONCEPT PAPER BUDGET BUDGET CATEGORY TOTAL FEDERAL MATCH FUNDING STATE LOCAL D. Operating Capital Outlay In-car video System $24,000 $24,000 $0 $0 Computer hardware for office $4,000 $4,000 $0 $0 Subtotal $28,000 $28,000 $ 0 $ 0 E. Indirect Cost Total Cost of Project $ 0 $28,000 $ 0 $ 0