Protecting Public Safety

In addition to the public safety benefits that will accrue from the traffic mitigation and infrastructure maintenance plans discussed above, Newton faces significant other public safety challenges. In particular, due to budgetary constraints, we are faced with staffing and service reductions in our Police and Fire Departments, as well as a troubling lack of emergency preparedness. While we have taken excellent public safety protection for granted in Newton for many years, we are at risk of losing that sense of security if we do not take decisive action to support these essential services.

Summary of the Proposed Solution

To protect public safety in Newton, we will take prompt and decisive action to:

Restore Police Department services, particularly crime prevention and community policing, to acceptable levels;

Improve Fire Department equipment and response times up to nationally-recognized safety standards;

Modernize and upgrade our combined dispatch center; and

Develop and promulgate an emergency response and communication plan.

Discussion and Implementation Plan

i) Restore Community Policing Services

As a result of recent reductions in the number of police officers in Newton, a number of important functions that help to prevent crime and to protect public safety have been reduced or eliminated. For example, youth officer functions have been reduced, the senior liaison position has been eliminated, and the community policing program in which police offers spent time in our schools educating students about building an identification profile was eliminated. Restoring important crime-prevention functions to the Police Department will require adding back some of the positions that have been eliminated, making use of modern resource-allocation practices, and prioritizing the functions we ask our police to perform. This last point is particularly important. We can free up police resources for important public safety initiatives by eliminating lower-priority activities. We can also create a culture of high levels of voluntary compliance by enforcing important ordinances and repealing those that are unimportant, relieving the police from having to enforce them. For example, there is no need for an overnight parking ban, if the justification is to prevent cars from blocking snow plows. We simply need to prohibit parking during snow-clearing (at all hours, day or night). Other ordinances that are important to the quality of life in Newton but are confusing, complicated and difficult to enforce should be simplified and enforcement training should be offered to all interested police officers.

ii) Improve Fire Department Equipment and Response Time

The Newton Fire Department has suffered in recent years from elimination of a fire engine, significant reductions in staffing, and inadequate and outdated equipment. As a result, we do not comply with National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) standards for response time. We will upgrade the equipment used by our firefighters and invest the resources needed to bring fire prevention and suppression up to acceptable standards to protect Newton residents and the people who work in our city. We should also place a high value on ensuring the safety and well-being of our firefighters and other emergency responders. By working with our professionals in these departments, we will be able to agree on safety standards that will allow us to measure performance and engage in an ongoing process of improvement that will make Newton a safer place to live and to work.

iii) Modernize and Upgrade our Combined Dispatch Center

All emergency calls in Newton are routed through our emergency dispatch center, which has suffered in recent years from outdated equipment, poor working conditions, understaffing, lack of back-up communication lines, and other operational challenges. While some of the outdated equipment has recently been replaced and the center has been renovated, many problems with this important operation remain. We will map out needed improvements, develop and test a back-up operations plan, and vigorously monitor progress toward achieving the level of reliable functionality needed to make sure every emergency call is handled as efficiently as possible.

iv) Develop an Emergency Response and Communication Plan

Newton needs to be better prepared to respond to a natural disaster, terrorist attack, disease outbreak, or other emergency. We will work to develop and promulgate an emergency response and communication plan with the following components: clear lines of communication, pre-positioning of emergency supplies and medicines in strategic locations throughout the city, and planned evacuation routes in case a portion of the city is not safe.

The communication plan will include channels of communication with state emergency responders and response teams in neighboring cities and towns, so that we can coordinate efforts effectively. It will also incorporate direct lines of communication with state and local public health officials, so that vaccine, treatment, and other contagion-related information can be distributed quickly and accurately. The plan will also include secondary and tertiary communication channels, in case primary channels, such as phone, email, and radio, are not functioning.

The most important aspect of emergency response planning is to make sure that everyone who has a role in the plan or may be able to assist in implementation of the plan is familiar with the plan and has access to it. That means that every municipal department, school, library and other public building should have a printed copy of the plan available and all city employees should be briefed on how they should respond in case of an emergency.

In addition to initial training of relevant personnel, periodic drills are essential to working out implementation challenges and maintaining knowledge of the emergency response plan.