(2/13) The Carroll Valley Borough Council approved paying for two protective vests for police and the subscription for monitoring body and in-vehicle police cameras.
Police Chief Richard Hileman approached the council requesting their approval that he be authorized to acquire two protective vests for officers in the amount of $2,342, and to pay for the $2,845 subscription with Digital Ally which provides police cameras, and the cloud-based storage for the video generated. the proposed expenses totaling $5,187.
Additionally, the chief pointed out that the council had cut $2,845 from the Contracted Services budget-line item, which included the police contract with Digital Ally for the body-worn cameras and in-car video-service. "Without this funding, I will have to discontinue the use of our body cameras and will lose access to the cloud-based video storage. I am asking that this funding be restored as well," he stated.
Regarding the acquisition of the two vests, Hileman said, "With the decision to move forward using part-time officers, we need to equip them with bullet-resistant vests, as we do for our full-time officers," adding, that in 2020 the department was borrowing equipment as a temporary measure, and now that the decision was made to have part-time officers, "we need to provide them with our equipment."
To pay for the requested purchases, Hileman suggested using un-delegated department revenues, which presently amounts to $5,171 - $4,780 of which had been provided through Adams County COVID-19 grant funds which had been set aside for police departments, and the $371 remainder was provided through a police-protective vest-grant. The difference between the departmental revenues ($5,171) and the proposed expenditures ($5,187) was $35.
The council decided to pay for the vests out of the capital budget, and subscription costs as a budgetary line item.
In other police business, Chief Hileman stated that on January 20 a CenturyLink fiber-optics line was cut on a bridge in Northern Maryland which knocked-out phone service to the affected customers … including almost all of Adams County, and the 911 lines at the county Emergency Services Center.
As a result, the center asked local fire and police departments to have staff on-hand who could help manage emergency calls during the outage. Hileman said, "Thanks to our (the borough’s) Comcast phone-system and the remote working that we have been doing …they (the borough and police staff) were already hooked-up to do that" and were thereby capable of handling the emergency calls.
Hileman acknowledged Assistant Borough Manager Gayle Marthers, Assistant Borough Secretary Amanda Bell, and Police Administrative Assistant Jo Ann Myers as the three staff members who left their phones on all night in order to take calls.
