Hancock enacted a police vehicle use policy per residents’ requests in March, but it remains under negotiation due to conflicts with some of the police department’s established practices, Police Chief Andrew Wood said. Some of the issues are rooted in the small department’s reliance on on-call hours from officers who live out of town, a situation several surrounding towns also face.
“The town has been asking for a vehicle use policy for about three years,” Select Board Chair Laurie Bryan said, and the Board wanted to implement the policy in advance of Town Meeting this year. “It’s still not where we want it to be,” she said, and that the policy is far from set in stone.
Hancock’s administration is still trying to balance what the town can afford with the best service they can give residents, Bryan said. “We’re really trying to figure out how you do coverage 24 hours a day… it’s harder and harder to get police who live close to town,” she said.
As written, the vehicle use policy requires that police vehicles not be used for personal business purposes, or commuting to and from work except when on call. The policy calls for one vehicle to be designated as the primary on-call vehicle, and only officers may operate the vehicles. Additionally, the policy specifies the circumstances under which vehicles may leave town, and who may ride in the cruisers.
There are some items in the policy that conflict with current protocol in the police department, one being the on-call use of cruisers, Wood said. Hancock doesn’t have the personnel for 24-hour coverage from town, so officers take home cruisers when they’re on call. “I think people see us bringing the cruisers home when we’re on call as a means of transportation,” he said. “They’re not. They’re our office,” he said, with critical equipment and authorization for responding quickly to emergencies. No Hancock officers currently live in town, including Wood himself, who lives in Fitzwilliam. He characterized on-call hours as “a fact of life” for small police departments. “Most don’t want a cruiser at their house,” he said, due to the attention it draws to their residence. However, Wood said that officers need to be able to have a vehicle while on call “where they’re at home or wherever they want to be, they can’t be subject to just sitting by the phone.”
Additionally, non-officers might operate a cruiser when it goes in for maintenance, or in emergencies, such as when a fire department member used a cruiser to retrieve equipment from the station during a fire, Wood said. He is working to resolve specific conflicts in the policy with the Select Board.
The Board passed the policy after receiving feedback from Wood and the town attorney, Bryan said. Parts of it were adopted from other towns, she said, but every town’s specific needs are different. “We have good officers in town, we have a good department, but we’re also financially right up against it,” she said. The Select Board has looked into having State Police cover some hours, she said, and they’re in an ongoing conversation with Wood about coverage options.
Neighboring Greenfield has no written vehicle use policy for on-call officers, but an officer’s proximity does factor in, Chief Brian Giammarino said. Giammarino himself absorbed more on-call responsibilities when one officer moved from Greenfield to two towns away. “I live in Antrim but town line to town line it’s about 10 miles,” Giammarino said. “I do the best I can. I feel like I live too far away,” he said.