The status of detective positions available in the department, local roadwork, and a recent newspaper article were all discussed during a Board of Police Commissioners special meeting August 10. No members of the public were in attendance, and Commissioner Andy Sachs was absent.

Following its agenda of public business, the panel went into a closed executive session along with Police Chief James Viadero and Captain Chris Vanghele.

Viadero told The Newtown Bee following the meeting that the executive session resulted in a unanimous approval to offer a police officer position to Amanda Lopez, 24, of Oxford.

“Amanda was an extremely qualified candidate and a graduate of WestConn with a degree in justice administration,” Viadero said Wednesday. “We are delighted to have her join our team.”

Lopez will undergo further testing before she can begin training at Waterbury Police Department Academy in September, the police chief noted. Prior to the executive session, the commission spent approximately 50 minutes handling other matters.

Police Officer Bart Lorancaitis reported on behalf of the police union that ten union members had taken the detective test and all ten passed. The test is being administered owing to last year’s retirement of Joseph Joudy, and the approaching retirement of Detective Jason Frank.

“The test list is going to get extended until the end of the year,” Lorancaitis told the board. “The test usually expires after the promotion, but this way two tests don’t have to be given but there’s going to be two promotions from it.”

During his report later in the meeting, Viadero said that, per contract, he has to select people for the vacancies. Viadero and Vanghele will begin interviewing each candidate within the next few weeks.

The chief was “really happy” with the results of the tests, he added, and equally happy with the participation.

“I didn’t expect to see ten people that were interested,” he said. “It’s good to see a lot of interest in moving forward.”

He expects to make one new detective “fairly soon,” he told the board, “and then we’re going to make the second one a little bit after that.”

Viadero expressed appreciation on the union’s extension of the detective test.

Chief’s Report

Viadero also updated the commission on the status of the police department’s recent hires.

Hugo Rojas, he said, has completed his field training and is doing patrol work “on his own, and doing very well.”

Peter Wlasuk has graduated from the academy, and recently began the 400 hours required of field training officer (FTO) work.

“We’re anticipating that he’ll be ready to be on a solo capacity sometime in November,” Viadero said.

Frank Piazza, who is attending Milford Police Academy, is “doing very, very well — extremely well, as a matter of fact. We’re getting some very good reports back on him, as well as we did on Pete’s attendance at the academy in Meriden.”

Piazza should be graduating in late October or early November, the chief said. He, too, will then be required to do his 400 hours of FTO work.

The chief also reported that the department has signed a contract with Axon for new body cameras, and that the new units have been delivered and should be in service “within a few days.”

The department is looking into funding to replace car cameras, he said. Car radios and handsets are also expected to be replaced soon, he added.

The department received an e-mail, he said, thanking the officers who were able to save a woman who recently arrived at 191 South Main Street in cardiac arrest.

“That was a great job by our officers,” he said. “They did a wonderful job there.”

The chief then mentioned an article published recently in another newspaper that noted Newtown has “the lowest-rated discipline” in the region. The data presented in the report was correct, the chief and commissioners all agreed. It was the way the data was presented that did not sit well with the officials.

“My contribution to that would be, Yes, we do mete out discipline,” Viadero stated.

“We do have complaints, which we handle and adjudicate,” he added. “Officers are disciplined, whether it’s remedial training, or verbal training, or a written warning, loss of holidays. It happens. It’s a day-to-day business.”

One key factor, he noted, is to look at the severity of each complaint.

“I think we’re fortunate here. The severity of the complaints range from someone making an incomplete report, coming in late to work, motor vehicle accident, or some other kind of conduct that might warrant some type of warning or a loss of a holiday, but nothing to the degree where it warrants termination.

“I don’t think the effectiveness of a police department is predicated on how many terminations you have over the course of a year,” he said.

Body Cam Evidence

Viadero pointed out that with the advent of body cameras, many citizen complaints are judged through the video captured by that equipment.

“Some of the complaints are valid, but a lot of times those citizen complaints are adjudicated by looking at the body camera and saying, ‘No, that’s actually what happened.’ And the complaint gets withdrawn.”

Full transparency is the goal in law enforcement, he said, “and I think we do a very good job at that.”

Commissioner Neil Chaudhary pointed out that when reading the online version of the article being discussed, readers could not only look at how many officers were terminated or disciplined in each department during the study period, “we also had the least number of complaints.”

Viadero agreed, pointing out that Newtown was also listed recently by Safewise.com as the safest town in the state for 2021.

While the department “had issues six or seven years ago,” he said, “with a number of terminations, and a number of resignations, that has to be balanced out with some of the labor issues that were in the past. We don’t see that now. We have a good working relationship with the union.

“There’s stuff in here that’s good, that’s factual,” he continued, “but just because you terminate people doesn’t make that an effective police department. You have to look at the quality of the officers that are there.

“Most certainly if we have an event that warrants a termination,” he continued, “it’s going to come before this body. That’s the check and balance — a civilian body that’s independent, that looks at it and reviews it.”

Faxon agreed, saying that there was “significant tension between the management and the rank-and-file officers that resulted in many, many, many grievances” in the past. Some issues were raised to the level of litigation between the management and the rank-and-file police officers, he noted.

“Over the course of the last three or four years, thankfully, we haven’t had any of that because the tenor of the relationship here has improved,” he added.

Faxon noted that Newtown’s police commission has long been an open board.

“We’re here every first Tuesday of the month, to hear from people, and if people are concerned about anything, they can come in here and talk to us,” he said. “In my recollection, in terms of complaints, we haven’t had anybody in here in years.

“Frankly, I would be very disappointed if we were in an environment or in a department where our time was spent terminating officers all the time,” Faxon also said. “That means that number one, there’s a training problem, probably; and number two, there’s a discipline problem. Thankfully we don’t have either of those issues here right now that present themselves to this board.”

Faxon commended the chief and all the police officers in the department for the hard work engaged in over the past several years to improve those relationships.

Commissioner Joan Plouffe also spoke to the topic.

“The fact that there have been such minor complaints, that have resulted in really, very minor consequences, speaks to the quality of the force, and the quality of the command staff,” she said. “I think that reflects a positive thing.”

Faxon said that the least enjoyable part of being a police commissioner “is to have people have to come in here for discipline or termination, and we’ve dealt with both of them.”

Additional Praise

Following the meeting, Faxon spoke further on the subject. Calling it “extraordinarily unusual” to have a police department’s command staff and rank-and-file members get along so well, Faxon said Newtown Police Department is an outlier.

In other departments, he said, there are constant disagreements between the two levels. Newtown has had issues in the past, he said, “but one of the reasons for our lack of disciplinary proceedings recently is a total positive environment.”

There are occasional disagreements on the staff, he said. But they have not reached a level of concern for years, he added.

“There is good training here, agreements between the command and rank-and file, and harmony, which is almost unheard of,” he said.

Road Work Update

In its role as the traffic authority for the community, the board in recent months has received reports and updates on roadwork from Public Works Director Fred Hurley. Before Hurley spoke Tuesday evening, Faxon said he had already seen progress “on the roadways in recent weeks.”

Fourteen roads had center line striping done in July, Hurley said. He also noted that while there was an initial concern over the final appearance when old single lines were covered and then new double center ones put down, he feels the work done has in fact been “outstanding.”

In-house paving is still on schedule.

“We should meet our obligation fairly soon,” he said.

Tilcon, the contracted paver, will begin work in town on August 23, in Sandy Hook Center. Washington Avenue and Riverside Road will be done first, he said. The company will continue “with other roads they are also responsible for,” he added.

All scheduled paving should be done by mid-September, to be followed by safety markings shortly after that, he said, and additional sealing will be done in September on six roads. There will also be a concentrated effort to “catch up with the stop bars all over town,” Hurley said. “As this paving gets done, and the striping gets done, the stop bars are going to be installed.”

Crosswalks will also be redone in Sandy Hook Center right after the upcoming paving, Hurley said.

Many roads that were not done this year will “probably be re-striped next year,” Hurley also said.

Following a brief discussion, Scott Cicciaro made a motion to add Alberts Hill, Button Shop, Echo Valley, and Farrell roads to the list of roads that should be striped sooner rather than later. Those present voted unanimously (4-0) to approve the motion.

Hurley told the board that the state has been helpful in developing a policy covering metal material price fluctuations through state bids. As a result, bid pricing has allowed all local projects previously proposed to be programmed, with some expansions.

Projects now include two locations on Botsford Hill Road, one location on The Boulevard, four locations on Currituck, two on Hanover, three on Hattertown, and one on Toddy Hill.

Additionally, Hurley announced that the state has provided another pair of solar/battery radar speed signs, with the possibility of the town receiving more units either as a grant item or a low cost bulk purchase.

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Associate Editor Shannon Hicks can be reached at shannon@thebee.com.