By Monica Potts
Staff Writer
Advocate Article Launched: 09/11/2008 02:54:47 AM EDT
STAMFORD - The Stamford Police Department's assistant chiefs said this week they need a police academy and hope to use the building in the Cove that Rogers Elementary School will vacate after this school year.
Assistant Chief Susan Bretthauer said at the Police Commission meeting Monday night that the department has no place to put its academy once South End development displaces it. The building on Belden Street is the site of the future Waterside School, part of the Harbor Point development. The academy has to leave the building in November.
"That building is falling apart anyway," Bretthauer said.
The department is certified by the state to run a satellite academy, but the building must meet space and participation criteria.
The class now has about 40 people, but only five will join the Stamford department. The rest are training to join departments in other towns and cities.
Assistant Chief Robert Nivakoff told the commission that the test the department uses is outdated. He and Bretthauer said they are having problems getting enough qualified candidates to take the test.
"This is something being experienced nationwide," Bretthauer said.
Many issues, including the war in Iraq and the expansion of federal law enforcement agencies in recent years, are drawing from the same pool of applicants who might otherwise be police officers, she said.
They said they are looking for temporary space in Stamford and nearby towns because even if they can move into the Rogers School building, it would not be available for nearly a year. Not having a space to operate an academy would hamper their ability to hire new officers, which the department needs, they said.
There are about 290 officers on the force now, and even if all five new recruits make it through the academy, they still will be about 20 officers short, Nivakoff said. Hiring new officers is the only way to keep overtime costs down, he said.
Though overtime for the summer still is being calculated, a portion of the costs came from the Alive@Five concert series. The department kept nearly 50 officers at the event after fights broke out following an Eve 6 concert.
Nivakoff said the extra officers were necessary.
"By the last (concert), there were minimal arrests," he said.
Since the fiscal year began July 1, the department has spent about $450,000 on overtime, more than $100,000 over the spending goal, Nivakoff said.
The police department has said an academy would not take up all of the space in the 120,000-square-foot Lockwood Avenue building that houses Rogers school, but it is not the only group vying for it.
Representatives from the East Side Partnership also attended the meeting, asking whether police would be willing to share a portion of it. Randy Skigen, executive director of the partnership, said they would like to use part of the building for a day laborer center, community center or child care center.
"The neighborhood is clearly underserved in a lot of different areas," Skigen said. "Some sort of mixed use is appropriate for a building of that size."
- Staff Writer Monica Potts can be reached at monica.potts@scni.com or 964-2266.