Stonington Board of Selectmen approve regional police cooperation pacts.
The first pact was the Regional Community Enhancement Task Force Agreement, which Chief of Police J. Darren Stewart said was initially created to address the opioid crisis but is for any quality-of-life issue a particular town is dealing with and needs to react to.
“Right after the heroin and opioid problem hit, the area police chiefs [created] a task force based upon a need at that particular time to get together for what Chief Fusaro from Groton called ‘the force multiplier,’ to get our heads together,” he said.
“It will be operated through the respective police departments and give the participants powers of arrest within the geographical area of the task force as long as they are working in furtherance of the task force, which involves illicit criminal activity,” said First Selectman Rob Simmons, adding that the agreement will be useful for police when criminal activity crosses town borders.
The Southeastern Connecticut Regional Traffic Unit, the second agreement approved, involves a team approach in accident reconstruction and investigation.
The agreement brings together the accident expertise of the towns of Ledyard, Groton, North Stonington and Stonington, he said.
The Mutual Police Assistance Compact Agreement, which gives the Board of Selectmen in each town authorization to send its police department to assist in another town in case of emergencies or other events, was last signed in the early 1990s and needed to be updated, Stewart said.
“Since then the police departments of Ledyard, Mashantucket, Mohegan Sun and East Lyme have come on board,” he said.
“I”m the president of the Law Enforcement Council of Eastern Connecticut, which is 22 towns, and we felt that it was time to update this to meet the needs of the departments and to get these other entities on board.” In other business, the selectmen unanimously approved a waiver of Water Pollution Control Authority permit fees for the sewer tie-in at the Dean’s Mill and West Vine Street schools in the amount of $150 per school.
chewitt@thewesterlysun.com