Latimore Township Community Crime Watch Program

 

The following are the minutes of the regular meeting held on Thursday Dec. 27, 2007, 7:30 P.M. at the Lake Meade Fire House Complex.

 

The following minutes were prepared by Bob Zangueneh, currently acting Program Chairman, and Lake Meade Crime Watch Coordinator.

 

Advisement: The public is invited to all meetings, and a sign indicating the date and time of the event was placed on the Lake Meade bulletin board a week prior to the event.

 

The meeting was chaired by Bob Zangueneh. Presentation was made by our new Latimore Chief of Police Officer Weigand.

 

Attendees: Seven (7) individuals attended this meeting. Apparently our sign at the entrance had no impact on the attendance.

 

Officer Wiegand:

 

The Latimore Police Department was established on July 17, 2007 and began operations on July 27, 2007. The majority of the approximately 65% of the residents who responded to a survey sent out in the Fall of 2006 expressed their concern to maintain a police department.

The department purchased used vehicles, converted all paper data to an electronic file record. Obtained laptop computers for the vehicles from Adams County. All reports can now be prepared from the vehicles. This is one method of keeping up with the state or the art technology

 

On Call Program:

 

Our officers are on call most of the non-patrol time for emergencies, domestic violence, accidents, suspicious vehicles etc. There are currently (4) four officers under the command of Officer Wiegand. Most of the officers are part time. The annual budget of the Latimore Police Department is $120,000.00. This budget covers the salary for all of the officers, who may either be full time or part time. It covers the (3) three marked vehicles used by the department and all gas and maintenance of these vehicles.

 

Question: How are fines treated?

 

Response: All fines, for example speeding go back directly to the State General Fund. The township receives one half of the fine block money. For example a stop sign violation the fine is $25 the township receives $12.50. The total amount of the citation is $107.50. However, the remain cost are for court and CAT fund fees.

 

 

 

 

 

Visibility;

 

It is the motivation and policy of the department to provide as much visibility as possible:

Officer Weigand: All police cars are marked.  Officers are on duty at all major athletic events. The division is actively involved in the DARE Program in the middle school at Bermudian Springs School District. Furthermore officers often dispatched for mutual aide to other municipalities 

 

 

Phone Numbers:

 

Report a crime and emergency: 9-1-1

Adams County Non-Emergency: 717-334-8101

Latimore Police Department: 717-528-4121

E;Mail address:

Officer Weigand           CHIEFWEIGAND@latimore.ORG

Department:                  latimorepd@latimore.org

 

Officer Michael C. Weigand (Jr.)

Officer Todd Forney

Officer Robert Then

Officer Burnell Bevenhour

 

New Officer:

 

A new officer, Officer Bevenhour will start on Saturday December 29th, 2007.

 

The following chart illustrates the level of call activities:

 

 

LTYSR PD                                         LATIMORE

1/1/07-6/30/07                                     10/25/07-12/27/07

 

LT                   308                                                                  208

LM                    25                                                                    26

DS                     37                                                                    26

YS                     93                                                                      7

 

Total                463                  Total 10/25/07 to 12/27/07      267

W/Traffic       674                  Total 7/27/07to 12/27/07         667

                                                 Total with traffic                     991             

 

 

 

 

Future meeting dates:

All future meetings will be held at the Latimore Township building. Meeting will start at 7:00  P.M. Meetings will be held on the fourth meeting of every month.

 

Jan. 24th. Feb. 28th, Mar. 27th, Apr. 24th, May 22nd, June 26th, Jul. 24th, Aug. 21, Sept. 25,

Oct. 23, Nov. 20th, Dec. 20th.

 

Adopt a Cop Program. Handout given at the meeting:

 

Program to raise funds for the purchase of bullet proof vests for the officers. Our goal is to raise $2,800.00 so that we can outfit four of our officers. This will save funds to maintain patrol hours. Note: Department of Justice: BVP is currently not accepting new registration for the Bulletproof Vest Program. In other words no available grants. Therefore the Latimore Police Department is seeking contributions from the public. Please see “Adopt a Cop Program” attached.

 

 

 

 

Marketing:

 

In order for the Crime Watch Program to grow, we must put our thinking hats on, and come up with creative methods of marketing our program to the community.

 

  1. Free advertisement is one method. We need to get one article to the local papers every month. At minimum the date and location of the monthly meetings.
  2. Lake Meader: We will have an article about our program in every issue of the Lake Meader which is a bi-monthly news letter published by the Lake Meade Association. We will place announcements on the Lake Meade web site as well.
  3. We need help with other creative methods.

 

The meeting was adjourned at 9:15 P.M.

Next meeting at 7:00 P.M. , Latimore Township Building, Thursday Jan. 24th.