Township Annual Report - 2007 - Lower Providence Township

police departmentThe Lower Providence Township Police Department addresseda number of critical issues throughout 2007 andcontinued to strive to provide excellent police services tothose that we are sworn to serve.Major renovations were completed in the Police DispatchCenter, located within the police station. The renovationprovided dispatch personnel with expanded work area, taskspecificworkstations and computer display screens for theComputer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system, the internal recordsmanagement systems, the Ridge Pike Closed Loop system,and the internal video monitoring system. Lower ProvidenceTownship maintains a dispatch center that is staffed 24 hoursper day, seven days per week. The center is classified as aPublic Safety Access Point (PSAP) under Pennsylvania stateguidelines and interfaces through the computer aided dispatchsystem with the Montgomery County 9-1-1 Center.Police radio transmissions are made on a dedicated channelon the Montgomery County 800MHz radio system. LowerProvidence Township also maintains a redundant high bandradio system for all police, fire and emergency medicalservice responders in the event of a catastrophic failure of the800MHz system.Additional communication upgrades were undertaken withthe transition of the police radio equipment from an analogplatform to a digital platform. Digital 800MHz radios wereissued to police personnel and digital radios were installed inthe Dispatch Center. Mobile digital radios will be installedinto patrol vehicles in the near future to conclude theproject.The Township’s emphasis on traffic safety movedforward with the procurement of an ENRADD speedtimingdevice. The ENRADD provides officers with thecapability to capture the speed of vehicles through infraredtechnology. The device transmits the speed wirelessly to anofficer monitoring the device and provides an effective meansof enforcing speed limits in areas that prove to be difficultwith the more traditional mechanisms available to municipalpolice officers in Pennsylvania.The School Resource Officer Program received anacknowledgement for its success through a site visit inSeptember from a representative from the United StatesDepartment of Justice, Office of Justice Programs. ThePennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency,which administers the grant funding for the program,selected the Lower Providence Township School ResourceOfficer program as a model program for the Department ofJustice representative to visit. School Resource Officer MarkA. Stead and Lt. Stanley M. Turtle provided a program to aneighth grade science class at the Arcola Intermediate Schoolinvolving speed dynamics that required the application ofmathematical calculations and theories of physics.The Emergency Management function of the departmentwas quite busy with the preparation and implementationof plans to ensure the safety of Township residents. Atthe outset of the year, the Board of Supervisors adopted thePandemic Plan for the Township at their January 18, 2007meeting. The following month, the Township EmergencyOperations Plan was completed and adopted by the Board ofSupervisors on February 15, 2007. The Township EmergencyThe Township completed a major renovation of the Police Dispatch Center in 2007, adding task-specific workstationsand computer display screens for the Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system.12l o w e r p r o v i d e n c e t o w n s h i p