Chief’s Verbal – 2 May 2011

Promotions:

Speaking to promotions and succession planning the Chief introduced the following: – Superintendent Ty Cameron, Insp. Mike Maloney, Insp. Don Sweet, Insp. Tessa Youngson-Larochelle, Insp. Paul Gallant and Insp. Murray Knowles.  Each of these officers bring a tremendous amount of experience and credibility to the senior ranks.  Congratulations

Video Enhancement

The Ottawa Police Service Central Cellblock located at 474 Elgin Street is a 63 cell temporary detention facility supported by a video surveillance system comprised of 89 cameras.  Each cell has a dedicated camera, and common areas are covered by overview cameras.  The common area camera feeds are recorded continuously, while individual cell cameras can be recorded on demand by the Sergeant-in-charge.  There are two monitoring stations for all cameras – one at the Sergeant’s desk and the second at the Special Constable station. 

The system is comprised of a mixture of original equipment cameras that are now 17 years old, as well as cameras that were added at the time of the Cellblock expansion in 2005.  The Digital Video Recorders that are used to record the video feeds are located in a secure room, and are now six years old. 

In the report presented tonight we are recommending a sole source primarily based on our relationship with the company who has been involved in the maintenance of the service we have within and outside the cellblock now, including our recent upgrades throughout the service.

The new system will be installed and commissioned before transitioning from the existing system.  The new equipment will be co-located with the old system before a graceful de-installation is completed. 

The total cost of this solution including warranty support is $285,831, exclusive of all taxes.  The amount of HST applicable is $37,158.03 before rebate, for a total of $322,989.03.  Funding of $350,000 for this purchase is available from the 2011 Capital Project account #906220.

The proposed solution can be installed and commissioned within 60 days (estimate) of contract award.

Cellblock Update

The OPP are continuing their final investigation, that being the Section 11 PSA requirements specific to the SIU incident involving Stacy Bonds.  They expect to have their investigation concluded in the near future, with a completed report forwarded by mid May.

A final report on the issues surrounding the Cell Block is expected to be tabled at the June board meeting.  This will be a comprehensive document covering numerous aspects of these incidents from the outcomes of the investigations to the internal reviews undertaken.  It will outline the improvements that were implemented which included enhancements in equipment, training, policies and procedures and additions to supervision.

Windstorm

As we all know, on Thursday April 28 the Ottawa area was subjected to winds of about 100 km/h along with rain.  As a result of this many trees were knocked down that impacted on hydro lines with resulting power outages.  Other structural damage was also reported that required police response due to the unsafe conditions, such as chimneys becoming precariously unstable and street and highway signs being knocked down.

The OPS 9-1-1 Communications Center received 712 phone calls at 9-1-1 between 13:00 and 15:00.  In addition 409 phone calls were also received during this period at the other emergency number (230 6211).  To put this into perspective, on an average day 9-1-1 receives about 650 calls in a 24-hour period while the other emergency line receives about 500.

At one point we activated 256 on-duty units to respond to calls for service including some assistance from uniformed RCMP members with minimal call back of members required.  We implemented a supplementary triage process for telephone calls for service to ensure we maintained our capacity to respond to priority calls.  (This allows us to cancel if no longer required or refer to another appropriate agency).

We engaged with the Office of Emergency Management and had resources allocated to the City’s Emergency Operations Center along with other partners.  We also allocated a supervisor to work at the Loretta Traffic Command Center as there were more than 100 intersections without traffic control.  This was an opportunity to see first-hand the benefits of collaboratively responding to these types of situations.  In addition, the information gathered from our direct communication with Ottawa Hydro and Hydro One was incorporated into our planning process and allowed us to develop short and long-term resourcing requirements.

This success is an excellent example of the cooperation that can exist within this City when a crisis occurs.  The driving public should be commended for their patience and exercise of extra care under difficult conditions.  This cooperative effort amongst the community and our members despite challenging circumstances ensured minimal long-term effects and is an example of the resilience of this community.