SPRINGFIELD – According to the report issued by the Police/Community Relations Committee, participating residents had many good things to say about the city’s Police department, but there was room for improvements.

City Council President Orlando Ramos believes there is more work to be done by the Police/Community Relations Committee and said he will announce a new variation of the committee in 2018.

Ramos and committee members Matthew Forte and Yolanda Cancel released the report of the committee on Dec. 26, which was based on both meetings with residents in every ward, as well as an online survey.

Ramos said those residents living in areas with the C3 policing initiative had many positive comments, and residents who don’t have the program expressed their desire to have it come to their part of the city.

According to the online survey perceptions about safety changed along racial lines. In answer to the question, “How safe do you feel in Springfield?” the white respondents noted 13 percent very safe, 54 percent safe and 33 percent not safe. That is in contrast to the respondents identifying themselves as either black or Hispanic w­ith very safe 11 percent, 66 percent safe and 23 percent not safe.

The question noting satisfaction with the police, white respondents noted a 24 percent not satisfied score, while black and Hispanic respondents answered the question with a higher rate of 36 percent.

Ramos also said residents called for greater transparency and an easier way to complain about police officers.

Among the conclusion of the report:

“The Police Department should provide greater feedback to the community, specifically after repeated requests for service or complaints are made. In the case of speeding vehicles, the number of tickets issued or warnings given should be provided back to the community. In addition, the problem street should be revisited periodically to insure drivers realize the initial police effort will be repeated if necessary. In the case of trash dumping, a problem that requires the attention of not just the police, but the Public Works Department, feedback should include periodic updates as to progress being made (e.g. number of fines issued and/or number of loads of trash removed).”

“While the police may be addressing public concerns, if they do not report their progress back to the community, residents will not know what actions they have taken and therefore think the police have not taken action at all.”

“A small but important group of residents complained about more serious problems with some police officers. These included slow response times to calls for service, officers parked at fast food establishments, leading residents to believe they were not patrolling, harassing youths for no discernable reason and an officer who lied at court. It is not known if residents filed complaints about these allegations, but supervisors and/or internal affairs should do all it can to investigate such complaints to identify problem officers as early as possible. The actions of a very few officers appearing to behave unprofessionally can have a significant impact on the public's view of police in general.”

“The police website, Nextdoor and Facebook apps need to be improved and integrated into a better City website to provide more useful information to residents. Currently they seem to frustrate people.”

“What does seem to be working well is the 311 Smartphone App. Instead of dialing 311 and reporting a non-emergency issue, one can use a smart phone instead. The benefit of this app is that in enables residents to take and attach pictures to requests for service and provide the exact location of the issue using GPS coordinates. In addition the caller receives a tracking number, allowing one to check the status of the complaint. Residents can access this app on the City's 311 Citizens Service Center page.”

“The entire process of dispatching should be reviewed, including hiring standards, training and supervision to insure that dispatchers treat all callers with respect and courtesy. The new head of Dispatch should be invited to attend future committee meetings with residents to not only hear first-hand about their experiences with dispatch, but also to inform them of what is being done to improve the system.”

“We recommend that this committee be continued into 2018 to provide its members the opportunity to not only meet with city residents again, but to meet with other individuals and groups to enhance our ability to recommend concrete actions that will address the resident concerns that we have heard.”

“We would like to meet with C3 teams to explore their experiences and strategies to improve police/community relations and explore ways to expand or enhance their presence in the city.”

“We would like to encourage the Police Commissioner to provide a representative of the police department to join the committee so that we can better understand what the department is doing and/or planning to do to improve police/community relations and allow us to make suggestions to these initiatives. We would also encourage the Department’s spokesperson, Ryan Walsh to 'attend some of our meetings.”

“We would like to meet with the City's IT people to discuss how to improve websites and apps to make them more user friendly and more informative.”

“We think it would be helpful if we published a calendar for meetings in 2018 to give as much notice as possible to residents, committee members and the media with dates, times and places that the committee will meet to encourage greater participation at those meetings.”

“We would like to see the work of code enforcement officers summarized and made available to the public to let residents know what they are doing to enforce city ordinances and contribute to quality of life solutions.”

“We would like to attempt to establish a framework that allows us to monitor progress on all of the issues we have identified that impact on police/community relations with the aim of keeping them on-track and moving forward.”

“The meetings we had this year indicate to the committee that not all eight wards have the same concerns or experiences with the police. We would like to insure that each ward's specific issues are being addressed, so that residents in every ward can see real progress being made in their community.”

“We would also like to see progress made on the use of body cameras for police officers, something that other police departments are exploring and/or implementing, as another useful tool to understand what actually transpires in an encounter with a police officer and another party.”

“Resident ward surveys should continue to be collected annually. The survey we just administered can act as a baseline against which future surveys can be compared. By doing this we can see if public opinion has changed, gotten better or worse, and if residents believe the police department is moving in the right direction.”

“The committee should attempt to increase the number of residents who participate in future ward meetings. We need to encourage more than community leaders to attend and strive to get greater numbers of residents to come to these meeting. We should provide ward councilors with this information in a timely fashion so that they can contact their constituents and encourage them to attend the meetings.”

“Future survey forms should have not only the same questions asked in this year's form, so that we can compare responses from year to year, but also include police strategies that may have been implemented to address the concerns expressed by residents this year.”

“At future ward meetings the committee should not just seek resident input, but provide them with feedback about previous problems they mentioned and what actions have been taken to address them.”

Neither Mayor Domenic Sarno nor Police Commissioner John Barbieri took advantage of the offer to appoint someone  to the committee and Sarno released the following statement: “First of all, my thanks to City Council President Orlando Ramos, Committee Chair City Councilor Tom Ashe, committee members, and of course our residents.

“Basically, this report shows that the initiatives Commissioner Barbieri and I have put forth are working in a positive fashion – the Springfield Police Department is doing a good job and is respected by our residents.  As always, Commissioner Barbieri and I strive to continue to review, enhance, and build on this goodwill.”

Ramos said he hopes the mayor “will read the report in detail and take it seriously.”