Former NPD officer Martha S. Blair: Former NPD officer weighs in on police funding, need for plan

Editor’s note: Northampton resident Martha Blair shares this letter she sent to the Northampton City Council and Mayor David Narkewicz.

My name is Martha Blair and I live in Leeds. I have been a lifelong resident of Northampton and was a police officer here for almost 20 years before retiring in 2002. I am writing to you, as I am sure hundreds of others have, regarding the Defund the Police Movement that has been going on all over the country and now in our own city because of racism and specifically the murder of George Floyd.

I personally think that the cuts in the Police Department may have been much easier to swallow if there had been an actual plan that was going to take place on July 1, 2020. But there was not, other than the money that was taken away from NPD will be put into the rainy-day fund and a committee will be formed by August of approximately 15 people that you all will decide.

I think a committee is an excellent idea, but I have my concerns that the people who are chosen will not be open-minded and willing to look at all sides of this issue. I also feel that this committee should be made up of all residents and have at least one person with police experience on it.

I think it would have made more sense instead of cutting 10% without any actual plan to:

1. Put a hiring freeze in place.

2. Cut the cruiser budget. At one time the revenue from the parking meters paid for the replacement of police cruisers and maybe this should be reinstated.

3. Let Chief Jody Kasper know that next year’s budget would be 10% less than this year’s budget so she had time to plan and figure out where to pull that money and save some jobs.

4. It would be great to see the money that was taken from NPD going toward funding non-police workers to respond to calls, but in all reality, do I, as a taxpaying resident, want my tax money supporting non-city agencies at this time?

I have had to use Crisis for a family member several times and one time in the morning I called for assistance and was told that there was no clinician on until 8 a.m. When I was working at a police officer and requesting Crisis services, we were told to either have an officer present, bring them to the hospital or wait for a person to sober up if they were in protective custody. And that is a 24-hour Crisis that handles many areas, including our city. Having a social worker respond to a situation would be great but, in all reality, it would still require a police officer, and then that is another person that the officer needs to keep safe.

5. If the City Council had no problems with such a large cut, then I think they should look at all the other departments and make more cuts so the Proposition 2½ override can be retracted since there won’t be a need to tax us more.

6. Where does the outside detail administrative fee that is assessed end up? If it doesn’t stay within the NPD, it should, since it is officers working those details. I wonder just how much money is generated every year from this administrative fee?

7. I had hoped that the new officers who are currently in the Police Academy would be able to remain since there was thousands of dollars invested and several of them are culturally diverse and would be a great asset to the department.

8. Another cost-saving measure would be to stop having specific members of the department take their cruisers home and especially out of the city limits. This would cut down on the wear and tear, gas and make more cruisers available that could be rotated to get the most mileage out of them.

9. When cruisers reach their prime instead of handing them down to the DPW to use, why not send them to auction and use that money toward the purchase of new cruisers.

10. I would like to see more public relations about just what members of the department do and how many officers are on the street during a shift. How many of you have done a ride along recently to see what they deal with? I think many of our residents have no clue and would be surprised to know that there may only be five officers on the street handling anything that happens.

I have seen many comments on Facebook that the department has a drone unit, which is true, but it is made up of other officers doing different things. I also assumed Officer Wallace would be reassigned from the schools back to the street because there are only so many officers to cover what is needed. It would be great if he were able to continue his role, even in a modified way.

I hope you will reconsider what has been voted on and I look forward to an actual plan being developed and put into effect before any further cuts to our police department. Thank you for your time.