Somerville police officers will get a better feel for the neighborhoods they patrol if the mayor gets his way on a department overhaul.
A committee appointed by Mayor Joe Curtatone presented a plan to restructure the Somerville Police Department to the Board of Aldermen on Sept. 21.
The recommendations are awaiting a vote by the police unions and then the Board of Aldermen. If the plan is approved, it will be sent to the state legislature for a final vote.
The proposed changes center on the department's accountability to city citizens and government.
The mayor's proposal includes the addition of substations, giving officers who patrol neighborhoods a base nearby. The closest substation to Tufts would be in the old Powder House School building, which closed in 2003 because of low enrollment.
"When it comes to safety on the street, more officers will be closer to the scene," Curtatone spokesperson Mark Horan said. "There will be someone to go to."
The restructuring would also change patrols, as officers will be shifted to areas with higher crime rates. "Right now there are an equal number of officers in low-crime areas and high-crime areas," Horan said. "The area surrounding Tufts University has relatively low crime. The restructuring will address that."
The overall number of officers in the Tufts area would not decrease because the plan calls for putting police officers currently on desk jobs out on the street.
Officers would be permanently assigned to the new substations, letting them patrol the same area for a longer period.
Under the current system, officers rarely patrol the same area two nights in a row. The officers are assigned areas based on seniority in a bidding process.
"Accountability is key," Horan said. "Right now, there's no way to hold officers accountable for certain actions." He said the substations would address this issue.
Another section of the plan would move the city's police chief from a civil service position to being directly responsible to the mayor. The change will give the mayor more authority when recommending changes to the department.
The proposal is awaiting reactions from all three police unions and from Bob Trane, the Ward 7 alderman.
The Superior Officers' Union has already approved the plan by an 18-4 vote. The Patrolmen's Union and the Sergeants' Union have yet to vote.
The three unions will either approve or reject the proposed changes, but the vote will likely be followed by collective bargaining on the details.
The Board of Aldermen will not step in until the unions have approved the plan. "I want to hear how the officers are buying into the plan," Trane said. "If they don't support it, then obviously, it won't work."
The proposed changes may have the largest impact on the Patrolmen's Union because many of its members would be transferred off their desk jobs and onto the streets.
Trane said it is too early to predict if the proposed changes would be effective. "We will hold [more] hearings about the deployment plan on how the reorganization will work," he said. "We need to ask more questions and have more time to understand the plan."
The mayor's committee was led by former Middlesex County Attorney General Scott Harshbarger. The committee included the State Police Superintendent Colonel Thomas Robbins, Lowell Police Chief Edward Davis and Ward 6 Alderman Jack Connolly.
The committee spent three months studying the city's police department and patrolling structure before making its recommendations.
