Technicians lift police burden

COLUMBUS -- The Community Service Technician program at the Columbus Police Department provides a support system to the daily operation of the department.

The activities of the three community service technicians range from addressing nuisance complaints to traffic control and ensuring the integrity of the chain of custody for crime evidence.

The technicians fill an unsworn position, which was implemented to relieve sworn duty officers of the burden of everyday tasks. The support provided makes it possible for patrol officers to quickly return to the field.

The Columbus Police Department began its program in 1999 with funds from a Community Oriented Policing Strategy or C.O.P.S. grant provided by the United States Department of Justice.

The Columbus program quickly became a model for other programs across the state and around the country because of the comprehensive development of the program in Columbus.

“Some CST programs only provide the nuisance support, others pick and choose which aspects of the program to utilize, but our program provides a much greater variety of support than most of them out there,” said Charlie Wangler, one of the technicians.

Wangler has been instrumental in developing the program since its inception in 1999 and provides the training for new technicians.

The primary duties of a technician are to address nuisance, parking, snow removal and weed violations. They also provide traffic control as needed for special events or at the scene of an accident or arrest incident. Often, during an arrest, the patrol officer may need to transport a suspect while the technician waits for a tow truck to remove the suspect’s vehicle and places it in the city’s impound lot.

Bobby Pensick has worked as a community service technician with the department for the past five years.

Pensick said a nuisance is defined by city ordinance as anything that may affect the quality of life in a city neighborhood.

“Trash strewn around a property is one of the main things we deal with,” said Pensick. “We easily receive 200 to 300 complaints a year for this.”

Pensick explained that the process for all nuisance calls is essentially the same.

He said it begins when a complaint is received. The technician receiving the dispatch will verify a violation exists, identify and contact the property with notification of the violation and a time frame for a correction.

“If the corrections are made, that’s great. The case is closed,” Pensick said. “If not, an abatement letter, signed by the city administrator, is sent that allows an additional 10 days for the correction to occur. If the situation is not fixed, and we don’t see any progress being made to abate the problem, a $50 per day fine is assessed, and we’ll call in a local contractor to take care of the problem.”

Pensick said by the time the process gets to this point, the property owner will then owe the daily fine, the charges incurred by the hiring of a contractor and an additional $500 fine is usually assessed as well.

If the owner does not pay the costs and fines of the abatement, a lien will be placed on the property.

“The city is not making a profit on these situations, and we would much prefer that the violations be taken care of by the property owner in a timely manner,” Pensick said.

Other high volume nuisance calls received by the city include parking violations, weed complaints and junk auto storage complaints. Each of these will be addressed by the city with minor variations to the basic process and the goal of gaining compliance of the property owner.

Other duties assigned to the technicians include maintaining department property and equipment, downloading interview videos, collection of evidence at a crime scene, vehicle impoundment, fingerprinting, and generally any other tasks that don’t require the involvement of a sworn officer.

“I really think the CST program is the best thing since sliced bread,” said Sgt. Alan Wilkins during a phone interview recently. “These folks take on a huge number of daily tasks that used to be the responsibility of the patrol officer. I remember one burglary case I had before the CST program was implemented that required two weeks of my time just to log in the evidence. That was two weeks that I was off the street to take care of that administrative task. There is no better way to describe the benefit of this program and the work they do.”

Info Box

• Community Service Technicians have the authority to issue either violation bureau parking citations or Nebraska Uniform Citations for parking violations.

• The Columbus Police Department has a “Zero Tolerance Policy” toward handicap parking violations.

• In 2007 the Columbus Police Department filed 52 handicapped parking violations, 1,081 parking violations, 47 snow removal nuisance complaints and 354 other code violations.

• The handicap placard used to validate a vehicle for the handicap space is registered to the specific individual and not the vehicle.

• Improper use of the handicap placard or use by a person not specifically registered to use it will result in a violation.

• Parking violations can include violations of handicap parking space, 24 hour parking violations, facing traffic parking, proximity to fire hydrants, sidewalks and traffic control devices.

• The fine for first offense handicap parking violation is $100 if paid in one to five days, $200 on day six or later.

• Fines for second offense handicap parking violations begin at $200 and for $300 for third offense.