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Date: 3/3/2016
EAST LONGMEADOW – East Longmeadow police chief candidate Daniel O’Brien was not asked during his interview about the circumstances of his 2013 firing from the West Springfield Police Department where he was a captain.
O’Brien was one of two finalists interviewed by the Board of Selectmen on Feb. 29; the other was East Longmeadow Police Sgt. Jeffery Dalessio. A third finalist, Hampden Police Chief Jeffrey Farnsworth, withdrew from consideration an hour before the meeting, interim Town Administrator Gregory Neffinger said.
O’Brien was fired by Neffinger, the former mayor of West Springfield, in October 2013 following an alleged incident during the 2011 Big E in which he taped a woman’s mouth shut after placing her in a restraint chair while she was in police custody. Prior to being relieved of duty, O’Brien was placed on paid administrative leave for two years, earning $104,000 annually.
The woman, Izabella Monticello, was allegedly intoxicated to the point of incapacitation, but she was never charged with a crime. West Springfield settled a lawsuit with Monticello in which she alleged assault and battery as well as infliction of emotional distress in 2015.
During a debate between West Springfield mayoral candidates hosted by 22News in September 2015, Neffinger, who was then running for mayor, expressed regret firing O’Brien.
“And if there’s anything I would change, I would say [it would be] the way the Capt. O’Brien situation was handled,” Neffinger stated during his closing remarks of the debate. “If I knew then what I know now Capt. O’Brien would still be an officer of the West Springfield Police Department.”
While not queried about these events, O’Brien did speak about his outlook on personnel usage, policies and budgeting.
He indicated that within 90 days of becoming chief he would initiate a “top to bottom review” of the department’s policies, procedures, rules, and regulations.
“Those are the guiding forces,” he added. “Those are the issues that come to play whenever a lawsuit is filed and lawsuits are common place. If you have excellent policies, if personnel are trained in the policies, if the equipment is provided, then you have a solid foundation against liability.”
O’Brien also supported the idea of the town being part of a regional lock-up facility and the proposed five-town Hampden County Regional Emergency Communication Center.
“Ninety-nine percent of police liabilities are going to come from a lock-up in handling prisoners,” he noted. “A town could bring their prisoners to a regional lock-up [and] turn them over where they could be handled by professional jailers.”
Selectman Angela Thorpe asked O’Brien, who currently serves on the West Springfield City Council, what his priorities in the police budget would be.
“A police budget, for all intents and purposes, is probably 87 to 90 percent of it is personnel costs,” O’Brien noted. “The majority of your budget is personnel costs, so that’s where the focus has to be. Do we have the appropriate number of officers? Are they deployed properly?”
O’Brien said the West Springfield Police Department was “always screaming for manpower,” but he believes deployment of officers is sometimes more vital.
“You have a finite number of officers on the street,” he explained. “You have to use them effectively. Crafting the budget, presenting the budget, and managing the budget are the No. 1 priority of the chief.”
O’Brien, who has a masters degree in criminal justice from American International College, added he would have no issue with moving to East Longmeadow within three-months of being hired in order to adhere to the town’s residency requirement.
Dalessio, who was first hired by the town as a police officer more than 30 years ago and became a sergeant in 2006, has resided in the community during his tenure.
“I think the job is a job of integrity, professionalism, honesty – I think I display those qualities,” he noted. “I think it’s a job the town should look for as the utmost in the department. I have no disciplinary record before the board in my three decades of tenure as a police officer here … If you take anything less than that, it would be lowing your standards here and for the taxpayers in the town of East Longmeadow.”
Dalessio added as police chief he would increase communication between himself and the Board of Selectmen, which he feels had not been done as frequently under Police Chief Douglas Mellis.
If he were chosen as police chief he would hit the ground running during his first 90 days in the position, Dalessio said.
“I would hope to get staff on board with fresh new ideas previous to the other administration and hopefully implement a grant writing [officer] to get some money for the town and supply ourselves with needed funds for paying for equipment, training, and even for some of the details we might run across,” he added.
Dalessio said his responsibility as a taxpayer and as chief would be to make sure the Police Department answers to the selectmen and residents of East Longmeadow.
“The best thing to do is keep it transparent for the public to see,” he explained.
Chair Paul Federici made a motion before the interviews to delay choosing current Police Chief Douglas Mellis’ successor until Criminal Offender Record Information, background and reference checks were completed, to which the board unanimously agreed.
“My thought process is without those checks, we’re basically hiring a police chief when we’re not even doing the due diligence that we would for a summertime counselor up at Pine Knoll,” Federici said.
The selectmen agreed to take a vote regarding the two finalists on March 10.
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In related business, the Appropriations Committee voted unanimously at its Feb. 23 meeting to recommend increasing the police overtime budget to $300,000 and hiring an additional police officer beyond the two new hires proposed by the Board of Selectmen.
Federici said during the Feb. 23 meeting one of the proposed new officers would replace a retiring officer.
“We were trying to do a lateral transfer [of a police officer] from another town,” he explained after the meeting. “I don’t know if this person is still interested.”
The selectmen voted 2 to 1 at its Jan. 12 meeting to cut the police overtime budget in fiscal year 2017 from $320,000 down to $150,00. Later, the board amended the vote to move $50,000 that had been previously placed in a Reserve Fund back into the police overtime, bringing the total to $200,000 for the department.
“We do want the board to continue to work with the Police Department by trying to bring that overtime budget down,” Appropriations Committee Chair Eric Madison said. “We do not support it being at the cost of public safety. We don’t support it being at the cost of officer safety, but we do feel that there can be things done in a lot of different areas to help bring down what impacts the overtime budget.”