The Village of South Jacksonville Board of Trustees were updated on several items during the Committee of the Whole meeting last night, within the many of the agenda items focusing on safety.
South Jacksonville Chief of Police Eric Hansel informed the board that the department is moving forward in the process of making body cameras an active part of policing in the village.
Hansel says his one of his officers began on duty testing of the body camera equipment last night.
“We are looking at getting those operational on the streets, developing a policy for their operation. We are in testing phase right now with where they need to be positioned on a uniform, and how we are going to record, what cues we are going to use to record and whether we are going to do live recording all the time or record based on activation of a squad car overhead lights.”
The Board of Trustees will need to adopt formal policy in order for the all
South Jacksonville Police Officers to utilize the equipment full time.
Hansel also updated the board on some personnel openings within the department.
He says the PD has received four applications for the open position of code enforcement officer, as well as four applications have been received for the newly opened crossing guard position.
Hansel says officers will help cover the duties of the existing guard who resigned the position citing personal reasons.
Hansel says he also has received a verbal notice of resignation from a full time officer on the force who said they are leaving to pursue another employment opportunity.
In other discussion last night, Public Works Superintendent John Greene said the new speed limit signs on Havendale will be posted on Thursday after a supply issue cause a delay in the correct signs arriving.
Greene also informed the board his department had been contacted by management at Labor Drive to request the speed limit be lowered due to safety concerns.
“They were just having some issues and came to us and wanted to know if there was anything we could do possibly to drop the limit, so we told them we would lower the limit to fifteen miles an hour.
I don’t know what kind of issues they were having but obviously people were going through there at a high rate of speed, so they just want to protect their residents.”
Greene also informed the board that the valves for the water softener plant have arrived, and he hopes to have the system back online soon.