CDOT funding a boon for local police

    Holyoke Police Department is making use of state grant money to help expand its traffic enforcement efforts, with the latest special DUI enforcement period lasting through Sept. 4.
    For small towns with relatively few officers, Colorado Department of Transportation funding helps departments plug enforcement gaps and keep more personnel on the streets.
    Although many of the grants require officers to be assigned to particular traffic enforcement beats, HPD Sgt. Mark Werts said participating officers are still available to handle general duties.
    “It’s a bonus, because the City doesn’t have to pay for an extra officer, but we have an extra officer on the street patrolling and doing everything else too.”
    Werts applies for grants on behalf of the department. Since 2015, the department has received about $23,000 in grants from CDOT. This money is being used to subsidize overtime traffic enforcement pay for police officers and purchase equipment, like the department’s new line of speed detection guns.
    Stops during special enforcement periods in Holyoke have resulted in arrests for outstanding warrants and citations for expired driver’s licenses, plates and insurance.
    The department received their most recent grant on June 15 — $5,000 to step up enforcement of impaired driving laws during periods where DUIs are frequent, typically around holidays.
    Werts said the grant represents about 100 hours of overtime pay, which the department plans to break up evenly over 10 enforcement periods. Rates of compensation vary between grants.
    The grant paid for police overtime between June 29 and July 5, coinciding with the Fourth of July. The Labor Day enforcement period began Aug. 17 and will last through Sept. 4, and other upcoming enforcement periods include Halloween (Oct. 26-Nov. 1), Thanksgiving (Nov. 16-26) and the holiday party season (Dec. 7-17).
    Another grant totaling $2,880 funded increased enforcement of seat belt laws — the most recent of the three sponsored enforcement periods that ended July 22.
    Werts said the rate of compliance with seat belt laws in Holyoke is very low. Statewide, the rate of compliance sits between 82 and 84 percent. Werts said that, based on 2017 figures, the rate in Holyoke is closer to 49 percent.
    “We have not done very well on the seat belt thing,” he said. “After we write a few tickets it tends to go up, but then it goes right back down again.”
    Werts said part of the problem was people neglecting to buckle up for short trips in town. In the first enforcement period, the department wrote 11 tickets for seat belt violations, whereas in the July period, only seven tickets were issued for seat belts.
    In the past, grant money has also gone toward checking child seats in cars and purchasing new, more accurate radar detectors. The detectors, which employ a laser-based technique known as LIDAR, were purchased for about $1,500 each in 2016 and allow officers to measure the speed of passing cars more accurately than with traditional radar.
    Werts said he thinks that, although the CDOT grants only apply for designated periods of time, their impact on the community’s perception of law enforcement is persistent.
    “It’s a success whenever we’re working during a DUI enforcement period, because people know we’re out and about. We’ve heard that before,” he said.