That will be led by who doesn't know it yet.

Commissioner Stroke.

Please remain standing as Chief Thompson says our invitation.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunity to go out here tonight and conduct the business of the city.

We thank you for these commissioners and how they serve the city and the decisions that they'll make tonight.

Just pray you'd be with them, lift them up to you, Lord.

Let's be with our citizens.

Thank you for getting us all through the morning without anything significant other than a few minor fender vendors.

It's in your son's name we pray and we thank you.

Amen.

I will uh officially call the meeting to order.

And we'll just go and take a look and review the minutes from February 17, 2026 special, 430, regular 530, and March 3, 2026 special, 430 and 530.

Is there a motion?

Motion by Commissioner Tools, second by Commissioner Strode.

Any thing anyone wants to corrections, additions all in favor, aye.

Any opposed by like sign, motion carries.

Item three, departmental and agency reports.

Is there anything anyone would like to highlight?

If not, we'll take a motion to approve departmental and agency reports.

So move.

Motion by Commissioner Chenaud.

Is there a second?

Second by Commissioner Strode.

Any further discussion?

All in favor, aye.

Any opposed by like signs?

Motion carries.

Hello, Commissioner.

That's not a good thing.

Item four, informational items.

Again, as we say, that's just for information.

Uh so those things are in your packets to be able to review.

We'll now move to our work session, and it's a pretty exciting evening because we have a not only are we going to introduce a new member of the police force in a little bit, we're introducing a four-legged uh uh new employee of the Winchester police department who has captured all of our hearts.

So Chief Thompson, I'm gonna turn uh the program the session over to you and let you update us on the police department and introduce a precious little item.

It's up to you.

Spent Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, uh training five members in the department.

Uh Captain Charles is his primary handler.

Uh Cable Lane, myself, and Steve's white warren who works with school systems, all got officially certified with us last week to handle them.

Gus is uh the trainer that goes within all that came out in Indiana.

Gus is a working dog.

And uh there's a big difference when he gets some play on it, he does get a little bit, but he has a very short schedule.

He's got windows that he eats in, he's got a bedtime, he's got a bath time.

Uh some reason Steve stays in his office for two hours with the door, shut the lights off there.

Uh-huh.

Now we know.

He comes to us very well trained.

We were all very impressed with it.

Very pleased with his training how uh he's coming around.

He's very calm.

It's excellent with the children.

We had him in uh the preschool last week.

We had him show station elementary, we had him at Baker.

Um that's where we did most of our training with the with the uh trainer that came out and teach us, and then um I know Steve's had him a few places this week, and this morning he went to the health department with me, and then we ended up at the hospital one weekend with the mayor after that.

Didn't know we were gonna be there, but we did.

So uh he does really well anyway.

He does awesome.

He's he's a smart boy, he's precious.

Look.

He's got a few tricks.

I'll let Steve show him off if he's feeling up to it.

So what's the rest of the thing about Gus is his obedience?

Um he hasn't roll over and things like that.

He has some cute tricks the kids like, but it's obedience to uh um we can place him.

I take the restaurants and place him beside me on that, and he stays for hours.

Um when we eat dinner at home, we place him and he doesn't he never moves unless he's released.

Um you can make him stay, whatever.

Uh that's covered.

You said stayed up to myself.

He also I mean the ability to see him.

Thank you.

So we can place him wherever we want.

Um expanding, sending away whatever it is.

Uh he will stay unless someone says his name, most of the time one time you have a break.

Um he definitely loves kids, he's great with the the little or the better on his increasingly drive.

He laid laid out on top of them.

His favorite uh his favorite command that is also I believe the mayor's favorite command.

The only way he's allowed to jump on people is by command, because obviously that's a big double pre-compass.

So it's really the obedient most impressive part.

Um there's obviously we all update his level of be able to take places that where I wasn't worried about him moving was a little different because he was a hundred pound force, so I feel more uh strict.

But you can take Gus anywhere.

I think him to restaurants, collecting competitions already, all kinds of stuff.

Absolute best.

Can you have him give nooks?

He can do bubbles.

Watch him do this.

And Captain Charles is not wearing a man purse, those are treats.

So I try to get the take and eat himself and color the stud and he uh he intently watches this house because he's a failure.

But he is he has a very strict schedule of bedtime and eating and bathroom and everything, so but we keep him on that schedule, there's a lot of new things going on, but he is so well trained, we are very impressed with helping out.

That's great.

And he has a specific nap time each day too, right?

That's right right between 11 and 13 area, depending on when school visits are school business will last more than two hours sold usually because um I mean it seems silly to say he gets tired, but he does get pulled and tugged and everything.

You can tell when he kind of gets to the end of his rope and he's ready for a break.

What's his three?

He's a later reel, and I'm not allowed to go.

Okay, that's okay.

So will he get as big as eight?

Yeah, 29 pounds now.

He if they told us not to let him be over 35, so basically his full grown.

So yeah.

So clearly therapy dogs and canines are very different.

Um so would a therapy dog like does that come from like a lineage, or is that just training?

Like, how does it does in the particular place that we use to get in?

They have a number of breeders that they pull from, and they're very strict with their dogs.

We made it very clear to see when when we start the process with him back in what June, July of last year when we started that process.

Uh they made it very clear that if he gets a month or two in and he's not the right fit, then they they uh somebody asked me what they do with him.

They probably I put them to a different thing.

Yeah, uh, but they're they're very caring.

They made us all sign a contract saying that we would never get him away, sell him.

If we decide we don't want him for any reason, we have to contact them, they'll come back, they'll work something out with us, even if there's a refund of money.

But they were very clear that Gus has been wanting better therapy dolls today, on the process.

So he's a boy, he's just impressed.

He's been living with her for six months, and she's been training him at home.

And I I felt awful because when we got done with our training on Thursday afternoon, I walked up to her, I told her it'd been a pleasure.

She just started crying.

Oh, my bad, yeah.

And then after she left, it was looking for a pretty good last time.

He was glasses.

All right.

He pretty much stays with Steve and if Steve needs a break or Steve needs to go somewhere, or somebody, you know, whatever myself or any other handlers can take him.

But I had to lay the law down with the department.

He can't have any human food or snacks or anything like that.

He can't go with them.

We do have two dispatchers that uh spend an hour with the trainer to learn how to walk in, take him out to go to the bathroom.

And you even tell him to go to the bathroom, he goes to the bathroom and he sits down and says he's done.

So it's pretty much hold outside because he doesn't take a long time.

He's highly trained, that's for sure.

And uh just as a reminder, we we got a 10,700 grant that Steve worked on that the same grant we got for Gensick.

We got two years in a row, and then the school board put up six thousand, and I paid the rest of the local forfeiture or at least it didn't hear recently.

So around 22,000 or so.

That 22,000 total.

We got four handlers with him, but we paid for a fifth to get more in them uh you want to look at it, one of us or more or whatever.

But we thought it would be best for Lauren to be trained with him too, since he's gonna be living with Steve and Warren.

So and still a partnership with rural king or tractors.

Tractor supply is gonna provide us dog food, correct?

Yeah, so rural kings provide Gensey's dog food and track supply reach out on our own and offered uh to supply this.

So there's gonna be a bag of months that would be more than up for him.

Uh we're gonna switch him over to that because he's taking a certain kind of bread right now that we'll be able to sell it on here.

So I was able to get enough of it to last a month, and I'm gonna switch him over to his trainers approved that they said it would be a good dog food for him to be on, so we're gonna switch him and won't have that expense.

He will have to be groomed every month just because we've got a thousand hands on him when he takes him somewhere.

So he'll have to be groomed every month and have to go to the back razor and all that stuff.

But we're super excited.

Yeah, we're lucky, we're so fortunate to have you in the service he's already been performing since last week.

That's it's like we ran to it.

We talked about the price and everything.

You look at it as they could be a 10-year working dog.

So you break it down over 10 years, it's the price is a lot less, a lot more manageable when you go that way for the services to provide, it's a very good cost over 10 years.

So clearly, I would imagine he works mostly with families and children.

So children sometimes act a little erratically, and you have trained him clearly professionally.

Do you like have any things you have to do in particular that maybe someone couldn't catch by watching you if a child's too invasive of his space or anything like that?

We spent a lot of time with her on that last week, and you don't really think about it until she teaches it to you.

Yeah, and I'll I'll provide you an example.

We went to Baker and I had him when we went in the special needs room, and they were really rough on him.

She told us you're gonna have to be careful, and she kind of told us how to how to negotiate that, how to kind of play it off as she said it.

And she said sometimes you're gonna run into some kids or some adults that he just doesn't want anything to do with some kind of sense, and and we ran into one of those in a special needs room.

But she taught us how to kind of play that off and kind of roll through.

But you gotta watch when they want to pull his ears, they want to grab his mouth, they want to grab his feet, they want to, but he it doesn't bother him at all.

He he does really well.

I said, Well, being that free, I mean people are so used to them as a household pet and and all that.

Some of the training videos she sent us, they were really rough with him.

She was rope with him in front of us.

Matter of fact, we all got in trouble for not being disciplined enough with him to not really get after him.

Um, and you know, they they put him in, they place him like Captain Charles said on a uh bed or a blanket or something, and they would run lawnmowers and toys and just you whatever you could imagine.

Two guns, I'd imagine or all that, yeah.

All things uh we've not phased him yet.

He's a cute boy.

Tasty.

My dog gets a march.

The vacuum cleaners.

Uh boat, oh boat and like no, you've got no play date.

Okay, good.

Like I said in the beginning, he is a working dog, and any of you know of any circumstance that you think he would be appropriate.

Please reach out with Captain Charles or myself, and we'll we'll find one of the five of us that can grab him up and come to that situation.

That's what he's here for.

So not only to comfort us, but to comfort people out in public and spoon.

Sure.

I think he needs to be over here at City Hall at least once a day.

Monday through Friday.

At least once an hour, Monday through here last week when we had him over here.

I think he'd be a big thing.

Thank you.

Well, we're fortunate, as I said, a few minutes ago to have him to be able to provide that within our police department.

Uh you guys have done a great job with him, and we're excited to have him as our we'll soon have another newest in a few minutes, but um, but our newest uh addition.

That is correct.

Do you have other pets at home?

I have a uh 11-year-old as her snails with that's like 11 pounds.

Gotcha.

I just wondering.

Oh they played, they played for like my partner or mother and all realize that he's a lot bigger than her.

She just got to stay away.

But he just he's only out by soul so when he's at home, it's allowed to be a pet.

That's good.

He's at home, he plays with the soys, and we hung around, throw test balls, whatever it may be.

Well, we don't work, you know, especially with the vest on, he's not trying to allow to act like that.

He knows it.

He he tries, but he knows it.

My friend Karifa takes her dog.

She's done big.

Big up at Dougle.

And she takes him to the nursing home and Brooks Place, the hospital and everything.

We've had a thing that he might do.

And yeah, he can go.

He went to the hospital with me.

They didn't see any patients, but the mayor had a meeting out there, and she called us out there and we went out.

I mean, he just happened to be with me when she called the mayor and uh uh he was buzzing around the health department with me today, visiting them, and they were moving things, had some boxes and crates and bothering with it.

So and he does work for free, you don't have to have treats.

I had him on morning, I didn't have a tree on me.

So he didn't like to work for three.

And he said, Wait a minute.

That's like a snapping.

But he does know that he's wearing that bag, but he's in pretty good shape.

And Captain, you did say he has can have play dates, right?

He can't, yeah.

She's supposed to had to use the other dogs.

So we have we haven't just a jets it yet.

I don't know how that would go, but it can't be no boss.

Pretty much when you take his vest off and take his leash off, he knows that he's kind of free.

And yeah, put the leash in the vest on, he's a working dog and does it smart dog.

All right, Mr.

Flynn's got me on time constraints tonight.

So, real quick, he has a vocal on the police department through the commission.

Uh this battery's ring and Captain Charles put together a quick PowerPoint for me.

It's mostly pictures, and I'm going to yak because you know I love to talk about uh wonderful work that our staff does at the police department.

So we kind of already covered this.

That's us with our certificates when we officially graduated last Thursday.

Um let's talk about staffing for a minute.

The police department at this particular moment is at uh 33 sworn police officers back here in the back is Dana Robbins.

Dana's still up here.

When you all interviewed me to be the chief, you asked me about hiring females, and I told you I'd like to have one on every shift.

Well, we're we're working that way.

Uh, we only had three that applied, two of them couldn't pass physical agility test.

Uh Miss Dana comes to us, she's originally from Mount Sterling or Jeffersonville.

Don't correct me if I mess up here, I'm shooting from the hill.

She started her law enforcement career in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Yes, uh six years at Corpus Christi, and she decided to come back home and she's been at Mount Sterling since then.

Uh Dana likes what we're doing here.

She talked to us a couple of times, pretty close, applied in the process, and she's gonna start with us on Sunday.

Um, brings a lot of experience National Guard.

Um, it's been through a lot of trainings.

Um she's been through some trainings with our people, and she came highly recommended with our guys that have been through trainings with her.

So I'm super excited to get her started next week.

She'll require very little training.

Mouse Sterling uses similar systems as us, so we just got to introduce her to our policies, our procedures, get her in uniforms and get her on the street and get her going.

Um, she's gonna be working day shift because nobody on night shift wants to move, and that's a good problem to have.

So she's gonna be working day shifts, so you'll be seeing plenty of her.

So, Miss Dana, this is your city commission, and uh they'll be hoping in the next hour, but I'm pretty confident we'll get it done.

I think so.

Thank you all.

Well uh communications.

We have 16 full-time today, and I'll make our 34th sworn, by the way, and we're budgeted for 35 this year.

Uh, we're down to non-certified officers in the applicants process, and we're down to five of them that we're doing background checks on.

Uh, I had Captain Finley extend a conditional job offer to two of them yesterday.

That's gonna take us to uh 36 here in a couple of months once we get them on board.

They got a few more hoops to jump through, they gotta do their physicals, they gotta do their drug tests, and they gotta do their polygraphs.

So once we get them through there, you'll see them pop up on an agenda, and we'll get them started in the academy.

Hopefully, this this summer shouldn't be with a month or two to get them in.

Uh, Mr.

Flynn and Alicia and I are discussing budget for next year and where we want to go, and we'll present that to you a little later.

As far as communication staff is concerned, we still have 16 full-time dispatchers and two part-time with Jeannie and Rhonda.

It's been that way since I've been the chief.

Uh, and since we made Jeannie and Rhonda part-time, brought him over from a deco.

It's working really, really well.

So this batch is fully staffed, and we're proud to have it.

Uh, I asked you last year in the last budget to let me buy a crime scene vehicle uh for Chief Palmer, our evidence custodian.

And there is that vehicle that came in last fall, and you can see he's got it fully equipped to respond to the major crime scene and process that scene on the right is Chief Palmer of several months ago processing a murder suicide on West Side Drive.

Uh, I took that picture.

He utilizes that vehicle to respond to us.

He also utilizes that vehicle to go to the lab at least once a week.

Sometimes he has to go twice, and that's in Frankfurt.

So he actually is in uh West Virginia this week training with the FBI on fingerprinting.

Uh, he has been able two or three times here in the last few months to pull fingerprints of at a crime scene and solve the crime because of the fingerprints.

He's really gotten into it.

Uh, we bought him a new camera there.

You see in the middle, we use federal forfeiture money to do that.

It's a few thousand dollars.

It's got a lens fund that can take you from here to Walmart and zoom in on it.

So he goes with some of the narcotics guys when they're doing drug deals and he takes pictures from afar and records that videos it and all the things.

So he has been an absolute tremendous bonus to the department, being up in CID and taking care of our evidence.

He's cleaned out that evidence room.

We've gotten rid of a lot of things that don't need to be there anymore.

We've uh put a lot of funds in the bank and give them to Alicia in our forfeiture account because you know this they were the case was done and closed, and the money was still laying up there, it'd never been cleaned out.

But he's taking the time to do it, and we put money in the bank because of it.

We've been training a lot since the first of January.

As you know, we got a grant last year to replace our duty weapons that we wear when we're on duty, uh, not our off-duty weapons.

We got a grant to replace the duty weapons.

The majority of the department came to me and told me they wanted to switch from a Glock handgun to a CIC handgun.

I didn't care either way.

As long as it shoots and fires and goes pew pew, it's fine with me.

So I let Captain Connolly make the decision, and we ended up switching to the SIGs.

Um we've been at the range a lot because we switched to a whole new platform of the gun.

We went to a new site package that I'll show you here in a minute.

We changed calibers from the 40 to the nine, and you'll see in the pictures here in a second in the slides.

Our shooting has improved tremendously because of it, and that was the goal of it.

Not only that, but we've got new firearms that we don't have to worry about having issues with or replacing things on or malfunctioning or so on and so forth.

Uh, we've had our ranges out at my house down in the bottom on Muddy Creek, and nobody's called to complain so far.

I called all the neighbors, I said we'll do some shooting.

Everybody said okay.

So in the past that's not been the case, but so far, so good.

So we've been out there on good weather days.

The targets on the left are our old handguns, target on the right is our new handgun.

You can see a significant difference on those two left targets there.

Uh, the grouping in the middle and where it is, and all of them are that way.

So that's the whole reason that we did this was to improve our shooting.

It's worse for the guy that we're shooting at or the gal, but it's better for us, and it's better for the people that may be around or civilians in the area.

We're responsible for every one of those bullets, so we can put them on target like you see in the middle there.

That's what we want.

The guns themselves on the left, you see the block with the old site picture, which is just a little square line and a round dot on the front.

To the right, you have a site that we call a red dot.

It's got a laser dot in the middle of it, it's got a big site window.

It's made to shoot with both eyes open.

It's made to put the gun in front of you quickly, acquire that laser quickly, and wherever that laser's at is where your bullet's gonna go.

So that's why you see better shooting.

But not only that, we went back to the nine millimeter from the 40.

So the gun has less recoil and it um just makes for better accuracy.

Back in the day when we switched to the 40, it was a good thing because the knockdown power of the 40 caliber was a lot better than the nine, but over the past 15-20 years, they've really improved the way they make the nine millimeter bullet, and the knockdown power is not much different.

Uh, on the right, you see on top is our duty CIG.

It's a P320.

On the bottom is a P365, which is the off-duty weapon.

Uh, one thing about these that the Glocks didn't have, both those guns carry the same amount of ammunition.

So a lot of our detectives are wearing daily the gun on the bottom as opposed to the big gun on the top, and our patrol officers are wearing the big gun on the top.

But I don't have anybody that's unhappy at this point.

Uh, we have 40 of each of those weapons.

So if we get up to 40 officers in the next few years, we already have the weapons for them.

We don't have to worry about buying them.

And again, the top gun, the duty weapon was paid for with grant money.

Uh the old guns on the left, the officers had the opportunity to purchase those guns for the train in price, which is 250 dollars apiece.

That's what Glock was going to give us, or the it's actually uh Kenzels was going to give us back for the guns, but we're allowed to sell them to the officers, so we offered that.

Most of them took advantage of that, and I bring Alicia money about every two weeks, and she dumps it in to help pay for the rest of those guns.

As you've heard, and we've talked about a little bit in here.

Uh recently, the sheriff and I formed uh joint special response team for Winchester and Clark County.

Uh, second picture from the right there, the gentleman holding the shield with his hand extended out like he had a gun in it, is Sergeant West Conway that works for the Sheriff's Department.

He's retired from Lexington, spent 11 years on their ERV to their emergency response unit, uh, has a lot of real world experience with exactly what we're doing here.

Uh, after spending a year trying to figure it out, engage who I wanted to run this team.

Uh Sergeant Conway was always at the top of my mind.

Very impressed with him, thank the world of him, approached him, asking if he'd be interested in doing it.

He was thrilled, approached the sheriff.

Sheriff didn't hesitate for a second.

So Wes is running the team and currently it has 14 members of the Winchester Police Department with him.

There will be uh another deputy or two that will go through training and will come on board as time evolves as people come and go from the team.

But we've capped it at 15 right now.

So right now it's Sergeant Conway and 14 members of our squad.

This is them training at the Cardinal Community Center, the old Hannah McClure a few weeks ago.

It's been an excellent place for them to go and make some room entries and do some different trainings.

We have gotten a lot of equipment the last few years through grants.

Chief Hall did that, and we will continue to seek that.

But in just the last few months, we've collected 1.2 million dollars in federal forfeiture funds that's been coming our way for a long time since back to 2015.

That money's been sitting there, it's been watching.

Chief Hall tried to collect it, Chief Palmer tried to collect it, and I didn't do anything different other than I stayed on top of them and I was on logged in daily and called and squeaky wheel gets the Grease, right?

And we reached out to legislators and we did things, and finally the IRS released the money, what Alicia six eight weeks ago.

Yes, and it all dumped in a week 1.2 million dollars.

So we got about 1.3 million in that count right now.

It's drawn an interest at about four and a quarter, and we and we can still use it.

We had a heck of an interest payment last or interest income last month on it.

Uh, but we're gonna utilize some of that money we already have a little bit.

We're gonna use some more of it to get this team fully equipped.

Uh Chief Whitley, can I share your idea?

Sure.

Are you with me?

Are you with me?

Are you just trying to as you know Chief Whitley just brought on three new ambulances?

He's getting ready to at least retire one or more, and he has offered me to look at one or of those ambulances that he wants to get rid of and make it a command vehicle for this team to store their equipment in a vehicle that would respond to them.

We would just have to maybe re-uh remodel it a little bit and put a wrap on it and make it look like the police instead of the fire.

So uh, but I thought that was an excellent idea, and I am gonna take him up on it.

We'll be doing that soon after he gets his ambulances pushed in.

Uh, starting next month, the fire department's gonna be training with this team with some medics.

Uh, not only they're gonna be training with them, they're gonna be doing some training for them, teaching them uh some tactical medicine things, and then there'll be a medic that deploys with them when they deploy out.

Uh, they have been out twice.

This was the first time they went out very freshly after we formed it.

Uh, that gentleman you see in handcuffs there in the bottom right picture.

I decided to uh choke his mother and slam her up against the wall and do some things to her that weren't very nice.

Uh she called the police, she wanted a protection order against him, she got one.

She did not want to press charges on him for what he did to her, but she did want a protection order, and part of it was to order him to vacate the residents.

Deputies went out there to serve it.

He wouldn't come to the door and even went so far as to make threats, told him if they didn't leave, he was gonna harm them.

Uh, Sergeant Conway called me, said I think this is a good opportunity to use the team.

It was a Sunday afternoon.

We went out there, Sheriff Purdue and I were there less than an hour.

They made some call outs.

He tried to flee out the back door, and he ran right into four or five of our officers, and that's how he ended up.

So uh, and he's out of the house, and we found some kids and some dogs in some very deplorable conditions, and the county placed some other charges on him.

So it was a very successful, safe.

Um, as you can see, this team they just have different equipment the way your patrol officers carry, equipment to keep them safe, equipment to keep other people safe, and uh it's expensive to do, but it's just a necessary thing.

Uh I thought this was kind of neat.

This happened since my last presentation with you all.

Lexington had their helicopter up, and this gentleman was wanted on some violent felony warrants.

He ran from Lexington, he came through Boomsboro and he ended up coming into Winchester, and the helicopter was following him.

Uh, we got behind him on Maple Street, took him almost to the Montgomery County line on I-64.

It was actually me that was behind him, and I had these fine gentlemen in uniforms come up and arrest him when he finally decided that he was going to pull over.

Uh, the reason he pulled over is because we used our spike strips.

One of our officers did spiked him in the middle of the interstate.

But it made for some all these pictures came from Lexington's helicopter, made for some good pictures of video.

Just our guys at work.

Y'all probably seen the go.

That was last summer.

He was running all over town.

The phones were ringing off the hook in dispatch.

Uh four on the left, managed to wrangle him in a backyard, and he was safely returned to where he belonged.

I don't remember where that was, but he he was not harmed.

But just a just the funny.

This is just showing the officers out in the community, top left.

We've done the compract welcome squad for a week at a time for uh one week in the fall, and now we last week to a week in the spring, or if you want to call it spring, it doesn't feel like it's day.

But we did a week last week.

Um, had a softball team in the school's community softball league, went really well on the right.

We see Chief Craig Crab getting his free lunch out of Baker.

He's not gonna miss a free lunch, Sergeant Reed with him, and see some other officers in the background there.

Uh, they had us out for a first responder day.

Uh top left, the explorers collecting uh uh toys for the toy drive they did.

Uh Mr.

Flynn's son Andrew arrested in the grant showers running while it was Christmas print, and uh again the explorers toy drive down there on the bottom.

Uh this was the I think this was the 5k we did for Labor Day.

And you see some of our guys and explorers participated in that.

Up on the top right, Chief Whitley and I spoke at the first responders' chapel for uh Calvary Christian.

And there's a picture of everybody that was in the room on the bottom.

Couple of awards this year on the left.

Patrolman Harrison won the impair driving enforcement award for 2025 for the department with most DUI arrests and patrolman ashcraft on the right and won the occupant safety protection award for seatbelt tickets on the right, and that's uh tickets that we write as part of our federal overtime grant.

Um taser 10.

This is money that you guys spent, significant amount of money that you guys spent.

We just paid our first payment on these.

We got them in the late fall, uh, trained on them.

We went from having a single cartridge on our taser with a spare on our belt to now, as you can see on that bottom left, there's 10 holes there.

There's 10 individual cartridges.

I have to shoot you twice to tase you, but I've got 10 shots.

So I can tase the mayor, and I can turn around and taste Shannon if I'm a good shot.

Uh we've had a we've had a lot of success with these.

They're noisy, they're loud, they light up, they do things that intimidate suspects, and they make them back down.

And if we have to use them, they're very useful.

Uh, the second deployment of the SRT team this past Sunday night.

I don't know what it is with Sundays in the county, but it's domestic violence day for some reason.

Uh but this past Sunday night, we had a gentleman that uh assaulted his wife and got her down in the driveway and strangled her a little bit, and she got away from him.

And he did the same thing the last one did.

He ran in the house and said nobody's coming in to get me.

Well, the SRT team went in and got him about an hour and a half later.

They ended up tasing him with one of these because he didn't cooperate and he came out and was uninjured, as was our officers.

So uh money well spent.

You all know that I've taken over code enforcement and Leon, we've been working on traffic safety ordinances.

I redone his vehicle from just saying uh code enforcement with the Winchester emblem on there to make it clear that he is affiliated with the police department and it now has blue lights all around it as well as the amber lights that it had.

Uh but we were having some safety issues with him working wrecks because the lights just weren't adequate.

So spent some forfeiture local forfeiture money on that and put blue lights all the way around it and redid the striping package to make it clear that he's affiliated with the police department.

I think it looks good.

Leon's been doing a great job since January 1st with co-enforcement being under us.

He's responded to this doesn't mean we got this many complaints, but he has responded to and dealt with 210 code enforcement complaints.

I checked before I came over today.

Uh so that's a lot, and he's getting ready to get busy with grass and all the things going on.

But he's been doing a really good job since Becky retired, keeping up the administrative hearing board, uh vacant properties.

List goes on and on.

Many of you email asking questions.

Uh Leon's stay on top of it.

If you have a question or you have a property you want checked out, please reach out.

We'll see to it that he gets to it.

Super proud of the work he's doing.

Uh if you look close, you'll see five or six of our supervisors in there.

This was an FBI leaded class that took place in Lexington last month.

Uh, it's leadership training for leaders.

I'm I'm big on leadership training.

I'm big on leadership in general, so I told them if they're gonna hold a spot, they're gonna go and they're gonna sit through some of the classes.

But they enjoyed it, they went to Ruperina, took a picture.

Uh, we've got a lot of leadership training uh piled up for the rest of the year, too, for these guys too.

I think it's it's always evolving how to get people motivated and get them to do what you want them to do and make sure that we're treating them right and doing all the right things.

So I just don't think that can be much more important on our agenda.

Um, this is a big one.

Many of you talked to me about it individually.

I haven't really spoken about it publicly other than on the radio with Mr.

Berker.

I did sign us up the first week of December for the ICE-287G program.

You can see right there what that means.

It's authorized by the illegal immigration reform act of 1996, allows U.S.

Immigration's custom enforcement to delegate specified limited immigration enforcement authority to state, local, and tribal law enforcement officers.

It enhances public safety by partnering with local law enforcement to identify and remove foreign-born criminals in local custody.

That's the three words you need to make sure you remember.

Uh Alicia Martin helped me with this uh going over this and helping me apply for it.

Mr.

Dykman reviewed to make sure there wasn't anything in it to scare us away and signed off on me on the memorandum of agreement.

Uh January the 13th, I think it was.

Um, we received uh training credentials for our officers, meeting that they could start their training.

I picked two officers John Lorette and Patrolman Bryce Harrison.

I had about 10 volunteer for it, and I picked out of the 10 myself.

Uh, what they do is if someone is in custody in the jail, or if we have to arrest somebody for some serious crimes, they have the ability to do an uh immigration um interview with them, figure out if they are here illegally or not and where they've come from and how they landed here, and they have the ability to with with assistance of ice on the phone to put an immigration holder on them.

Uh, we have said they had to go through an online 40-hour class, each of them did once they got through that.

Uh, we did not become active until we participated in one two eighty-seven G arrests.

Well, those don't come around very often, but we did have a gentleman here in town that was here illegally that we dealt with several times that likes to fight withsault our officers, and he reared his head one night and they had to fight with him, and they had to put the taser 10 on him.

And the next morning I instructed Sergeant Lorette, Strollman Harrison to use this program on him.

They went to the jail, they interviewed him, they verified that he was an illegal citizen.

Um they went through a device, and he left the next day in a nice vehicle and will not be back to Winchester and will not be insulting my officers anymore.

Once we did that, it made us active in the program.

We were the third agency in the state of Kentucky to be active in the program.

That made us eligible for funding, which I've applied for and has been approved and should dump next quarter after the end of the month.

And that is $100,000 to buy two vehicles for those officers to put in our fleet and $7,500 per officer for equipment for those officers.

And it's just general police equipment that we would buy through our budget any other day.

So it's going to get us a couple vehicles in the fleet, and we have now expanded this a little bit.

They've opened it up to uh they kind of branched off of this program with a program to go and check on illegal immigrant children that have been placed in foster custody to go and check that they are where they're supposed to be with who they're supposed to be with, and that they're safe and in a good environment.

And they are offering revenue.

We've done 10 so far.

Uh we took the whole area code 40391.

Wow.

Uh, we've checked on 10 so far.

I think we found five or six of the ten, don't hold me to that.

Uh, but they will send us a check for a couple thousand dollars per kid for going to check in on them.

So I'm generating revenue so that when I did my budget for the with the city commissioner and Alicia, I didn't ask for a whole lot more than I than I've got this year because we know that it's tight.

So that's what's going on there.

Uh I appreciate your all support of it.

I appreciate you all standing behind me.

Took a lot of flack for it, but uh dealt with everybody individually, and I only know of two people that never came across the board for me.

Uh, but that's okay.

I don't expect everybody to agree with it.

But we are not under any circumstances knocking on doors and dragging illegal immigrants out of their houses to deport them.

That is not what we're doing.

We're just if somebody wants to come here and create shenanigans in this town, it's got a tool in our toolbox, make sure they don't do it again.

So that's what that is.

Uh I want to talk real quick about task forces.

We currently have uh a detective on the DEA task force out of Lexington and London.

He's been on that task force since 2012.

That's where your 1.2 million dollars came from that we just got in the federal forfeitures from things that he has worked on, and he got a percentage of the monies of every case that they work on.

A lot of that came from the pill pipeline of what was going on in Florida back when uh pain bills were a big thing.

Uh, we have a detective who's full-time on the Lexington U.S.

Marshals Task Force.

This gentleman was hiding out here in town, was wanted for some violent sexual offenses out of Ohio or in the end, I don't remember which, but he was hiding out in town and having a detective on that task force with just a phone call.

That whole task force comes here, and we found this guy, we removed him.

And if we're looking for somebody who's outside of our jurisdiction, uh Detective Keffer has the ability to go with them.

He is has a federal license, he has federal jurisdiction, and just puts a lot of tools in our toolbox.

And Sergeant Thomas is uh also serving on that task force in a part-time capacity.

They reimburse all their payroll when they're doing these things for these people.

We get quarterly, don't we, Alicia?

We get a we get an electronic deposit cover there over time for that they're spending on that.

There's been about four or five other examples of him here in the last year, people that we've taken out of this town that were hiding from another state.

Umarcotics has been very busy.

You've seen all my social media.

I try to post it.

Uh things that we've collected from the community.

Uh, had a massive uh operation last year that netted about 31 people that got charged for trafficking.

Uh, that was you know, a process from April to August.

Um, this is a lot of the pictures from that.

Some of this came from just ordinary traffic stops, but it's all over town.

I will tell you it's getting better.

It's hard to buy dope right now.

We were talking about budget the other day and money that we want to budget uh to purchase narcotics or what we call our investigation money or our buy money.

It's I've only got money three times in this fiscal year.

Um, it's been hard to buy drugs in town, and that's a good thing.

Uh overdoses are way down, and that's a good thing.

Uh, not that we're not still having them, and there may be some out there that aren't getting reported to us, it's very possible.

But the numbers are down, and that's a good thing.

In the middle there, that's bills that got shipped here from out of state that uh our DEA task force officer has been working on, but those came here to the post office, and that's just a drop in the bucket as to what's been coming in.

But that's a dark web thing that they've been working on as somebody out of state shipping those in here.

Those and those are not, they look like an Adderall pill or something like that.

There, as you see on the machine up there, they're methamphetamine and nothing else.

Some more pictures of that.

More of that money that we get that we end up getting to put in our local forfeiture account.

And I would not leave you today without letting you see your city manager and your fire chief dance to raise the greatest.

I took a lot flat for staying in front of the video on this.

This is gonna cost me.

You will pay my money.

That's quite terrible.

Any questions, guys?

I went a little longer than my one.

So that was worth it.

Great job.

I can say great job.

Appreciate it.

I know you are.

And you know one thing that I've really used here, Mike.

Seeing you become chief, not saying anything about any forward chiefs at all.

But you've had our department out of the community.

And they're attending things or going to I mean, just general community events, and they're showing up in so many places that I've never seen them before.

I drive about every day.

So how long have you been in your position now?

Uh year well, year two I think.

And that you and Burl are right.

That's going to start one.

That is really good.

We're better together.

Uh Chief Whitley and I sent out a letter today with the shenanigans that are going on at the county.

DES is laid down.

We might have DS meetings for a couple of months, but he and I got together today and sending everybody out.

We're gonna have one next month in the police department wants to show up and everybody want to show up, they don't have baby guy.

But it's it's out there, and we'll be there and we'll try to keep that held down until somebody shows up otherwise to do it.

So I know you were concerned about the story last week, but something happens.

We'll get through it, we'll deal with it.

Well, you know, we last week we had no judge at that point, no um emergency management director.

And you I was very concerned, and you know that.

So thank you, Chief.

Excellent job.

Excellent job job.

Okay, anything else?

Anyone want to the chief, real quick?

Okay, Mr.

City Manager, do you want me to go ahead and do comments or do you want to go to closed session first?

Um, let's just go ahead and do comments because I don't think we'll have enough time to go session.

Okay, and we'll and and we'll probably have to do closed session at the conclusion of the 5 30.

Okay, all right.

Commissioner Chenol.

Oh, I would just like to tell Chief, well done.

Look like he's doing very seldom can use the word excellent, but it's hard not to use the word that so well done, Chief.

Thank you, Joe.

Yeah, Mr.

Stroke.

I echo that wonderful job, and I just think working together that you and Pearl are doing is so important, and that hasn't happened for a long time.

So I feel really good about that.

Um I guess this is the best time to say this for those of you that know Ken Davis.

Please keep the Davis family thoughts and prayers.

Ken is um in his last probably few days of living.

And he's done a lot for this community over the years, particularly the pioneer festival and the parks.

So um I wanted to share that.

Thank you, Commissioner Cox.

Yeah, Kent, my next door neighbor, and also he's been a mentor and uh father figure for me.

My dad passed, and I I'm missing yes.

Uh congratulations to the lady cards who did what who did what me and Lisa and me and me and Dan were never able to do, and I'm expecting a repeat with the boys this week.

They played Thursday night at 8 and 30.

Thursday night at 8 30, yes.

There's never been until this year, a year when the same school won the boys and the girls' state tournament both this year it's going to happen.

I hope so.

They're in the best bracket, we think.

Yeah, anything else?

Yeah, Commissioner Tool.

Um, echoing everyone else's sentiment.

Um, we'll be making a post on Facebook, but we're gonna start the animal shelter towel drive again.

So gently use towels, do your spring cleaning.

Uh, there will be a container right out front here at City Hall at the public library and at College Park Gym, and that'll be out by Friday for about a month.

And it ours is here.

You brought it to them.

Correct.

Bring your tiles, maybe clean.

Wash in the face.

I need to bring.

Please bring some.

And that's it.

Thank you.

Okay, Mr.

Dykman.

City Manager.

Uh, just one thing.

One of the informational items that was in your uh special meeting pack there was about the Fifth Street project, and just want to make sure that you're aware.

Um, we had the progress meeting minutes in there, but uh in the paper, um, we'll be advertising for bids on the 17th with the bid opening of the 31st, and uh hopefully to start that project in July due to the type of project that it is, and uh that is a $350,000 project that we got through uh OS it's an OSG grant and uh comes through um the Kentucky Division of Water for stream restoration projects.

So I just wanted you to be aware of that project, and we are working on um I actually met with the engineer and uh the division of water today out on site for the uh bridge project for MLK and uh hopefully that we'll be able to uh finalize those plans.

Um we've got a one of the permits in place.

We're working on a couple of the other permits to put in place, and then we'll have to coordinate with schools and uh if you recall, we did get the bridge money.

Um the uh C C C I B the County Bridge Improvement Proverb money, and uh we got that, and then we're working on uh some of the other grant funds there.

I think uh we've got the majority of them in place.

We're getting close to finalizing all that money.

Um you're probably looking at 1.8, 1.9 million dollars worth of monies that we've been able to acquire through that, and the city will be paying 25,000 of that cost um when it comes to the 1.8 million dollars.

So um hopefully we get good bids when we do it.

It's gonna be a very, very complicated.

It's in a small area, but it's a very complicated project with all the utilities and all the other infrastructure that's in place that has to be moved in order for us to build that bridge.

But at the end of the day, uh it's a safety uh issue with regards to um being able to get our fire equipment and stuff over there, especially with the three schools that we have in that area and their response times to that, and then it hopefully help alleviate some of the traffic concerns um that we've experienced there over the years as well.

That's all I have, Mike.

Okay, and uh I have three things.

Uh first one at our April 7th meeting.

I have uh asked the GRC girls to come in to be recognized.

Um I met with Terry.

Can I explain something?

Uh-huh.

Actually, at the 5 30 meeting on April the 7th, we're having the um KLC come back for the strategic plan.

So the girls' basketball team has been moved to April the 21st.

It was supposed to be at 5:30, and this just happened today, but they're coming at 4:30 on the 21st because they're going also gonna be at the uh Board of Education meeting that night too.

Okay, so now we'll go back and say April the 21st at 4:30.

I have talked with um Mr.

Yeast over the weekend and uh communicate with Dustin Howard, and so I want to ask uh each of the commissioners that night, if you will, to wear a GRC T-shirt, sweatshirt, or something and show our support of our girls.

Um I've talked to had asked Diana and Joey to come up with something that is a certificate, not normal or service to the city certificate, but an ambassador certificate.

So they are they will be our ambassadors for the next year, so that's great.

Uh also uh over the weekend.

I was notified that uh Russell County had uh actually gone to the Russell County High School and held a fiscal court meeting in front of the whole high school assembly.

Um and we are being asked to consider doing that, and you all can give me your opinions in uh uh interim county judge has said that the county would like to participate in that.

Um so I've asked Joey to form a committee, get those lined up, see what it would require, and find out if that's something they want to do between now and the time school's out or start the fall or how to do it.

So Joy's in charge of that.

And uh last thing I want to say is a great big heartfelt thank you to Whitney Leggett for what she has done for this city for downtown and for us individually, and Godspeed.

Okay, uh is there a motion to adjourn the 430 meeting?

Motion motion by Commissioner Cox.

Is there a second?

Second, second by Commissioner Tool.

Any discussion?

All in favor, aye.

Any like sign, anyone no?

Okay, we are dismissed until 5:30, which is looks like nine minutes.

Okay, I will.