TORRINGTON – The Torrington Rotary Club held their weekly Monday meeting on Monday, November 25 at the Cottonwood Country Club in Torrington during the lunch hour. Bob Taylor called the meeting to order shortly after 12 p.m. 

“Welcome everybody and Happy Thanksgiving,” Taylor said. “We gather here today with hearts full of gratitude for the opportunity to serve our community and make a difference in the lives of others. Guide our thoughts, our words, our actions so that they make work together with wisdom, compassion and integrity.” 

After the opening prayer, Pledge of Allegiance and Rotarian Four-Way Test, Taylor quickly moved on to other Rotarian formalities such as “Guess the Rotarian,” more Rotarian facts and announcements. 

“Just a reminder, in December on the 23 and the 30 there will be no Rotary meetings,” Taylor reminded the members.

“The 16th [of December] is our Christmas party and we’re having, I think, music instead of a speaker,” Kim Evezich announced. 

Taylor moved on to old business where there was a short discussion on the club reviewing the by-laws. 

“We will announce a time and date, if we can, and maybe get copies of the by-laws,” Taylor said.

Moving on to new business, there were no items to discuss.

 Next, Taylor introduced the speakers of the day, Torrington Chief of Police Matt Johnson and Torrington Assistant Chief of Police Patrick Connelly. 

“I think I know everybody in the room, so thanks so much for giving us a few minutes of your time today. You may not know, assistant chief Pat Connelly. He’s my partner in at the police department or perhaps my partner in crime fighting if we use that description,” Johnson said. 

Johnson explained both he and Connelly would be providing a presentation on the department.

“I just wanted to talk a little bit, to start off with of why we exist and what we’re here for and really everything that we focus on is related to public safety and relationship,” Johnson began. “That’s just been kind of the core of what we worked together to build over the last four years or so. We also look at some guiding principles and that’s something that I’m willing to share.”

Johnson mentioned integrity and caring for other people as important qualities of the officers and department.

“The next one on that is the quality of our work. As we mentioned earlier, yes, we’re dealing with folks in the toughest time of their life so maybe we ought a be good at what we’re doing so we can help them to the best that the criminal justice system can help,” Johnson said. “Finally, we actually talk about this a little differently than what we put it on the board but, we need to be having some fun. If we aren’t having fun in our profession, we are probably doing it wrong because there’s enough negative stuff in there that creeps up by itself and if you don’t focus on ways to have a positive outlook and have a good time doing it, it’s pretty crushing.” 

Johnson explained the 2024-2025 budget was about $3.26 million and they have 26 staff members. 

“On the sworn side of the house, we have 18 fully sworn officers. Pat and I are two, we have four patrol sergeants that act as basically shift supervisors and watch commanders for different segments of the week. We have seven patrol officers. One DCI (department of criminal investigations) task force officer, one detective, two school resource officers full-time and then we have a contracted RO position that works out in the county in La Grange and Southeast,” Johnson said. 

Johnson also recognized the non-officer employees the department has. 

“On the civilian side of the house, we have the communications supervisor, Bailey Goulart. For those of you who’ve never met her, she’s an amazing lady. Our whole communications center runs based on her,” Johnson explained. “Four communication officers work under her. We have two community service officers, one for code enforcement and one for animal control. New this year, we have a part-time shelter helper who’s keeping Teri sane at the shelter.”

Johnson reminded the Rotary members in attendance the dispatch center services Goshen County and not just the city. 

“Anybody who picks up the phone and calls 911 inside of Goshen County is going to talk to the folks that are working at the PD. It is the only 24/7 staffed organization in the county and we take it all. Everything that comes in is coming through our communication center. That includes nine fire departments, four law enforcement agencies, four EMS services,” Johnson said.

“The ladies who work in that center, work their tails off. You have not even begun to dream of multitasking until you’re in the middle of summer with two grass fires, a traffic crash, a domestic violence incident and a police officer calling in a traffic stop when they shouldn’t be doing traffic stops,” Johnson said. “It is incredibly busy and the folks that do that are a special person and a special breed because they go through torture and pain that most of us couldn’t even imagine.”

Johnson explained the department is broken into three separate areas, communications, patrol and investigations. 

“We ae running four patrol teams so again, as I mentioned, we’re the only folks around 24/7 inside of the county. The most efficient way for us to do that, we have four shifts of police officers. Each of them covers 12 hours and they rotate,” Johnson said. 

According to Johnson, the officers in the department have received a special type of training. 

“Every one of our officers has completed CIT (crisis intervention team) training and that’s something we were able to accomplish a couple of years ago. We felt really good about that. That is a certification that helps police officers do a really good job of deescalating difficult situations. It reduces the chances for conflict. It reduces the chances for use of force. It increases safe resolution in difficult circumstances,” Johnson said.  

Johnson also spoke about Angel, the department’s K9 dog noting she was only used to “sniff” and did not do patrol or apprehension work. Johnson also spoke about Waggin’ Tails shelter.

“We’ve got an animal control CSO (community service officer), Teri Shinost. I am sure many of you know and love her. She has just done an amazing job of pouring her heart into this and I could spend an hour just talking about her. She does everything for care and enforcement of domesticated animals inside of our city limits and also provides services often out in the county,” Johnson said. “Frequently, she does also help out with wild animals although she draws a hard and fast line at snakes.”

Johnson noted Shinost had raised most of the funding for the shelter and due to her efforts, this year, she was able to hire an assistant. 

“The City of Torrington’s contribution to her budget is her salary and $4,500 every year and she probably spends ten times that much maybe more. I couldn’t even begin to tell you at the moment, but it’s incredible,” Johnson explained. “All of the veterinary care, all of the adoption stuff, all of the vaccinations, she comes up with the money for. She’s been able to come up with enough that she’s actually hired a part-time shelter helper that works about 20 hours a week.”

Johnson explained Tessa Feagley joined the department as the new code enforcement officer, noting Tammy Kearns recently step down and returned to the dispatch center. 

Connelly spoke on the investigation department.

“I head up our investigation division. I supervise our investigators. What our team comprises of is one investigator, Matt Maestas who is focused on complex crimes, high-level felony crimes. He deals with a lot of really unpleasant yucky stuff that nobody even wants to talk about let alone get face-to-face with and deal with, so he has a really tough job and he does an excellent job of it,” Connelly said. 

The meeting concluded with a brief question and answer period before adjourning around 1 p.m. to reconvene on December 2 at noon.