MAYOR ROBERT PALMIERI & POLICE CHIEF MARK WILLIAMS ANNOUNCE CREATION OF COMMUNITY OUTREACH TEAM
Mayor Robert Palmieri and Police Chief Mark Williams today announced the creation of the Community Outreach Team (COT) in Oneida Square. The announcement kicked off UPD’s Coffee with a Cop event, which provided free coffee to residents, courtesy of the Thomas Lindsey Foundation.
The mission of the COT is to help bridge the gap between the Utica Police Department and members of the community by developing, broadening, fostering and strengthening partnerships with a wide variety of community leaders, neighborhood watch groups, civic groups, schools, faith based groups, businesses and public service agencies throughout the City of Utica.
This coordinated nexus between UPD and the residents of Utica is an expansion of the community outreach efforts the City has implemented and pursued over the past several years such as the Peace Marches with faith based groups. This partnership will aid in delivering the highest level of law enforcement services to the community.
The COT will be responsible for the following;
- Building upon existing relationships with community organizations, neighborhood watch groups, civic groups, schools, faith based groups, formal and informal community leaders, businesses, and public service agencies or establishing these liaisons and relationships as needed.
- Publicize agency objectives, community problems and successes via social and traditional media.
- Conveying information received from citizen's organizations to the appropriate agency personnel.
- Advising agency personnel on how to improve practices with regards to community interaction.
- Developing problem oriented or community policing strategies.
- Developing and participating in community outreach programs to improve community relations.
- Identifying nuisance properties and working with the property owners and tenants via the Nuisance
Abatement program to resolve quality of life issues that may be associated with the property.
Mayor Palmieri stated, “This Administration is proactive in our efforts to build and strengthen relationships between UPD and the community. In order to improve public safety, we need residents to be involved and that is the objective of the Community Outreach Team.”
Police Chief Williams stated, “Community policing is the core value of our department's mission statement within our procedure manual. The Community Outreach Team will enhance our current citizen engagement efforts by working in direct partnership with all members of our community."
