Police chief makes his point

Following an effective and thought-provoking presentation regarding concerns about dispatch services in Winsted, police Chief Nicholas Guerriero was met with a round of applause from community members at Tuesday night’s Board of Selectmen’s meeting, but that didn’t stop some from throwing barbs at the chief.

Guerriero spent about a half-hour detailing the responsibilities of local dispatchers and explaining why a contract with Litchfield County Dispatch (LCD) for a remote dispatch service would be detrimental to the community. The most obvious and compelling fact is that Winsted residents would no longer have a 24-hour dispatch center in town. A live dispatcher would be replaced by a telephone connected to LCD headquarters.

Dispatchers watch what’s going on, both inside and outside the station, via remote video cameras and a large window into the police lobby. While answering and assigning calls, they stand by to greet members of the public. They also help monitor prisoners in Wins- ted’s jail cells.

In the past 10 years, at least five people have had heart attacks in the lobby at police headquarters. Instead of being witnessed by a dispatcher who in turn would summon help, the next victim might be expected to get on the horn and call LCD, which will in turn call Winsted for help. That sounds ridiculous.

If Guerriero’s presentation was designed to raise questions, it certainly was a success. Community members have to wonder how much control they want to give up in order to achieve a small monetary savings. The chief noted that a number of expenses have not been factored into LCD’s proposed bill, so the projected savings is flawed from the start.

Predictably, Selectman Jeff Liskin was the most critical of the chief and others who question the LCD proposal. That’s because Liskin has been meeting privately with LCD representatives, who are his personal friends, to develop the proposal. Liskin mocked Guerriero’s proposal Monday night, smirking and saying sarcastically that Guerriero’s dispatchers must be “superhuman� to be able to accomplish the work they do.

Instead of drawing his weapon in self-defense or shoving a doughnut into Liskin’s mouth (two imaginable responses that immediately come to mind), Guerriero invited the selectman to visit police headquarters to observe what dispatchers do in an ordinary work day.

“You’re welcome any time. I’d love to have you come in,� the chief calmly said. “I think you should sit down and actually watch what they do accomplish in an eight-hour period.�

Score another point for the chief.

Winsted’s dispatch service should remain under local control.

Latest News

South Kent School’s unofficial March reunion

Elmarko Jackson was named a 2023 McDonald’s All American in his senior year at South Kent School. He helped lead the Cardinals to a New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) AAA title victory and was recruited to play at the University of Kansas. This March he will play point guard for the Jayhawks when they enter the tournament as a No. 4 seed against (13) Samford University.

Riley Klein

SOUTH KENT — March Madness will feature seven former South Kent Cardinals who now play on Division 1 NCAA teams.

The top-tier high school basketball program will be well represented with graduates from each of the past three years heading to “The Big Dance.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hotchkiss grads dancing with Yale

Nick Townsend helped Yale win the Ivy League.

Screenshot from ESPN+ Broadcast

LAKEVILLE — Yale University advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament after a buzzer-beater win over Brown University in the Ivy League championship game Sunday, March 17.

On Yale’s roster this year are two graduates of The Hotchkiss School: Nick Townsend, class of ‘22, and Jack Molloy, class of ‘21. Townsend wears No. 42 and Molloy wears No. 33.

Keep ReadingShow less
Handbells of St. Andrew’s to ring out Easter morning

Anne Everett and Bonnie Rosborough wait their turn to sound notes as bell ringers practicing to take part in the Easter morning service at St. Andrew’s Church.

Kathryn Boughton

KENT—There will be a joyful noise in St. Andrew’s Church Easter morning when a set of handbells donated to the church some 40 years ago are used for the first time by a choir currently rehearsing with music director Susan Guse.

Guse said that the church got the valuable three-octave set when Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center closed in the late 1980s and the bells were donated to the church. “The center used the bells for music therapy for younger patients. Our priest then was chaplain there and when the center closed, he brought the bells here,” she explained.

Keep ReadingShow less
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Penguin Random House

‘Picasso’s War” by Foreign Affairs senior editor Hugh Eakin, who has written about the art world for publications like The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The New York Times, is not about Pablo Picasso’s time in Nazi-occupied Paris and being harassed by the Gestapo, nor about his 1937 oil painting “Guernica,” in response to the aerial bombing of civilians in the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

Instead, the Penguin Random House book’s subtitle makes a clearer statement of intent: “How Modern Art Came To America.” This war was not between military forces but a cultural war combating America’s distaste for the emerging modernism that had flourished in Europe in the early decades of the 20th century.

Keep ReadingShow less