New councilor questions bike week coverage

By JOHN KOZIOL

Staff Writer

LACONIA — Like their fellow citizens in other parts of the city, residents of The Weirs on Wednesday told Police Chief Tom Oetinger that they want a crackdown on "quality of life" problems including excessive noise and speeders and that they would like to have more officers in the area.

In the fourth of the police department’s five scheduled community forums, about 20 peopled came out to the Weirs Community Center to voice many of the same concerns that were already raised at similar events at the Wyatt, Tardif and Opechee Park clubhouses.

Also discussed was motorcycle week, and the level of state police coverage which was described as excessive by newly elected city councilor Judy Krahulec.

A fifth and final forum is planned for 7 p.m. tonight at the Leavitt Park clubhouse.

Wednesday’s forum started off with one resident asking what could be done about a suspected sex offender living in the area and about an abandoned house on Plantation Road.

Oetinger said all convicted sex offenders have to register with their local police department or face arrest. He said the New Hampshire Department of Safety maintains a list of sex offenders on its Internet site as does a statewide newspaper.

Regarding the abandoned house, Oetinger said he would make some calls to see what would be done about securing it.

Krahulec, who lives on Lakeside Avenue and was elected on Nov. 4 to represent Ward 1, which includes The Weirs, on the City Council, asked why there seemed to be fewer police bicycle patrols this summer than last.

The chief said part of the reduction was due to an $18,000 cut he had to make to his 2003-04 budget after the City Council initially adopted a municipal budget, but then went back and cut an additional one percent from several departments’ requests, including his.

That cut meant having to scale back on the number of seasonal, community service officers, Oetinger explained, while Lt. John MacLennan added that some officers who had done bicycle patrols in The Weirs had been moved into other duties within the department.

One bicycle officer, for instance, upgraded to a motorcycle and was assigned to patrol the White Oak Road and Scenic Road areas where the department had received many reports of speeding vehicles, said MacLennan.

"You guys were terribly missed," said Krahulec, who pressed Oetinger to explain how the LPD prioritizes which parts of the city it covers.

In the off-season, The Weirs generates only 6.3 percent of the department’s call volume, Oetinger noted, whereas the area from Blueberry Lane to the South End accounts for about 74 percent and Lakeport, about 15 percent.

During the summer, however, more personnel are deployed in The Weirs, said Oetinger.

A Rollercoaster Road resident complained that cars speed down his street and offered to let the Police Department station one of its speed boards, which measures and displays the speed of an oncoming vehicle, on his property.

Oetinger said he might accept the invitation and added that he was trying to secure grants to buy a trailer, which did the same thing as the speed board, as well as a "statistical monitor" that could track the high, low and mean speeds of vehicles that passed by it.

Responding to a question about break-ins at homes on Rollercoaster Road, the chief said Weirs residents should be on the lookout for anything that seems out of place and to call the police if "someone doesn’t look right to you."

That person may or may not have done anything wrong, he continued, but there is no law preventing officers from asking him or her some questions.

There ought to be a law, another resident said, against excessively loud motorcycle exhausts and Oetinger said the LPD and several police departments on the Seacoast were working to bring about a legislative solution.

The current state law on loud motorcycle exhausts is unwieldy to enforce and gives police much less leeway than in their being able to cite a four-wheel vehicle for the same offense, said Oetinger.

He promised to publicize when the potential loud pipes legislation was considered by the General Court, although MacLennan cautioned that the motorcycle lobby is very strong in the capital and would do its best to argue the "malarkey" that "straight pipes save lives."

Cozy Inn owner Dyan Driscoll asked Oetinger if officers who work in The Weirs could meet business owners before the start of the tourist season and the chief replied "that’s doable."

In closing, Oetinger broached a topic that none of the speakers did — Bike Week — in appealing for residents to be involved in directing it "in a direction you want it to go."

He banged his fists together to emphasize that that kind of head-butting, us-versus-them approach that has typified much of the past discussion on the rally was not going to be productive in the future.

The chief said he understood and appreciated the importance of Bike Week to businesses in The Weirs, adding that he was not going to get involved in the politics of Bike Week, only its public safety aspect.

Krahulec said the problem at Bike Week this past year wasn’t the Laconia Police Department, but State Police of whom there were too many and too many of whom, unlike the Laconia officers, had seemingly bad attitudes towards the rally.

As to the number of state troopers, Oetinger said he was grateful for whatever assistance he could receive because even when Bike Week was just two days long in the 1980s, it was more than the LPD could manage.

The State Police presence does not cost the city anything, he said, and "I could not police this event without them."

Krahulec replied that the troopers should be more spread out in The Weirs during Bike Week, rather than being clustered in and around Lakeside Avenue, and also that maybe some of them should be in plain clothes to be less conspicuous.

The Laconia Police Department cannot tell the State Police how many troopers to send to Bike Week or how to deploy them, said Oetinger.

Maybe so, said Krahulec, but at least maybe the department can work to "find state troopers who can smile."

"We cannot force other people to be friendly," said MacLennan, adding that the number of state troopers was adequate, not overwhelming, during Bike Week.

Krahulec’s question about the State Police, said Oetinger, underscored the need to find a middle ground in the sometimes heated Bike Week debate.

"We have to work together and have some sense of mutual understanding," he said.