Brownsville resumes GPS tracking of borough police vehicles during heated special meeting
Mike Tony | Herald-Standard
Former Brownsville Fire Company No. 1 Chief Clark Sealy (middle) angrily addresses Councilman Ron Bakewell (left) during Brownsville Borough Council’s special meeting Friday to resume GPS tracking of borough police vehicles. Sealy said that Bakewell told him he’d see him outside, prompting Sealy to stand up and confront Bakewell.
Mike Tony | Herald-Standard
Brownsville Solicitor Krisha DiMascio said during a special Brownsville Borough Council Friday that council’s installation of GPS systems in police vehicles was legal, adding that the borough would still have to negotiate a memorandum of understanding with borough police’s union, Teamsters Local 491, if it was to use the GPS systems for a disciplinary purpose.
Mike Tony | Herald-Standard
Councilmen Bob Kovach (left) and Ron Bakewell were two of four council members voting in favor of resuming GPS tracking of borough police vehicles at Brownsville Borough Council’s heated special meeting for that purpose Friday.
BROWNSVILLE — Just days after borough council voted to eliminate WiarCom GPS tracking of borough’s two police vehicles, council voted 4-3 to restore the tracking immediately during a meeting where council members repeatedly accused attendees and each other of various acts of malfeasance.
Mayor Lester Ward had cast a tie-breaking vote in favor of eliminating the GPS tracking at council’s meeting Oct. 10, following Councilman Ross Swords’ motion to do so and erroneous claim that the borough’s contract with WiarCom had expired, breaking a 3-3 vote that came about after Councilman Jim Lawver left the meeting to go to work.
Lawver, a proponent of maintaining GPS tracking, flipped that vote count at Friday’s special meeting, moving to turn GPS tracking of police back on immediately and draw up an internal policy for its use with the help of borough Solicitor Krisha DiMascio.
“We’ve gotten complaints of police cars being all over hell’s creation,” Lawver said.
About two dozen attendees crammed council chambers for the meeting, pointedly asking why the GPS tracking of police was necessary, and heckling the four council members — Lawver, Ron Bakewell, Brenda Bush and Bob Kovach — that on Aug. 15 voted to advertise an ordinance that would disband borough police effective Jan. 1, 2018.
Council has not yet held a vote on disbandment and has not yet advertised any such ordinance.
In April 2016, council approved its members having access to WiarCom GPS tracking of borough police vehicles on their cellphones as well as on the hard drive of a borough computer, after having voted the previous month to end the borough’s contract with WiarCom and explore other GPS vendors.
Then-Council President Tracy Sheehan Zivkovich, Swords and Bakewell voted against the April 2016 measure, while then-Councilman Tom Bush, Kovach, Jack Lawver and Jim Lawver voted for it. Zivkovich reported that month that a 36-month contract with WiarCom had been signed on May 21, 2015, though the borough had no record of the contract in its past meeting minutes. The 2015 contract was retroactively approved in April 2016 by a 5-2 vote.
DiMascio explained Friday that the borough is obligated to continue to pay WiarCom whether it uses the company’s service or not. Council’s installation of GPS systems in police vehicles was legal, DiMascio said, adding that the borough would still have to negotiate a memorandum of understanding with borough police’s union if it was to use the GPS systems for a disciplinary purpose.
“That could be something we deal with in our new contract with the union,” DiMascio said.
DiMascio added later that while the GPS systems could be used for “bad things,” it can also be used for officers’ safety, showing their location if they require emergency assistance.
“All of my municipalities use GPS now,” DiMascio said. “They use them on all of their vehicles, and usually it’s a safety issue.”
Several borough residents and first responders said that councilmen shouldn’t be taking on the responsibility of accounting for police and being tasked with responding in an emergency situation.
Brownsville Fire Company No. 1 Chief Jordan Sealy, who has been outspoken against council’s consideration of borough police disbandment, said Fayette County Emergency Management is responsible for police officer safety through dispatching.
“Worry about your own damn job and not somebody else’s,” Sealy told council.
Swords said he is not against GPS use but is against all council members having access to it.
“There’s no stopping anybody from giving someone the password and the login and saying, ‘Here, here’s where the police are,'” Swords said.
Kovach and Jim Lawver were the only council members that said they track police vehicles on their phones.
The meeting was heated from start to finish, escalating when former Brownsville Fire Company No. 1 Chief Clark Sealy, sitting next to Bakewell, said angrily that Bakewell had threatened him during the meeting by telling him he’d see him outside, prompting Sealy to stand up and confront Bakewell, who eventually switched seats with Bush to move away from Sealy.
Bakewell agreed amid Sealy’s shouting that he had told him he’d see him outside, but to “explain my reasoning” to him, not to threaten him.
Bakewell also said that it was “dirty” that Swords moved for a vote to eliminate the GPS tracking of police vehicles at the end of the Oct. 10 meeting after Jim Lawver left for work a little more than an hour into the meeting.
After the vote to turn GPS tracking of police back on immediately and draw up an internal policy for its use, Jack Lawver asked that all council members and Mayor Ward be notified at the same time of general information, with Zivkovich saying that she did not know about Friday’s special meeting being called until after it was advertised in the Herald-Standard on Thursday.
“I’m just asking from today on that everybody be notified together,” Lawver said.