John Scarffe, Nederland.  Nederland Marshal Paul Carrill presented a proposal to the Nederland Board of Trustees to assist in the recruiting and retention of Nederland police officers during a regular meeting at 7 p.m., June 20, 2017, at the Nederland Community Center. During public comment, an attorney representing former Trustees Peter Fiori and Joe Gierlach read a letter to the Board.

At the April 18 Board meeting, Marshal Carrill told the Board that he lost a police officer last month, one will leave in May and a third is in the application stage. Since this report, another officer has announced he is leaving.

He has been trying to replace officers since November and only has nine applications. He can’t get current, experienced police officers due to the fact that it’s not worth their time. Carrill said he wanted to hire local and did. He has worked on police cadet internships, but other agencies are pre-purchasing cadets. He could go to contract policing, but right now the public owns the police department and equipment.

The Town of Lyons contracts for two sheriff’s deputies for more money. Carrill has talked to the Sheriff’s Office for contracting. The BCSO Special Duty rate is $68.00 per hour, and then he has no money to hire police officers. He may have to go to daytime policing and on-call after 7 p.m.

According to his letter to the Board, the NPD is experiencing a disturbing trend of losing trained and experienced police officers due to the low salaries and a huge Front Range demand for trained and experienced police officers. More than 80 law enforcement vacancies exist along the Front Range.

The Town of Nederland starts its police officers at $38,500 to $40,000, about $20,000 less than other Boulder County law enforcement agencies. Losing three police officers in the next 60 days will result in critical understaffing and a severe cut in police services, Carrill wrote.

The cost of annual salaries does not include the cost to hire, equip and train a police officer, or the two to three years it takes for a new officer to become proficient and gain community trust, Carrill wrote. “These costs can easily be in the thousands of dollars, dollars lost when an officer leaves the NPD.”

This is not a new problem for the Town. Since 1974, the NPD has lost more than 79 officers, and no one has retired from the NPD. In just the last three years, six of the departing officers left for more pay; therefore, failure to invest in personnel results in loss of money, experience, organizational memory, leadership and trust, Carrill wrote.

“It also makes it incredibly difficult to meet community goals and objectives since there is no continuity. In the last three years, the Town of Nederland has seen over a 100 percent increase in ‘Quality of Life’ incidents. Each of these incidents normally requires an NPD officer to handle,” Carrill wrote.

This data, both objective and antidotal, shows the increase of activity in Nederland, and it doesn’t appear that people or bad behavior are going to stop coming to the mountains, Carrill wrote. “More people are coming to town and incidents are going up,” Carrill said. “That’s not going to change.”

Carrill told the Board that this should be an informational and then action item or discussed at the Board’s workshop on May 9. “I can put together options for you.”

Subsequently Carrill put together four options for the Board’s consideration, and the Trustees discussed the options during an executive session. On May 23, Carrill met with Mayor Kristopher Larson to discuss the Board’s decision on the police officer salary increase, according to a memorandum by Town Treasurer Jen Hogan.

Larson advised that the attending Board members understood the need to increase police officer salaries to recruit and retain quality officers. Based on this understanding, the Board approved the salary goal and option three.

According to option three, beginning on June 1, 2017, the Town would increase all police officer pay by $5,000 per person for full-time employees and $2,500 for part time, continuing annual increases over the next three years to meet the $20,000 salary parity. The Marshal will be excluded from the increase, thereby freeing up funds offset for the initial implementation, according to the memo.

To accomplish this, the Nederland Police Department (NPD) would eliminate one full-time officer position and reprogram the salary to fund parity increases of about $39,395. The Board also directed Carrill to work with the Town treasurer to identify the police department funds that would fund the increase and subsequently provide a memo for the June 6 meeting for a Board vote.

Carrill worked with Hogan, and the two prepared the memo, but the June 6 meeting was canceled, so Carrill presented the memo to the Board on June 20. Carrill told the Board he would like to recognize previous boards and the passage of a livable wage for Town staff.

He proposed a $40,000 starting salary for NPD officers. Right now, Nederland officers can leave on Friday and get a $20,000 increase by Monday and in three years be making more than the Marshal.

Other police departments are offering hiring bonuses and moving stipends just to move to Fort Collins. His proposal would be eliminating one position and bumping salary by $5,000 to $45,000 even across the board.

The Marshal position would not be included, but the Town will need to consider this when hiring a new one.

The NPD can’t meet the goals for the parking study on First Street, because they have no one to run timing.

Hogan said that as of May 31, 2017, the NPD is $8,592 under budget in salary related expenses. The proposed pay increase of $5,000 per full-time employee, and the reduction of one full-time employee, will increase total salary costs $4,977 for the remainder of the year. With the plan as proposed, NPD will not exceed the 2017 budget. Carrill pointed out that this was proposed for June 1, and it’s already June 20, resulting in additional savings.

Trustee Kevin Mueller said he is in favor of increasing police officer salaries, and Trustee Topher Donahue said, “It’s the best proposal we can have at the moment, and I’m ready to support it.” Mayor Pro Tem Charles Wood said that it is competitive and we see it everywhere, but he had a question about traffic enforcement.

“There’s a demand for enforcement, speeding on our roads, traffic safety. It’s important to have an officer available for traffic safety. We should have a traffic officer there and account for those funds. I’m in favor of the proposal,” Wood said.

Larsen said this is just the first step, but it’s a great first step. The Board approved the Police Parity Proposal.

During public comments, Attorney Thomas D. Leland with Holland & Knight LLP said he represents Former Nederland Trustees Peter Fiori and Joe Gierlach and read from a prepared letter dated June 20, 2017.

”Mr. Gierlach and Mr. Fiori have asked me to set the record straight with respect to several misleading and inaccurate statements about Mr. Fiori and Mr. Gierlach recently provided to the Board of Trustees and put into the public record by Marshall Paul Carrill of the Nederland Police Department,” Leland said.

Fiori was accused of two felonies in connection with his purchase of property at 55 Indian Peaks Drive, now known as the Caribou Room. Fiori uncovered facts that he believed showed the criminal prosecution against him was a politically motivated witch hunt, which he also believes showed that then Town Administrator Alisha Reis had a reason to retaliate against Fiori, Leland said.

“Tellingly, after Mr. Fiori filed a motion which set forth these facts, the Boulder District Attorney dropped all felony charges, and ultimately Mr. Fiori agreed to plead guilty to two negligible charges – a minor misdemeanor and a petty offense for failure to disclose a potential conflict of interest in writing,” Leland said.

Fiori believes that the District Attorney’s abrupt about-face shows that the criminal prosecution against him was motivated by political animus from former and current Nederland Town employees, including Reis and Carrill, who testified against him at his plea agreement and sentencing.

Although Reis has since resigned as Town administrator, it appears that Carrill’s animosity towards Fiori continues, Leland said. In two recent reports, he has presented misleading and inaccurate information about Fiori’s case and plea agreement.

In an email to the Trustees dated April 4, 2017, Carrill stated that Fiori pleaded “guilty to the following crimes that stemmed from the investigation into his unethical purchase of the Caribou Room building. Carrill’s characterization as “unethical” is unnecessary and misleading, Leland said. There has been no finding or agreement that Fiori acted unethically in any way.

The Class 2 misdemeanor offense to which Fiori pled requires only that a public servant disclose a potential conflict in writing, which Fiori concedes he did not do, but Fiori did, in fact, disclose his intention to purchase the property to the Town immediately, and even recused himself from all future Town business concerning the property.

Carrill’s submission for the April 18, 2017, Board agenda represents that part of Fiori’s sentence was that he was ineligible for future elected positions, but the judge made no such order, nor is it true that a party who has pled to a Class 2 misdemeanor may not seek or hold public office, Leland said. Fiori believes that its only purpose can be a politically motivated attempt to mislead the public and the Trustees while needlessly continuing to damage Fiori’s reputation in his home community.

Carrill’s statements with respect to Gierlach in his April 18 submission are even more baffling, Leland said. Carrill says that Gierlach “received a Grand Jury Censure, but due to statute of limitations was not indicted of Second Degree, Official Misconduct.” Nothing in this statement is true.

A Grand Jury was never convened to investigate Gierlach. Given that a Grand Jury was never convened, Carrill’s representation that Gierlach was not indicted “due to a statute of limitations” is categorically false, Leland said. Indeed, Carrill’s choice of words suggests that he seeks to cast Gierlach as ultimately guilty, but as having been “let off on a technicality.”

Gierlach believes that Carrill’s misleading and inaccurate statements amount to a politically motivated attack which further damages Gierlach’s reputation in his home community, and are unbecoming of a person who purports to represent law enforcement in the Town of Nederland.

Fiori and Gierlach request that Carrill make a public, written apology to them and that it be noted in the Town minutes from that meeting. Mayor Larsen said he would take the matter under advisement and forward it to the Town’s attorney for review. In a telephone conversation on June 26, Larsen said the letter has been sent to the attorney, and the Town, nor Marshal Carrill, will be making a statement until the Attorney has an opportunity to review the matter. Alisha Reis said she will defer any comments to the Town but feels the matter was settled in court and with the District Attorney’s office.

(Originally published in the June 29, 2017 print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)