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Foster police warn of staffing shortfall; council hears phone-system fixes and committee appointments
Summary
Foster Police Chief reported active recruitment but said officers on duty are limited, prompting council discussion about staffing, dispatch gaps and phone-system resiliency; council appointed members to the police station building committee.
Foster — At the Foster Town Council meeting on Jan. 9, 2025, Police Chief Lindell told the council and members of the public that the department is actively interviewing candidates but remains short-staffed, and councilors discussed recent phone outages and short-term fixes for the police and town phone systems.
Chief Lindell said the department has interviewed three candidates and has funding to hire one immediate officer, but that the town’s current staffing leaves single-officer patrols as the norm. “We only have funding for one,” he said, and added, “In a perfect world, we need two officers on the road at all times.”
The staffing shortfall and dispatch gaps were framed as both a public-safety and officer-safety concern. Council members heard that the department is funded for nine officer positions but currently counts seven active members, and that one of those is assigned to limited duty while recovering from surgery. Chief Lindell described multiple recent incidents that strained the single-officer patrol model, including simultaneous emergency calls and incidents requiring multiple officers.
Councilors and staff also described technology and facility vulnerabilities that contributed to recent service interruptions. Town staff said the fiber/phone demarcation and network interface devices that feed the town hall and police station had failed battery backups; the batteries have been replaced and the town’s service contractor is updating caller-ID registration so outgoing calls from the police station will display “Foster Police Department.” The 911 emergency line was reported not to have been at risk during the outage because it uses a separate system with cellular backup.
Meeting participants raised concerns about proposals to forward non-emergency desk lines to town employees’ personal cell phones. One commenter said forwarding routine desk lines to personal phones could hinder investigations because personal devices may be subject to seizure in major criminal matters; participants recommended forwarding only to dedicated, recorded town lines.
The council approved several personnel- and process-related items tied to police operations. The council appointed Council President Steve Plouffe to the Police Station Building Committee, and separately approved a motion naming Councilor Chris Stone (and alternating coverage) to attend the Police Station Building Committee meeting on Jan. 16. The council also confirmed rotating coverage for engineering-board attendance.
Council members said the police building committee is continuing planning and that the town is pursuing a construction contract; the committee is scheduled to meet again on Jan. 16.
The meeting closed routine business and moved on to other items.
Ending — Councilors directed staff to continue recruitment efforts and to pursue short-term communications fixes while assessing longer-term options for redundant, recorded answering solutions for police and town lines.
