Concord police seek grant to restart patrol K-9 program after two-decade gap

Chief Osgood presented a proposal to restart Concord’s patrol K-9 program, which he said last existed in 2005. The proposal asks the council to authorize city staff to apply for a Stanton Foundation grant to pay initial startup and training costs for a new dog-and-handler team.

The program team said a patrol K-9 would perform criminal tracking, drug detection, building searches, missing-person searches and provide a less-lethal option during certain arrests. Officer Matt LeBlanc said the dog’s roles would also include community engagement: “Alongside of the criminal aspect, though, we also have the positive impact on the community, reaching out to kids and and younger age groups and and everyone in the city of showing the capabilities of the dog.”

Deputy Chief Smigula and Officer LeBlanc outlined local call data they reviewed to justify the program. LeBlanc summarized recent mutual-aid requests and local demand: the department logged roughly 229 calls in categories that could benefit from a K-9 in 2024, including burglaries, robberies, missing-persons searches and fleeing suspects. He said using a K-9 in-scene could shorten building searches and reduce the number of officers required to clear a structure.

The grant described in the presentation is the Stanton Foundation Grant. According to the presentation, the Stanton award would provide a lump sum (initial startup funds of about $32,000) and follow-up payments ($14,300 and $4,500) tied to completion of initial and secondary training. The grant package described in the slideshow included an overall program startup figure of roughly $50,800 to cover the dog, cruiser conversion, schooling, kennel construction, equipment and initial vet and care costs.

Councilors asked about long-term costs if the grant covered startup. Chief Osgood said the department expects to restart a nonprofit called Friends of the Concord Police K-9 Program to help sustain the program and estimated ongoing local fundraising needs as “probably less than $10,000 maybe $5,000 annually.” He also said the Stanton award would likely cover startup expenses for roughly three years of initial operations. Councilors asked why the program was ended in 2005; Osgood replied it was “a logistical thing at the time… some budgetary issues.”

Because the K-9 item was placed on the meeting’s consent agenda, council approval of the consent calendar authorized staff to submit the grant application; the council approved the consent agenda later in the meeting. Councilor Brown recused herself from items 16, 21 and 22 because of a conflict noted on the record.

Supporters said a local K-9 would speed response times compared with relying on state police teams stationed elsewhere in New Hampshire. LeBlanc described an example in which a state K-9 was approximately an hour away for a requested vehicle sniff, creating a delayed response.

If the Stanton Foundation application is awarded, staff said they would return to the council to accept the grant formally and to request necessary budget or acceptance actions.

The presentation also described training partners and mutual-aid relationships. LeBlanc said the proposed training host is a New Hampshire academy that operates with regional participation and national third-party certification; he named nearby municipal K-9 teams that would form a mutual-aid training pool if Concord reestablishes a team.

The council did not take separate roll-call votes on the K-9 presentation; the consent calendar that included the grant application request passed by voice vote later in the meeting.