Jan 11, 2023 3 min read

The city of Washington Police Department received a $442,000 grant from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency.

Police Chief Daniel Rush told council Monday that some of the money will be used to purchase body cameras in addition to the 18 already approved by council in November.

“I want to increase that to about 25 body cameras,” Rush said after the meeting. “That will allow us to have every uniformed officer on the street at one time with a camera on.”

Rush said the cameras should be on the streets and active March 14.

The chief said other plans for the funding include increasing the police station’s Wi-Fi capability and getting computers back in the department’s police vehicles.

“This will go hand in hand with our report management system upgrades that we anticipate doing,” Rush said. “Once we get the in-car computers back, it will allow the officers to do their reports in their cars, (allowing for) less time off the road and more time on the street. Once the car pulls into the station it connects to the Wi-Fi and it can actually upload those reports right into the report management database. They won’t have to come back to the station to type stuff into a computer.”

This also will allow the body cameras to connect with the Wi-Fi once a police officer returns to the station.

Rush said he also hopes to purchase a Taser for every uniformed patrol officer who is qualified to use one.

Rush also hopes to get a generator for the police station for a number of reasons, such as having a place for the elderly or infirm to stay if need be during extreme cold or extreme warm conditions.

Also, engineer Sarah Boyce of Harshman CE Group said the playground improvement project at Washington Park is out for bid for the site work. The bid opening is scheduled for Jan. 30 and a contract will be awarded in February. Boyce said 10 bids had been received as of Monday.

“We’re hoping they can get started the first of March and we can get the playground ordered by the first of February, which should coincide with them finishing up and then getting it delivered by the first of April,” Boyce said.

Boyce explained after the meeting that a new, state-of-the-art playground will be coming to the park.

“It’s ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliant,” she said. “It will have some features that we haven’t had in other playgrounds I’ve seen around here.”

The playground will have its own parking lot, which will include two ADA parking spots.

“People with wheelchairs or disabled people will be able to go right into the play structure,” Boyce said.

Also Monday, Mayor Scott Putnam said the city will reinstitute the Pride in Washington Award that was awarded quarterly at one time.

“We’re looking to recognize the people in the community that have great pride in the city of Washington,” Putnam said, adding that he hoped to give out the award the second month of each quarter.