JPD receives committee approval for grants, training
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Grants, symposiums, training and more are upcoming for the city's police department, and all of those were among the list of resolutions on the agenda for the Public Safety Committee on Monday.
The city has been awarded a $20,000 grant from the state Discovery Grant program administered by the Chautauqua County District Attorney's Office. Police Chief Scott Forster said this grant is given on a yearly basis from the DA's office.
"Our evidence detective basically has a list of stuff and they submit it," Forster said. "There's a lot of things on here that I don't know exactly what they are, just the basic stuff that they need in the evidence room, along with some tables, some fingerprints, photographs, some different things, goggles, filters, adapters for tripods, camera filters. There's a list of 10 things here."
Everything on the list is for the evidence room and to help the police make sure they have everything they need for discovery on cases.
A resolution approving Forster, GIVE Coordinator Sydney Robinson, Crime Analyst Holly Katta, and one additional designated officer attending the 2026 Public Safety Symposium: Building Safer and Stronger Communities hosted by the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services was also on the Public Safety committee agenda. The symposium is sponsored by GIVE and departments across the state meet in Albany for three days, with presentations and lectures.
"The whole idea is to pass on information and try to get new ideas for public safety," Forster said.
One other resolution approved by the committee was for a leadership certification program being done in a partnership between the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services, and
the FBI National Academy Associates in Erie County. Lieutenant Schimek, Lieutenant Mason, Sergeant Mann, and Sergeant Overend from Jamestown are requesting to attend, with everything covered through the GIVE grant.
"We've never had this before," Forster said. "It became available and I like to get our supervisors as much training as possible and a lot of these other FBI led leadership courses are really good."
All resolutions were approved by the committee.