City Recognizes Retiring Auxiliary Officers
(Crystal A. Proxmire)
Thank you to Dinos Lounge for being the Annual Sponsor of the Police Report Section.
City Hall was full of Auxiliary Police Officers on the night of Oct. 25, 2010 when two retiring officers were given their retirement badges.
Auxiliary Officer Carol Gardner retired after 20 years of service, and Auxiliary Officer John Keating retired after 10 years. Gardner and Keating belonged to a team that is responsible for assisting The Ferndale Police Department in many areas. They are not paid for this service, and in fact have to purchase their own equipment in order to participate.
According to The Ferndale Police Department’s Auxiliary page, some functions performed by the auxiliary unit include:
•Memorial Day Parade directing traffic and security at the parade
•Dream Cruise traffic and crowd control
•House Check Program (when residents are going to be away on vacation or any other situations they can notify the Ferndale Police Department and have their homes checked by uniformed Auxiliary officers)
•Surveillance projects (capacity of observation and reporting via radio)
•Evidence searches at crime scenes (assisting the Detective Bureau)
•Devil’s Night patrol
•Halloween patrol
•Downtown details
•Art Fair
•Pride Fest
•Attend funerals and/used as honor guards
•Foot Frolic
•Crop Walk
•Homecoming parade
•Ferndale High School sports
•Flag Raising ceremony
•Many other city functions
Ferndale Police Officer Paul Simpson, who manages the Auxiliary program, presented Gardner and Keating with retirement badges. Gardner was recognized for having put over 2,900 hours of service into Auxiliary duty. Keating, who has volunteered for the past ten years, was commended on his work over the past year, which included 237 hours of service.
“The Auxiliary are very important to us, particularly in these times,” Simpson said. Because of this he’s asked that all new volunteers and retirements be recognized before Council.
More information about the Ferndale Police Auxiliary can be found at http://www.ferndalepolice.org/about/auxiliary.html.
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