Cape CopCast
Welcome to "The Cape CopCast," the official podcast of the Cape Coral Police Department.
Hosted by Officer Mercedes Simonds, and Lisa Greenberg from our Public Affairs team, this podcast dives into the heart of Cape Coral PD's public safety, community initiatives, and the inner workings of our police department. Each episode brings you insightful discussions, interviews with key community figures, and expert advice on safety.
Cape CopCast
Chief's Chat #11: Precinct Building Progress and a Life-Saving Team Effort
In this episode of the Cape CopCast "Chief's Chat" edition, we're giving you updates on several major projects within the Cape Coral Police Department. We're gearing up for the annual NAMI Walk, benefitting the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Chief Sizemore, the king of analogies, then illustrates the progress of Project 35 using the analogy of building a snowman. We also talk about entering the design and development phase of our police precinct buildings, which will be in each of the four quadrants of the city.
We also recount a tale that exemplifies the power of teamwork and the spirit of Cape Coral. When a local gentleman experienced cardiac arrest, a quick-thinking family member and our dedicated police and fire rescue teams came together to save his life. We talk about reuniting with the man and his family, complete with plans for a future golf outing. It's stories like these that make us pause and appreciate the unique teamwork that thrives in our community.
How's it going? Welcome back to another episode of the Cape Cop cast Chiefs Chat Edition. I'm one of your hosts, Lisa Greenberg.
Speaker 2:And I'm Officer Mercedes Simons. Together we make up the Public Affairs Office, and once again we have Chief Sizemore with us. How you doing.
Speaker 1:I'm great. How are you? Good, it's been a good week, can't complain. Chilly week, so cold. I can't complain. Actually, I'm over the rain, the cold can stay, but I need some sunshine.
Speaker 3:Yes, this weekend.
Speaker 1:We were talking. It's interesting too this week. One of the big things that we've been dealing with this week and working on is planning for the NAMI Walk that's coming up in March, and I was talking to the chief about T-shirt designs and I'm like, oh well, you know a light color is good in case people get really sweaty and gross, and he was like it actually might be just like this for the NAMI walk. It's in the beginning of March. We might be dealing with cool weather like this for that walk.
Speaker 3:March. I always use spring training, right Because you have the twins, the Red Sox, now the Braves are up in Northport the beginning of the month. Sometimes you could be wearing jackets and sweatshirts. You could be wearing jackets and sweatshirts, and by the end of the month it's hot, yeah, right, and there's a time change right in the middle. So the NAMI Walk is the beginning of March, so we could be very close to what we had this week, or it could be summer already.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm excited. I'm looking forward to the NAMI Walk. It's an awesome event.
Speaker 3:March 8th, right March 8th, saturday, march 8th it's an evening walk, a sunset walk, centennial Park, downtown Fort Myers. So you got the bands playing, the playground's open. They're back from Ian it looks great down there Our partners with the city of Fort Myers and all of our nonprofits and all of our sponsors and our participants. It's a big party and that's a great kickoff at four o'clock right, so all the families are out, there's food trucks and then right around six o'clock we just go right down Edwards Drive to the Edison Bridge and by the time they time it perfect, you hit the peak of the Edison Bridge right at sunset. Photo moments. It's really a great, great event.
Speaker 1:It's beautiful. Honestly, it was awesome last year and, for anyone who doesn't know, nami stands for National Alliance on Mental Illness. Correct, this is something that you're very passionate about. You serve on the board. I know we talked a little bit about it in a prior podcast, so we don't have to get too deep, but we're just excited because we're finally in the real planning stages and getting our team together and the t-shirt designs and all that good stuff.
Speaker 3:I don't want to jinx it, but we are once again the biggest team and I believe our team is the biggest sponsor getter. If that's Sponsor getter, sponsor getter Official, that's awesome Accumulator of donations. We're winning.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Yeah, outside of NAMI and the planning, we've also been talking a lot about Project 35. And it's interesting because we've been talking so much about the planning, planning, planning, and while we are still planning, we're actually starting to see that plan come more to life.
Speaker 3:It's taking shape. So we'll go on the winter theme, right? So our friends in the panhandle got like six inches of snow. So if you're going to build a snowman, there is no book on how to do it. You just start grabbing snow. Doing nothing is not an option. I say that all the time for many different things in my personal life and also here. Doing nothing is not an option. So if you're going to build something and you really don't know it's never been done before, it's a new concept. Start doing something. So start grabbing snow, just start pulling it in and before you know it it's going to take shape. So start grabbing snow, just start pulling it in and before you know it it's going to take shape. And then you know what to do. You start making the body, the head, the corncob pipe, the whole thing that all of our friends in Pensacola are doing this week. But the Project 35 was a plan. It was a dream or an idea or a concept. It was a vapor. And what's happened is we talked about it, I think last week or the week before, where we actually had our first strategic planning session with all of our brains to get together to lay out what we look like 10 years from now so that we can take that plan and reverse engineer it. 10 years to get our budgets. And we got our first proofs back right. A lot of the notes and working material from that strategy session are on paper and we're looking at it and we're putting it together to, to, to grab that snow and it's starting to take shape, which is really cool.
Speaker 3:So there's a it's the winter workshop for budget, and budget in government is like the national hockey League it never stops, right? It's a long season. So budget is planning, development. They break it down into major capital, they break it down even further into personnel and then operating. And you have to develop and plan. And you do all of this prep work internally as a department, then you do it as a city, then it gets presented to the public and you make sure that what you're asking for, what you're designing, is in line with what the public wants, right, because that's what we all do, is provide a service to the public. So are we delivering on what is expected in the community, and then that gets voted on and then it gets funded and that's the big celebration. Is that all of the things that we've been planning for, to deliver to our community we're able to do. It's funded, let's go. That's the championship for hockey, right? And then the off season is about five minutes and then you start training camp for the next season or the next development, or to stay on pace and to keep to keep growing, keep maneuvering.
Speaker 3:So we are in almost the end of the regular season for budget, because now we're starting to talk to the public, to our elected officials, in a public format of. This is what we're coming up with. Are you guys good with it? Are we along the same lines? We share the same vision? So it's almost the playoff season for budget as we start working towards developing an actual budget to submit. So, to take our concept of, we're going to change it up a little bit. Let's get everything in line to having something in your hand now where you can picture what we look like 10 years from now and put it into into play.
Speaker 1:It's exciting, it's super exciting, really cool, that's awesome yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2:I think that it's. It's going to be really cool just working backwards. I don't think anybody's really thought to do that before.
Speaker 1:So, um, and we especially need that with the exponential growth for sure, it'd be great, for sure, and part of that is talking about our precincts and getting those designed and developed and developed, and we're in that process now right.
Speaker 3:We're pretty much the theme for all of our planning now is the dreams are starting to turn into real strategic plans. So a strategic plan that is not backed up by or engaged with budget or funding is just a wish. It becomes a strategic plan when you have the funding mechanism in place, and that for us is municipal budgeting, forfeiture money, grant funding all different revenue streams. So we're attaching funding sources to our plans, and one such plan is the precincts that we've been talking about and, without going too deep into it again, a precinct is a section of the city. We have four of them and it mirrors your address southeast, southwest, northeast, northwest. So if you live in the southeast cape, your address is southeast something here in the southeast precinct.
Speaker 3:As we grow and get bigger, it will become much more challenging for you to come to this building to get police service. So what we want to do is replicate full police service in a precinct building in your geographic area, so that it's better service for you. During blue skies or after a disaster, you need police services. You can go to your precinct substation located in your geographic area and get all of the same services that you would get here. Well, that concept is now starting to come into a real plan. So even today, there's a meeting later this afternoon where we're talking about actual concepts of what those buildings will look and feel like. In the experience you will get as an employee working in them and a member of the public patronizing those establishments, if you will. So that's another exciting thing for us too.
Speaker 2:Are things going to kind of have the same feel and look to all the different precincts? Are they going to have their own vibe?
Speaker 3:They'll have a little bit of a different vibe. I'll give you an example Southeast is the most densely populated, oldest precinct that we have, so there's not a lot of available land.
Speaker 3:And you want to fit, architecturally and footprint size-wise, with the neighborhood. We want to be good neighbors so that precinct is going to look different than Northwest. So Northwest Cape is our newest to develop. There's more ample land. It doesn't look odd to have a wider footprint, so we'll be able to store some assets up there. Some of our high water vehicles can be stored up there while there's no storms. That you just won't be able to do in a tighter footprint of Southeast.
Speaker 3:But the user experience will be very similar. We want consistency. If you go to certain areas of the country, if there's a McDonald's restaurant, you can look like what you picture in your head, and then there's other kind of swanky areas that will allow a McDonald's but the facade has to look and feel and fit the same way. But when you go into the establishment you know what you're going to get. That's what we want to do is have that franchise brand experience that when you walk in you will have a records professional to engage with, a desk officer to engage with and any of the services that you would need you will be able to get at any one of our facilities.
Speaker 1:You have the best analogies. I just have to say we've had like three of them in this episode and I'm like these are incredible.
Speaker 2:Snowmen McDonald's hockey season.
Speaker 3:I'll give you a funny one. So I was going through the process to get the permanent chief's job. So I was the interim chief. They did a national search. There were 70-something candidates and we did a series of exercises and the role players that we had to engage with were current chiefs that are in the Florida Police Chief Association. So later they became my peers and friends of mine and people I lean on. But I didn't know a lot of them, especially during the process. You couldn't have any relationship with them or it would have been a bias. So we were going through this one scenario and it was a replication of you as the chief, correcting a command staff member who let you down or did some performance issue and I utilized because that's just the way I talk and the reason I talk that way is because that's the way I see it in my head. So I use pictures, right, I'm a picture book guy, I guess.
Speaker 1:That's awesome.
Speaker 3:So I translate what I see. Well, if I can understand it like that, then you would understand it. So I communicate in visuals like that, or analogies, and they try to get you off your game when you're in these scenarios. And the guy said I don't like analogies. And they try to get you off your game when you're in these scenarios. And the guy said I don't like analogies, don't talk to me with analogies, I don't respond to them. And without even thinking, I said well, that's the way I communicate, so you better get used to it. And he went okay, understood. And afterwards, when you debrief, we laughed because he goes yeah, I totally said that to throw you off. And my response was I can't not speak that way, so I better set the tone or I'm going to be really off for the rest of it. But that's the way I communicate.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Well, when you turn traffic enforcement into the layers of the cake, that's when I knew, ok, he's good at this, he's good at this.
Speaker 2:It all started from episode one.
Speaker 1:It all started from episode one. It all started from episode one.
Speaker 3:It's so true I still hear about that one.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I mean I'm pretty sure it's our most listened to episode. That's good.
Speaker 2:I think we still bring up layers of the cake when we're explaining, because that's something that we explain all the time. We frequently throw in the cake analogy because it's so complex and it works.
Speaker 3:You have to explain a system or a topic or an idea from. Phd to GED and you got one shot and they all got to get it Exactly. So how do you do it? You do it with pictures. You do it with stuff people can relate to.
Speaker 1:Bonus points for food. And if you haven't listened to that episode yet, that one is our first episode in our podcast feed, so make sure to give that one a listen. One other thing I wanted to talk about before we wrap things up is we had a pretty big win. We did something really cool with the fire department yesterday. Some of our guys got recognized for being involved in saving a man's life who was in cardiac arrest.
Speaker 3:Tell us a little bit more about that so we can share it with the people what an awesome event yesterday was, and tip of the cap to the fire department for putting it together and for the family of the gentleman who, quite frankly, I don't think would be here today if what happened by our first responders didn't happen. And what happened, you might ask, is a gentleman in our community was experiencing cardiac arrest or having a heart attack. Right If we're going to say what happened experiencing cardiac arrest or having a heart attack. Right If we're going to just say what happened. And a family member of his immediately started what the fire department I learned a term is called bystander CPR, which I think is anybody but them, those CPR. She started administering chest compressions, was on the phone with 911, and then our officers from the police department happened to be in the area, got there first and took over and they began chest compressions and continued until our fire rescue personnel came over or came in and assumed the task and utilized more advanced technology and then got the gentleman transported and cutting to the end. He's alive and thriving.
Speaker 3:And we celebrated at the fire station from which the firefighters responded with the man, his relative, his daughters were there and it was an emotional scene. It was all the firefighters who worked on them, all the police officers who responded, myself, the fire chief. You were there and what was really cool was just the impact that hit home for the family. The young lady who was organizing it. She brought little plaques and read something, but she kept saying my dad is here because of what you guys did and we were talking before the episode.
Speaker 3:Today that and just two topics ago, we're talking big plans and 10 years down the line and it's moving very fast. There's almost a quarter million people here, more coming every day. It's just moving and moving and moving. And what we did yesterday was we hit pause, pause. We stopped and took one incident to all these people and all these stories and all these lives going in a million different directions and all the growth that we're doing. We just stopped it and took one example and really did a deep dive into this family and to see, you know, we think big, think big. And yesterday we thought small Yep day, we thought small yep and man, that was really really cool to see what an impact one call for service, one usage of training and teamwork to have a real life.
Speaker 2:And I'll let you guys tell the cool nugget at the end well, so I was talking to one of the officers, um, who was first on scene after the family member started cpr, and I guess he was talking to the guy whose life he saved and I guess they exchanged phone numbers and they're planning on going golfing, that's so cool.
Speaker 2:And that might seem. I mean that's obviously very cool, but I think it means a lot to see the outcome of someone whose life you saved. I think a lot of times it's just call to call for officers and then you almost don't even think about it at the end of the night, even if you save somebody's life. But to see the person whose life you saved in the family that it impacted is just very cool and that's so rare for us to be able to see too Well, to highlight it right.
Speaker 3:We've heard of that and I've almost 30 years for me. I've heard that story, I've been kind of a part of that story To see the human side of it and it's absolutely 100% impactful for the family. That's a no-brainer. But I think that golf outing is going to be so therapeutic for our officer that I wouldn't be golfing with this guy either getting beat by him or beating him or whatever you do. This wouldn't happen if that didn't happen. And how cool is that?
Speaker 2:It's so cool and that partnership with the fire department for us is awesome too for them to call us out to their location and include us, and everything was really, really awesome too, because we work in tandem with them all the time.
Speaker 3:We have a relationship with them that I think other communities it's foreign. I mean, of course you're going to be professional when the flames are flickering and the bullets are flying, but here in Cape Coral we support each other all the time and it's just not that kind of rivalry that people think about, because it doesn't happen here. It's really a partnership, it's a brotherhood. As a matter of fact, yesterday I had lunch with the fire chief and his number two, because we bounce ideas off of each other to make sure we're good leaders and good stewards of the community. So it was something yesterday.
Speaker 2:It was great.
Speaker 3:I think maybe we'll kind of incorporate a little good stuff at the end of every podcast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like it. It's been nice the last couple of weeks, and on a positive note for sure. Well, thank you so much for joining us again and hanging out. We appreciate you.
Speaker 3:You got it. Have a great weekend.
Speaker 2:Sounds good. See you next time, take care, enjoy the weather.
