Melrose Police Get Gun Upgrades — And This Time, No Controversy

MELROSE, MA — Last June, the question of whether to appropriate $26,000 for the police to upgrade aging firearms nearly split Melrose in half.

Fast forward more than six months to the first Appropriations Committee meeting of the year Monday night. That same funding request passed unanimously with a kumbaya feel.

So what changed?

Time, of course. While calls for social justice and racial equality persist into 2021, the heated passions of the summer have faded some. No one is eager to return to the division that plagued the city's legislative and executive bodies in the middle of 2020.

And while idealogical differences on the City Council still remain, there is decidedly more unity — particularly in the wake of pro-Trump extremists storming the U.S. Capitol last week. (The council, mayor and police chief all spoke against last Wednesday's events.)

But perhaps the most important change was the process. There were no last-second requests, no fiery arrows of criticism and, most importantly, no either-or scenarios.

For a quick refresher: Mayor Paul Brodeur's administration last year asked the council to approve appropriating $26,000 in free cash for the purpose of upgrading the police's Glock models to a smaller-caliber alternative that Chief Mike Lyle says is more accurate and cost-effective. But in the aftermath of the George Floyd killing and the ensuing national conversation about "defunding the police," Brodeur asked the council to reallocate those funds for citywide implicit bias training.

Brodeur's request came at the 11th hour, leaving councilors scrambling to decide in real-time between upgrading weapons or funding bias training. They didn't take kindly to it, leading to maybe the most bizarre meeting of the year that included a call for Brodeur to apologize for "political grandstanding."

In the end, a compromise led to taking the $26,000 in question and an additional $14,000 earmarked for the IT department to fund an external needs assessment of the city. The firearms would be funded in the next round of free cash — which is what occurred Monday night. (The City Council still needs to finalize in a proper council meeting vote.)

Brodeur committed during the compromise to taking $100,000 of free cash — which City Auditor Patrick Dello Russo said Monday is being set aside — to help implement whatever suggestions come from the needs assessment. Brodeur also said he would be funding an annual diversity, equality and inclusion line item beginning with the upcoming FY22 budget.

It's unclear whether the months-long wait for the weapons upgrade was necessary since the external needs assessment has yet to be performed or paid for. But the city has been making progress and is close to agreeing with a vendor for the needs assessment, officials have told the council, taking a bit longer than expected but satisfying all involved.

Mike Carraggi can be reached at mike.carraggi@patch.com. Follow him on Twitter @PatchCarraggi. Subscribe to Melrose Patch for free local news and alerts and like us on Facebook.