The City Council last week gave its approval to allowing civilian traffic flaggers at area construction sites because of a shortage of uniformed help.
Mayor Melinda E. Barrett explained the city has had difficulty filling detail positions on construction sites. She said allowing civilian help “is an effort to expand the pool of people to do flagging and keep traffic moving around job sites.” Police Chief Robert P. Pistone said the ordinance “speaks for itself.”
“As we know, there’s a lot of construction going on in the city between the bridge that will be coming on next year, the Lupoli building—drive around the city, there’s construction everywhere,” he said. “We’re, quite frankly, not even able to fill using retirees or out of town officers to fill all of the details.”…