Executive Director’ s Message
Frank V. Rotondo GACP Executive Director
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In early November, President Dennis S. Nelson emailed the membership to make them aware that I was selected to receive one of the State of Georgia’ s 2017 Governor’ s Public Safety Awards in the category of“ Outstanding Contribution Which Enhanced the Profession”.( The other award in that category was given to one of our Active Members, Colonel Eddie Henderson, of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.) That honor was conferred upon me in early December and I am humbled by the experience. I must admit I feel unworthy of such a high honor. Upon reflection, that award belongs to every member of this association. Each of you, no matter your classification of membership, have supported GACP’ s progressive approach to professional policing. GACP has become one of the best, if not the very best, state law enforcement association in the country over the last 20 years.
I would be remiss if I did not thank all of you who took the time out of your busy schedule to attend the Public Safety Award ceremony or send a congratulatory note, email or letter. Frankly, I was surprised to see so many Active, Professional, Life and Corporate members in attendance, including Tiffany Brannen Taylor of Brannen Motor Company, one of our“ Sustaining Sponsors.” Several GACP staff members( past and present) attended, along with many political allies of law enforcement. And, to my surprise, one of my Suffolk County, New York Detective Division supervisors( from 37 years ago) showed-up with his wife. He told everyone who would listen old war stories and was sure to tell everyone,“ If you think Frank is running at full speed now, you should have seen him in his hay days”. On that note, I will end here by simply saying,“ thank you” for supporting me as the Executive Director of this great association.
During the last few months, I have attended various meeting dealing with our state’ s upcoming 2018 legislative session. I am not totally certain what type of bills will be introduced in 2018, but I can speculate there will be numerous bills attempting to address law enforcement salaries and benefits. Many concepts of those projected bills come from the Senate’ s Local Law Enforcement Compensation Task Force, which is commonly called the COPS Task Force. GACP has four practitioners sitting as members on that COPS committee: Adam Lowe, Denise Downer-McKinney, Gary Yandura and Augustus“ Gus” Palmer. All our COPS members agree there is no magic wand that can resolve the law enforcement compensation inequities associated with being a law enforcement official in Georgia.
I can almost a guarantee that a license plate reader( LPR) retention bill will pass and become law in 2018. HB 79 is still active, but was put on hold only because the state ran out of time during the 2017 session. The author of the LPR bill, Representative Pezold, has worked with the GACP
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