T-L Photo/GAGE VOTA St. Clairsville Police Chief Matt Arbenz tells city council that the Arch of Ohio donated the money for the department to purchase an iPad that is loaded with software to help the department communicate with residents with disabilities.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — St. Clairsville Police Chief Matt Arbenz announced that his department received an approximate $2,000 donation from the Arc of Ohio.

On Monday evening, Arbenz told City Council that the Arc of Ohio donated the money for the department to purchase an iPad loaded with software designed to help officers communicate with residents with disabilities.

“They got us an iPad as well as providing training to all the officers. This piece of equipment will help us communicate with folks who are disabled and nonverbal,” Arbenz said. “It’s very difficult for us to try to break the ice and figure out what the problem is because they don’t like having to speak through someone else to answer us. So this will let us communicate correctly with folks who are in that situation. So I want to send much appreciation to the local chapter of the Arc of Ohio.”

He added that St. Clairsville Elementary School special education teacher Brittany Wendell recently approached Resource Officer Michael Duplaga asking if the department had ways to communicate with nonverbal residents. Once Duplaga informed her the department did not have the tools needed, she contacted Arc of Ohio regional director Kara Erwin, who helped secure the donation and training.

“Ms. Wendell plugged Officer Duplaga with Kara Erwin who said, ‘Yes, we can definitely work up a project to help you guys get something like that,’ so they did. They came back with an offer to get us the iPad, all of the software that it takes to run this program, and training, not only for our personnel, but training for the students who are disabled or have learning disabilities that would be able to communicate better with this device,” Arbenz said. “I think the school’s getting one, but I’m not 100% sure but I do know that we’re getting one to have at our office on hand all of the time.”

He added that the iPads will be a major benefit for communication with individuals with disabilities.

“Communicating is key to resolving any kind of issues or problems or understanding what the problem is. Many times when we get called because someone’s in a crisis or someone needs help, it’s very hard for us to break that communication barrier when we’re not sure how,” Arbenz said. “This device will help us. It would be something that they’re familiar with, the disabled and nonverbals especially, they’re very familiar with how this works. This will give us a big leg up on understanding what their needs and wants and problems are so we can better assist them without all the confusion and the frustration.”

Service Director Scott Harvey then provided an update on the city’s bike trail construction project.

He said the tunnel project remains on track and steady progress is being made.

“We had a couple slips, one on the north side and one on the south side. These didn’t cost us anything in repairs. We’re done, they’re fixed and we’ve now moved on,” Harvey said. “Right now they’re working on the north side, the steps have been reattached to the concrete pad where the step landing is as you get to the top. They’re putting railings up on that. So they’re starting to get to the smaller things.”

He added that the current plan is to open the tunnel before the steps are fully completed.

“When the trail reopens they still may have some problems with drainage but they can get the trail opened and then work towards finishing the final steps,” Harvey said.