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12/23/2020 08:58 AMIt was like a gift for the holidays: Students at Daisy Ingraham Elementary School were delighted to hear at their Dec. 11 Westbrook Purple Spirit Day that the winning entry in their vote for the town’s new police cruiser design was approved by the Board of Selectmen.
The two new Ford Explorers with the purple-tinged logos should make their debut on Westbrook roads the week of Christmas.
Selectman Hiram Fuchs had advocated for four-wheel drives for the cruisers and pushed for the town to put up the funds for two vehicles this year as opposed to one each this year and next, he explained. The introduction of the new cruisers seemed to him to be a good time for a police rebranding, similar to Old Saybrook Police Department’s snazzy new police vehicle designs.
“Old Saybrook’s [police cars] have a lighthouse,” he explained, “which won a national award for best-designed police car and best-dressed agency under 100 officers.”
Clinton also redesigned its police vehicles.
“I wanted to do something like that” to promote the image of a “more robust and more modern police department,” he added.
Fuchs worked with Tucker Reynolds, the designer and co-owner with his mother, Peggy Witham, of Lighthouse Signs, which is located in Westbrook. The company, which has been in business for nearly 30 years, has worked on the graphics for Westbrook police vehicles for “pretty much our entire existence,” Reynolds said.
On Fuchs’s request, Reynolds created three designs, one more conservative and two with updated graphics. One of the designs incorporated purple, Westbrook Public Schools’ color.
With the nod of First Selectman Noel Bishop and fellow Selectman John Hall, Fuchs provided the three designs to Daisy Principal Ruth Rose, who made the school vote happen in November.
The vote took place “around the time of the national presidential election,” Rose said. “It gave the kids something to vote on that wasn’t as controversial” as the election. “It had meaning for them.
“They had three choices and I let them know that there were other people making the decisions,” she explained. The vote “didn’t mean necessarily that whatever the majority of our school voted for” would end up on the police vehicles.
Due to an uptick in COVID-19 cases, the school went remote for the 2 ½ weeks before Thanksgiving, Rose explained. The vote took place during this time with the teacher of each class presenting the designs and discussing them with the students.
The version with the purple highlights won in a landslide, with around 62 percent of the vote, according to Fuchs.
Rose announced the result on Dec. 11, at the special Westbrook Purple Spirit Day she planned. The children were asked to wear whatever purple clothing they had.
“Hiram was hoping and me, too,” she said, that “when they see the police cruisers around town they’ll make the connection: I helped to vote for that. That was the school’s choice.
“We have an amazing relationship with our town constables, our police officers, as well as our state troopers because they’re very visible in our school community,” Rose continued. “Usually one of the officers is right there with us greeting the kids” as they arrive at school and sending them off at the end of the school day.
“We want our children to know that our police officers are there to help everyone to stay safe, just like our teachers and the rest of the staff,” she said.
It was important for the children to know that their voices matter, Rose added.
“In a tiny little community like Westbrook,” it’s empowering for children to feel “that they have a voice even outside of our own school and into the community,” she said.
“It’s a win-win all around,” she said. “With everything that’s going on that’s challenging, this was a real positive.”