PACKET EDITORIAL, Feb. 8
By: Packet Editorial
On those several occasions when Princeton Borough and Princeton Township have considered the prospect of consolidating into a single municipality, one of the toughest hurdles to overcome has been the existence of two separate police departments each with its own chief, its own captains and lieutenants, its own dispatching service and its own way of doing things.
In the end, it hasn’t always been the difficulty of trying to merge these separate law enforcement agencies into one that has stood in the way of municipal consolidation borough voters have turned the proposition down every time it has come up, and always for multiple stated reasons but challenging the established fiefdoms of the borough and township police departments has certainly made the task more daunting.
Many borough residents plainly like having their own police force, which they believe is more responsive to their safety and security needs than a larger, consolidated force covering both the borough and township would be. And, in a series of consolidation votes, they have plainly indicated their willingness to pay a premium for this service since merging the two police forces has generally been touted as the largest potential money-saving component of full municipal consolidation.
But there has been another, more subtle impediment to the merger of the two police departments their independent infrastructures. If you have two departments with two chiefs, who gets to be chief when they become one department? Which captain or lieutenant risks being demoted? Which dispatcher gets laid off? How do you take two completely independent chains of command and link them without enormous disruption to both?
Members of the two police departments including the chiefs have made a point of staying above the political fray when consolidation has been considered in the past, but their concerns about these and other thorny questions haven’t exactly been a secret. Consolidation opponents have seized on this and used it very effectively as an argument for preserving the status quo.
Which brings us to the current state of the two police departments each going through, or about to go through, a significant set of changes. These changes are so significant, in fact, that it would be remiss of the borough and township governing bodies not to seize on them to at least consider the desirability and feasibility of consolidating the two forces into one.
Consider this: Princeton Borough Police Capt. Anthony Federico was all set to retire until his friend, Chief Charles Davall, beat him to the punch. Capt. Federico has thus become Chief Federico, but he doesn’t plan on putting off his retirement for any extended period of time. And Princeton Township Chief Anthony Gaylord, who is 63 and has been with the township force for 39 years, is eligible for retirement at any time.
Meanwhile, the Borough Council, as a cost-cutting move, is considering eliminating the captain’s position vacated by Chief Federico. The Township Committee, as a potential cost-saving move, has hired a consultant to review the structure and the entire operation of its police force. And both municipalities are participating in a study of the cost and feasibility of merging their now-separate police dispatch services.
Never in our memory have the stars been aligned quite so favorably toward consideration of consolidating the borough and township police departments with such little disruption. Whether the two departments should, in fact, be merged into one remains an open question. But whether the matter should now be open for serious discussion is a no-brainer.

