The Edison Police Department may face a drastic change in its command structure if a proposal by Mayor Jun Choi is approved by the Township Council.
Police Director nominee Brian Collier (l-r), acting Chief Ron Gerba and soon-to-be Deputy Chief Thomas Bryan. Gerba will be retiring from the force if the council approves Collier’s appointment as police director. If Collier is approved, he will be working closely with Bryan. During a press conference on Jan. 9, the mayor introduced the public to Brian Collier, a special agent with the federal Drug Enforcement Agency, whom Choi has nominated to be the township’s police director, a position that would be created upon confirmation by the council. During the same press conference, Choi also nominated Lt. Thomas Bryan, head of internal affairs at the Edison Police Department, to be deputy chief.
Calling Collier “a cop’s cop,” Choi noted that the federal agent’s extensive law enforcement experience makes him an ideal candidate to become the township’s new police director.
“You will find Brian Collier is truly a law enforcement professional with impeccable integrity,” said Choi.
Collier’s nomination comes in the wake of former Police Chief George Mieckowski’s December retirement after 35 years on the force. The mayor, who also serves as public safety director for the township, said that while he is not eliminating the post of chief of police entirely, he has decided that, for now, he has decided not to fill it. Choi said that the advantage of having a civilian police director, as opposed to a chief, comes mostly in the form of increased accountability, saying that a bad choice with a tenured chief can haunt a municipality for years.
“The director position is a nontenured position, and because the status is not tenured, there is a longer-term system of accountability. In the past, if the chief did not work out, that was [still] a lifetime tenure track, and therefore the nontenure status promotes performance and accountability, and that, I believe, will be the best approach going forward,” said Choi.
Collier has been involved with law enforcement for more than 25 years and came highly recommended by U.S. Attorney Chris Christie, who called him a “visionary leader, a tireless worker and a man that espouses the true ethics of public service.” He started as an officer for the Hillsdale Police Department before moving on to the DEA in 1983, holding a variety of leadership positions within that agency. He has been the commander of the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Task Force and directed its New Jersey Intelligence Center. He was also on the executive management staff at the DEA for two years. He commanded the Integrated Narcotic Task Force in San Diego and was a liaison to the foreign intelligence community in Europe. He was also a supervisory instructor for the DEA training at the FBI Academy.
“To be quite honest, there are some emptysuit feds, but I’m not one of them. … What you are getting here is a Jersey-educated kid with a lot of good Jersey cop experience, a broad background in working in different areas doing different things and working with some very, very fine New Jersey police officers over the decades,” said Collier.
According to Choi, the police director position will head the department and possess policy making abilities that will be executed by the deputy chief, the highest-ranking officer in the department. The mayor talked about instituting a series of performance measures, a new communications system, extensive community policing initiatives, sending out a citizen survey, and the creation of a special enforcement unit that will focus on proactive and preventative work. He would also like to reform the hiring process, making it more merit based, and to encourage more diversity in the force. The main point of hiring a police director, though, was to create what Choi called a change in culture. The mayor said that the department had become too politicized and he felt that Collier was just the person to reverse this trend. He later said that this was one reason why he chose to seek an outside nominee for police director.
“One challenge we have faced over many years has been the politicking here… [Collier] is the perfect man to depoliticize all police officers,” said Choi.
The Edison Police Department and the mayor have clashed several times in the past. In August 2006, for example, police and supporters had staged a rally demanding Choi’s resignation over an internal affairs investigation involving potential police involvement with the deportation of a man who had been arrested by authorities and had either been assaulted or committed an assault.
The police director, if approved by the council, will be working closely with the deputy chief, who will act as the second in command, executing the policy decisions of the police director. Choi said that he envisions their relationship to be more of a team than anything else.
“Because this is very much a team approach … many of these decisions and coordination will be very much determined on a team-basis level, so this will be highly coordinated,” said Choi.
Bryan, who has been in the police department for 24 years, has been the commander of the internal affairs unit for 14 years. He has also worked in the detective bureau’s major crimes unit and the vice and narcotics unit as well, at one point working undercover with the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office’s narcotics unit. He has also been in patrol and traffic. Choi said Bryan is a man of integrity and was impressed with his willingness to always go the extra mile.
“It is my honor and privilege to serve in this new capacity as deputy chief … I hold a high standard of integrity and professionalism, and I expect the same from the members of our department,” said Bryan.
Acting Chief Ron Gerba, who took the reins when Mieckowski retired, said that he has known Bryan since the soon-to-be deputy chief was a small child, and Gerba spoke very highly of him.
“He grew up down the street from me. He is a fine young man. He’s been a good boy forever,” said Gerba.
Gerba said he will be retiring after 40 years in the department, should Collier, of whom he also spoke highly, be confirmed as police director.
Critiques
The creation of the police director position is strongly opposed by the Edison Policemen’s Benevolent Association, the union that represents the local police. In a statement released the day the potential new position was announced, the union said the appointment would be bad for the department and represents a power grab by the mayor. PBA president Mike Schwarz said that a police director would not be able to act independently, because he would be beholden to the mayor.
“It’s an appointed political position, and to say they are removing politics by making a political appointment is hypocrisy” said Schwarz.
Another criticism of the proposal is that a civilian police director would not have the ability to do any formal police work. This was upheld by a 1999 Appellate Court decision, PBA vs. North Brunswick, which determined that a police director, in the absence of a chief, is vested with the same administrative authority as a chief of police regarding the day-to-day operations of a department but that this authority ends where the exercise of police power begins. A police director, therefore, cannot review police reports or confidential files, cannot be involved in disciplinary hearings, and cannot supervise crime scenes, lead criminal investigations, use emergency vehicles or police radios. Schwarz, in an interview, was not impressed with the fact that Bryan, as deputy chief, would be able to do all these things in Collier’s stead.
“Well, ultimately, what would be the point of having a director, then, if you have a person with no police power.…You have a ‘non’Edison police director running the department with no police powers who answers to the mayor only, not the community, not the department, not the public, and he could lose his job if he doesn’t do what the mayor says,” said Schwarz.
He declined to comment on Bryan’s appointment, saying the PBA does not attack fellow police officers.
Jerry Barca, communications director for the township, shrugged off these critiques.
“Naturally, in any organization, there is going to be a resistance to change, and this is a major change for this organization,” said Barca.
Quality depends on individual
According to law enforcement experts, the difference a police director can make in a department, as opposed to a chief, depends on the individual involved, with little having to do with the position in and of itself.
“It’s a case-by-case assessment, and it would be misleading to say that that fact in and of itself determines how good police services [are],” said Wayne Fisher, director of the Police Institute at Rutgers School of Criminal Justice.
Fisher said that most large municipalities in the state have police directors, such as Newark and Trenton, and noted that Edison falls somewhere between cities such as those and small suburbs.
He also said that all municipalities in the state, whether they have a police chief or a police director, have to have an “appropriate authority” through which all police policy must flow.
“The appropriate authority is a civilian, not a police officer,” said Fisher.
Ken McCormac, who was police director in North Brunswick until his retirement earlier this month, has encountered the question of police directors versus police chiefs from both sides.
“I understand on both ends of the fence, being a sworn police officer, how they feel about wanting a police chief to remove the potential political interference, and I understand the administrative end of it, that there’s some mayors that think that’s the best way to go,” said Mc- Cormac.
He said that North Brunswick had had civilian police directors brought in from the outside and that this had caused conflicts between the director and his staff.
“If your command staff is not working with the director, it’s hard to get his mission accomplished. I’ve seen that in North Brunswick, where our higher-level staff was not working with the civilian director; it was very frustrating for everyone at all levels,” said McCormac.
He said, though, that he has seen towns where police directors work well and, like Fisher, said that it’s not the position that affects things but the person occupying it. He said that morale improved when he became police director because he had been in the department for years, and this helped the staff respect him more.
“The guys knew I was one of them,” said McCormac.
As far as maintaining independence with a civilian police director went, Mc- Cormac, once again, said it’s up to the individual. He said that he was given a good deal of leeway with his mayor, but that if a mayor did want to be more directly involved in the operations of a police department, it might be different.Achief, on the other hand, can act more independently, because he doesn’t have as much to fear from politically unpopular moves.
Council to vote on Jan. 22
The council will be voting on the new command structure on Jan. 22, and Choi urged its members as well as the public to give what he admits is a nontraditional approach to policing a chance.
“For New Jersey law enforcement, it is a nontraditional approach, but tradition has not always worked here in Edison,” said Choi.