PRINCETON: Joint police talks

Officers seem open to consolidation

By Victoria Hurley-Schubert
   Joint Shared Services/Consolidation Commission (JSSCC) police subcommittee members took tours of police facilities on Friday to get a better look into how each department operates and the facilities in each municipality.
   Officer safety, levels of service and costs are top considerations for the committee, said William Metro, JSSCC member and president and chief operating office of Cranbury-based iXP Corporation, which specializes in emergency communications and response systems
   Members agreed that seeing the facilities back to back was informative and beneficial.
   Visiting the township police department, commission members were stuck by how new it is.
   ”It’s been built up to date with offices and records retention, and you could start to feel the coordination with police accreditation,” said Mr. Metro.
   Members saw the emergency operation center, questioning and booking areas, jail facilities and Sally port area.
   ”One thing that struck me was the pace of technology,” said JSSCC member Ryan Lillenthal, who wondered if there was a plan in place for technological development and future savings.
   The committee asked for a description of the technology in the communication center to further understand the systems in place. The consultant will also be requesting a technology list from each department.
   ”It felt roomy and things were up to standard,” said Mr. Metro.
   The township facilities felt as if they had been designed with future consolidation in mind, said Mr. Metro. The other thing that struck him was that Capt. Robert Buchanan of the Township police force thought that if one department was going to take the hit, it would be the borough and that both departments have been thinking consolidation for a long time.
   ”You need the buy-in from the beginning to get their support,” he said. “We were hearing several things, better services, working together and nuances between the borough and services.”
   The group then moved onto the borough, which had a different feel, as is an older facility.
   ”We know we have to upgrade, but we’re waiting to see what happens with consolidation,” said Borough Mayor Mildred Trotman, who admitted the borough is going to need a new facility due to natural growth of the department. “We have to come up with something, we have outgrown (our facilities),” she said. “We’re bulging, but we’re not going to grow because we’re built out, so we can wait.”
   The technology room was small and tight.
   ”It was one of the things that evolves over the years, and you could feel that,” said Mr. Metro. “The cells have bars, where the township has doors and you could feel the difference in age. The borough felt tighter and the guys feel cramped; the township was more spread out.”
   The borough is 40 years old, where the township is fewer than 10 years old.
   In the borough, anyone heading to court must walk through public areas, whereas the township has an elevator directly to its court.
   Joseph Stefko, Ph.D., director of public finance at Rochester, NY-based Center for Governmental Research, the consultant hired by the JSSCC, was struck by how open and willing both departments were to discuss options. “It speaks to their willingness to provide the best service,” he said.
   ”In terms of consolidation, it’s a political issue that needs to be decided upon by each town and the citizens,” said Borough Police Chief David Dudek. “In these economic times, so much pressure is put on local governments, so much pressure is put on local governments to share services. In government, one of the biggest expenses is the police department and in my eyes it makes sense to look at Princeton Borough and Princeton Township police departments to see if it could be a benefit to both towns to have a joint police force.”
   ”For it to happen, it would have to show the taxpayers that a joint police department could provide more services to the public more efficiently,” said Chief Dudek. “That’s why they have these committees to see if it would save money and add services.”
   ”As chief of police, we will embrace whatever decision the towns make and be excited about it,” he added.
   Township police are also willing to embrace options.
   ”I am not crazy about shared services and I would rather do total consolidation,” said Capt. Buchanan. “If I am in charge, I will see we carry out the mission we are told to do; if I am not in charge, I will work with whomever is in charge to get the mission done. It’s all about services to the community.”
   ”We’re open to the concept” of a joint department, he said.
   ”These two departments work together and they have their respective territories. This is an example of how the municipal boundaries disappear when service is needed and that’s a great building block for this discussion,” said Mr. Stefko.
   Both heads of department believe that one combined police force could provide better service, said Anton Lahnston, chair of the JSSCC. Everyone spoke of the cooperation already in place between the two departments.
   ”I was struck by the openness to collaboration, even to having the same uniforms,” he said.
   A public meeting to discuss the process will be held at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday at John Witherspoon Middle School on Walnut Lane.
   The police departments will be asked to come up with a straw model of what a combined force would look like and a model of what combined dispatch would look like, said Mr. Metro.
   Mr. Stefko also suggested the police be engaged in qualitative discussions in addition to quality discussion to make sure police activities such as police in schools and community policing are considered as well.
   ”People want to see their services improved,” said Mr. Lillenthal.
   Mr. Metro suggested a task force of officers be added onto the subcommittee. “So we can work with this as a committee and feed it to CGR and the commission,” he said.