By Doug Carman, Staff Writer
HIGHTSTOWN Borough Council members told the public Monday that they expect Police Chief James Eufemia to give his presentation on the controversial gang survey results at the council’s March 21 meeting no ifs, ands or buts as they continued questioning the figures he reported to the New Jersey State Police.
Council members and residents alike continued expressing their disagreement with the reported numbers nearly six weeks after the survey came out reporting 119 gangsters claiming membership to 23 individual gangs operating in Hightstown. That same survey, released Jan. 28, reported no gangsters or gangs located in surrounding East Windsor.
Chief Eufemia did not respond to calls seeking comment on the gang report this week.
Mayor Steve Kirson said he chose to postpone Chief Eufemia’s presentation Monday because Councilman Dimitri Musing was unable to attend.
”The police chief will be here on the very next council meeting. … It was my decision to move it to next week; we had a council member who was not able to attend. We feel it was important enough that we have full attendance for that presentation,” Mayor Kirson said.
Chief Eufemia was asked to make a presentation explaining the survey results at the Feb. 7 council meeting, but he was reportedly ill and unable to attend. Though briefly present at the Feb. 22 meeting, he had not made any presentation then, and despite the presentation appearing on early drafts of Monday’s agenda, it did not make it onto the final agenda.
Council President Isabel McGinty expressed frustration with Chief Eufemia’s presentation not taking place at Monday’s meeting, raising her voice while casting the lone “no” vote in the 4-1 decision to approve the final agenda without its inclusion.
”It’s not just, I think it’s 38 days have passed … and the public had not been given an explanation. I want to be clear that the council had not been given an explanation. The council has not had follow-up information,” Ms. McGinty later said.
Members of the public also expressed outrage that the chief has not explained the survey numbers to the public.
”This is starting to look like another issue that’s just going to fade away by virtue of not being addressed,” Hutchinson Street resident Gail Doran said at the meeting. “There has been no accountability from the chief about that survey. By my count this is the third meeting by which he was supposed to be here.”
The Borough Council had issued a press release Feb. 22, posted on the borough’s official Web page, apologizing to its businesses, residents and neighboring towns for the damage it believed the gang survey responses have done, calling the data inaccurate. Chief Eufemia previously responded to that press release by saying the council acted prematurely in issuing it.

