By Victoria Hurley-Schubert, Staff Writer
Police and emergency management operations were the focus of presentations before the the Transition Task Force this weekend.
The delivery of services concern Borough Police Chief David Dudek the most, who said his police respond to borough needs in two minutes or less.
”As we go through consolidation, I hope the delivery of services is not impacted,” he said. “What we need to do is meld the policies and procedures of the town (going forward). We need to train our officers so they are ready to hit the streets and not a liability.”
Princeton Borough and Princeton Township differ in their police needs, said Chief Dudek, who characterized the borough as urban and the township as rural.
”The very first thing I want to see is a professional department that Princeton can be proud of,” said Chief Dudek. “We are building a team from the ground up; it’s not an easy thing to do. It’s like you have the Yankees and the Red Sox together and you’re going to make that one team … we need your support to keep the morale.”
He also suggested there would be increases in calls for service, increases in investigations and increases in traffic enforcement when the departments combine.
He and Township Lieutenant Chris Morgan explained the structure and operations of their respective departments.
Task Force member and township police commissioner Bernie Miller talked about semantics.
”The words that you use establish a picture in the minds of the people that are listening to you and where we are and where you think we are going,” he said, noting he would characterize the borough as urban with a suburban compliment and the township as suburban with an urban component. “It’s been a heck of a long time since the township was rural … the township is no longer a rural community and to characterize it as rural … it establishes a picture that really doesn’t exist at the present time.”
Mr. Miller was also concerned about how Chief Dudek presented his information, especially in regard to the increased need for police services.
”I think we all understand one and one equals two and one and one doesn’t necessarily equal three, four or five when the two municipalities are consolidated,” he said. “The numbers you have given us aren’t going to change, and if I add them together, the total is going to be the same as before. It’s not going to increase as a result of consolidation.”
In his report, Bob Gregory, the director of emergency services for Princeton Borough, described his administrative role for the three fire departments. He does budgets, maintains equipment and oversees training and collaborates with the university program. Membership of the all volunteer fire departments, including recruitment and retention of volunteers is a major part of his job.
In the new municipality, emergency management will fall under Mr. Gregory’s department instead of the police, where it is now. He would craft a new emergency management plan for the combined community. Police would be the emergency management back up.

