By Amy Batista, Special Writer
HIGHTSTOWN – Despite concerns raised by some residents, borough council moved forward and unanimously passed an ordinance – replacing and amending its current ordinance – to re-establish the title of chief of police during its council meeting on Feb. 16.
During the public hearing part of the meeting, resident Eugene Sarafin urged the council to pass the ordinance.
Resident and former councilwoman Lynne Woods said she was surprised by how little discussion went into the issue this time.
“When we went to make the discussion from going from a police chief to a civilian director, there were many public discussions about this,” she said. “This did not happen overnight.”
Ms. Woods said from what she could tell, the council had a short discussion on the issue Jan. 19 and many of the concerns brought up at the time had nothing to do with a police chief versus a civilian director.
“I’m a little confused,” she said. “I don’t know how these decisions can be made with one decision made publicly.”
She said that she would hope that people would have more questions.
“I believe the mayor is quoted as saying that the role of a director in a small community doesn’t work very well,” she said. “We’ve had one that was in disagreement with the council. I was on council. You know what happened. So to say because one guy didn’t work that the concept of a police civilian director doesn’t work, I’d like to hear some of your reasoning for that before you move forward on this ordinance.”
Resident J.P. Gibbons said he believed there were several issues with the ordinance.
“In looking at it, I think Lynn Woods was correct,” said Mr. Gibbons. “When the original change from the chief of police to a police director was led by Isabel McGinty – who I may or may not agree with on occasion – she made some very good points with respect toward the fact that the police chief position by statue is pretty much an automonous position in the State of New Jersey.”
He said the council can remove that person for cause and that’s about it.
“We had that issue with the prior chief,” he said, adding that council had some issues with the way the chief was doing it. There really wasn’t a way to hold the chief accountable as far as council was concerned, he added.
“It took a while for the council and mayor at the time to develop a review process to determine how to go about handling this and how it would be handled in the future,” he said.
Mr. Gibbons said that he has tried to read the ordinance and note the differences in the authority granted in the modified ordinance versus what existed under their prior chief.
“There were some major changes done by Isabel when she did the redirection and I applaud her for that,” he said. “Will this chief position be the same with respect to an autonomous nature and independence nature as the prior chief position was by statue of New Jersey?”
Labor Attorney Elizabeth Garcia said the ordinance is statutory and therefore the township would be filing the statue.
“The statues have not changed in four years,” she said, confirming Mr. Gibbons question.
Mr. Gibbons said the same issues the township had four years ago that resulted in the council wanting to change the position of chief of police and redesigning a police department is prevalent again.
“Once you have the chief, correct me if I’m wrong, it is exceedingly difficult to get rid of a chief of police in New Jersey,” he said.
Ms. Garcia said that a municipality always has the right to downsize and to remove and create different positions.
“At any point if the council determined to go back to a director position, they can remove that title from that ordinance,” she said.
“It is not a step that should be lightly taken is what I’m getting at,” Mr. Gibbons said. “It is a step that requires sober thought.”
He then raised some questions over the wording used in the ordinance and asked for some clarification.
“Whereas, the Mayor and Council believe that the Police Department will be better served with a Chief of Police instead of a Director of Police who is not permitted to be involved in matters involving police powers as a civilian Director,” he said. “Was that basically the major ticking force or drive behind this?”
Police Commissioner Seth Kurs said that council members looked into the roles and responsibilities of a police chief that can incorporate both the administrative side as well as the operational side. For the police director job, it can be split into two.
“For a town of our size, to split responsibilities and have a police director who was being paid for administrative functions and to have no operational functions whatsoever – can’t carry a gun, can’t drive a police car, can’t fill any vacancies if someone is out sick – it seemed like it was a financial burden on the borough,” said Mr. Kurs.
He said we can have it done by one officer, the chief of police, as was done previously.
“I’m challenging you on as we go through on this not because I want to be argumentative. Just for the record, I’m challenging you on this because we revisited this thing in detail six years ago and decisions were made,” said Mr. Gibbons.
No one is challenging the authority of the governing body to do what you are doing, he added.
“What we are questioning the rationale behind it and what impact as a taxpayer it might have,” he said.
Mr. Kurs said his response to the impact is the tonwship can reduce the costs by having one person do the role of two.
“We are looking to save the borough money by returning it to one role,” he said. “Let’s be realistic. Mr. (James) LeTellier left office almost a year ago and Lt. (Frank) Gendron has been running the department both administrative and operational since that time.”
Mr. Kurs said the council is addressing the concerns of the public and making sure that there is one person doing one person’s job and not two people.
“I’m just trying to get this straight,” said Mr. Gibbons. “The concept is to save money and to be more efficient.”
Mr. Kurs said that certainly is a key factor.
Mr. Gibbons pointed out that having a police director was less expensive than having a chief.
“So having a chief and having a lieutenant actually costs the borough taxpayers more money than having a director and lieutenant,” he said, adding that he has seen the salaries. “I know there will be a lieutenant slot available.”
Councilman Steve Misiura said that isn’t necessarily the case.
Mr. Gibbons said that he sees that the appropriate authority that has been designated is the borough administrator Henry Underhill, police commissioner and chief.
“They have the authority to hold hearings with minor disciplinary issues,” he said.
He said there is a lot of work to get done on this ordinance which they should want to do to make it a good ordinance as he continued to go through the ordinance and ask questions and pick things apart.
“I don’t object to the concept of going back to a chief of police position. I sure as heck think that if you are going to do it we have a little bit more discussion and open interchange with the public and others with regards to reinstatement of this,” said Mr. Gibbons.
During council comments on the ordinance, Councilman Misiura said that council members did not take the issue lightly.
“I think if you compare this ordinance to the last time we had a police chief ordinance, it’s much more comprehensive,” he said. “It’s much more thorough.”
