Rumson Mayor John Ekdahl, left, and Fair Haven Councilman John Lehnert.
A proposal to create a unified police department for three peninsula towns appears headed into a shallow ditch as it faces two public hearings this week.
Last week, Rumson residents received a letter from the mayor and council outlining a host of reservations about a plan for a limited combination of services between their police department and those in Fair Haven and Little Silver. Rumson plans a public hearing at its regular session Tuesday night.
The letter, which Mayor John Ekdahl describes as an expression of consensus, says the governing body cannot support the proposal. The anticipated savings would be too small — $192 to $256 per Rumson household annually — without any enhancement of present service levels, the letter claims.
That plan, outlined in a reported completed last month by Patriot Consulting Group, had been touted by backers, including Ekdahl, as a go-slow approach that was far short of, and would not necessarily lead to, a full consolidation of the departments. But as the letter makes clear, Rumson won’t be supporting even the limited plan. Already, the police chiefs in all three towns had expressed misgivings about the plan.
Meantime, tonight the borough council in Fair Haven plans to discuss what it heard from residents at a public hearing last month —little of which has been favorable.
The idea to explore a merger of the three departments came from then Little Silver councilman and now-Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon. In recent weeks, he and other backers of the plan had expressed concern that the public hearings on the issue — one in Little Silver in July, and last month’s in Fair Haven — were being dominated by police officers or those with close ties to them, while residents without any such affiliations were staying home.
Privately, though, citizens were approaching elected officials to voice support for the plan, O’Scanlon says. Fair Haven Mayor Mike Halfacre says something similar. In a post on his blog after Fair Haven’s hearing, he wrote:
There were about 100 people in the audience. Unfortunately, there was limited representation from Fair Haven residents. I would guess that there were maybe 12 residents of Fair Haven, with only 2 or 3 speaking during the public portion of the meeting….
There was roughly 1 ½ hours of public comment, most of it from police officers from neighboring municipalities or residents from neighboring municipalities. Most of this commentary was against the proposal.
A few Fair Haven residents did come up to me after the meeting and voiced support for shared services, indicating that they felt they were a silent majority.
Halfacre and councilman James Banahan also cited a 2006 survey of Fair Haven residents that found 59 percent of residents who responded favored regionalizing police services.
But Fair Haven Councilman John Lehnert raised questions about what he termed the Patriot report’s “fuzzy math.
“It’s not that I’m against this,” he said at last month’s hearing, but was concerned because “there’s no real clarity in the numbers” regarding projected savings.
Barring a change of direction from Rumson, though, the go slow-proposal would appear to be all but dead. Rumson recommends the three towns form a committee to explore ways to save money and improve communication between departments.
“It’s fair to say that this slows it down,” Ekdahl says of the Rumson council’s sentiment on the matter. He expects Fair Haven’s council will adopt a similar resolution.
Here’s the Patriot report: Download finalreport8-13-08.pdf
Here’s the Rumson letter: Download rumson_council_letter.doc
Here are the results of the Fair Haven survey: Download survey_results_2006.doc
