Chief, Councilman React to Colonial Alliance Police Study

Last week, the seven-town Camden County municipal group known as 'the Colonial Alliance' issued a request for proposals to explore cost efficiencies derived from sharing police leadership and administration among the group.

Among the possible outcomes of such a plan is the chance that the municipal police forces of the seven towns involved could be consolidated under a unified leadership hierarchy.

It's an idea that has a built-in opposition. 

Although he said that he understands the interest in cost-cutting, Oaklyn Police Chief Joseph Abbate questioned the wisdom of consolidating police leadership.

“We didn’t take these jobs to become millionaires,” he said. “We took these jobs because we wanted to help people. 

"There’s a lot of things we can do one way or another that affects somebody’s life and with that comes a lot of responsibility," Abbate said. "We’re not like any other job.”

For starters, Abbate said, he doesn’t believe that residents of the seven municipalities would have any interest in consolidating their police leadership. 

A big reason for that, he said, is “the personal touch” of law enforcement led by residents who are also stakeholders in the community.

A police chief “doesn’t just walk in one day and become chief of police,” Abbate said. “He’s grown up in town. He lives in town. He has family and friends in town. Over many, many years he’s created a bond with the community.

“The residents of Oaklyn have told me many times that they feel like we’re family,” he said.

“I understand why they have to be fiscally responsible and I applaud them for that,” Abbate said. “I don’t think [elected officials are] blaming us, but it just seem like we’re going to be the ones on the outs.”

'They always point at police'

There’s not even necessarily uniformity among all members of the Colonial Alliance on the subject of the RFP.

Haddon Heights Councilman Richard DiRenzo said that the local government of his town “never passed a resolution joining the Colonial Alliance.

“The only thing we signed onto was sharing services and public works equipment,” he said. “Nothing for personnel. Oaklyn passed the resolution to join this RFP, but never passed the resolution to join the Colonial Alliance.” 

DiRenzo, a retired Camden City police sergeant who spent 26 years in that city, said police are always a high-profile target for cost-cutting and consolidation initiatives because of their salaries.

“They don’t point at schools, they don’t point at public works; they always point at the police,” DiRenzo said.

As a former law enforcement officer, DiRenzo said that he is in favor of mutual aid agreements, but that shared services don’t necessarily improve policing.

He said the money that the proposal will cost to pursue would be better spent on information-sharing technology to enable officers to communicate more across municipal borders.

“We already assist each other,” DiRenzo said. “We share services. We back each other up. What we should be looking at is improving our technology and training resources for our officers so that we can make sure we’re on the same plane. 

“The officers could have the same computers, the same training,” he said. “We can do purchasing together; we can do co-ops.”

DiRenzo also said that a regionalized police administration structure that includes towns as far away as Collingswood and Oaklyn doesn’t seem to make sense for Haddon Heights, where mutual aid calls typically head into Barrington, Bellmawr and Runnemede.

“We’re Zone 5 on the tactical team," he said. "Why are we going with Haddonfield, Haddon Township and Oaklyn when we don’t have dealings with them?

“To me, we’re going the wrong way,” DiRenzo said.

Title 40 obstacles, culture change

Even if the study does determine that consolidating police chiefs is an appropriate move, DiRenzo said, another potential roadblock could come in trying to implement any such structure. 

Police would be fearful that “they’re going to get rid of the chief and bring in some civilian political connection,” as a workaround to New Jersey Title 40a statutes, which require a police chief to be a sworn officer of the department he or she oversees.

“You lose your personalization of the police department, and it creates other problems,” DiRenzo said. “You have to start looking at pay parity for the officers who are going to serve below him."

“You may think you’re saving money,” he said. “The chief has to have captains and lieutenants and sergeants. These people will be covered by contracts. Then we have to look at pay parity for all these people under them.

“They’re putting a roof on the house before they build the foundation,” he said.

And like Abbate, DiRenzo said there’s something to the idea that the chief is also an ambassador for the local community. 

He said that Haddon Heights Chief Richard Kinkler “is at every council meeting,” serves on the municipal planning board, and “he and our captain are on patrol every day. 

“The further away government bureaucracy is from the local citizen the less responsive it becomes to the local citizen,” DiRenzo said.

“People move to these towns because they want the Mayberry feel, and when we become a regionalized police force, we lose that.”

This article is one of a series examining the impact of a police leadership and administrative feasibility study in the towns of Audubon, Collingswood, Haddonfield, Haddon Heights, Haddon Township, Mt. Ephraim and Oaklyn. Click here to read an overview of the numbers at work in the study.