TRENTON — Sharing police services on a countywide level may become the new norm in New Jersey. The mayors of three of the state’s largest and most crime-plagued cities exchanged ideas with Gov. Chris Christie and several state officials today during a closed-door meeting concerning the future of public safety in Newark, Trenton and Camden. Several ideas were brought...
A Camden Police Department officer patrols Broadway in Camden in December 2010.TRENTON — Sharing police services on a countywide level may become the new norm in New Jersey.
The mayors of three of the state’s largest and most crime-plagued cities exchanged ideas with Gov. Chris Christie and several state officials today during a closed-door meeting concerning the future of public safety in Newark, Trenton and Camden. Several ideas were brought to the table, said those in the meeting, chief among them regionalizing police services.
"This is the opportune time to do this," Trenton Mayor Tony Mack said. "This meeting is 20 or 30 years overdue."
Several county officials joined the mayors and governor, including Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo, Camden County Freeholder Director Louis Cappelli, Jr., and Camden County Sheriff Charles H. Billingham.
"State government and county government is engaged in making sure we get through these difficult times," Christie said before the meeting at the Statehouse. "All three of them have had to make very, very difficult choices regarding their budgets."
Budget shortfalls have forced mass layoffs in Camden, where 168 officers and 67 firefighters were shown the door last month, and in Newark, which lost 164 officers in November. In Trenton, Mack recently restored the jobs of 111 police officers and 61 firefighters who had been laid off, at a cost of nearly $9 million to the city.
"We talked about the concept of shared services, the common problems urban mayors are confronted with," Camden Mayor Dana Redd said.
Christie said he has met with Redd, Mack and Newark Mayor Cory Booker individually, but wanted to bring them together to exchange ideas.
Though no concrete proposals came out of the summit, the mayors will continue to meet with the governor once a month, Booker said.
"It’s the kind of meeting I love where everybody rolled up their sleeves," Booker said. "There were some bold ideas."
Other counties are also weighing the idea of sharing public safety services on a regional basis. Somerset County officials are currently considering a proposal that recommends combining the county’s 19 police forces into one department by summer 2013.
"We are closely monitoring those deliberations and anxiously awaiting what the governor will be proposing in his budget next month to address the budgetary needs of not only these towns but communities across the state," said Bill Dressel, executive director of the League of Municipalities.
"We’re all facing extraordinary fiscal challenges," Christie said. "We want to work together to come up with a way of providing public safety in these cities."
Related coverage:
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• Mass police, firefighter layoffs begin in Camden
• Laid off Newark police officers cope with unemployment