Borough considers additional positions on police force

Princeton's Borough Council discussed a proposal presented by the Public Safety Committee Tuesday that would call for the Borough Police to make a fourth administrative position, a third lieutenant, in the Borough police department.

Anthony Federico, the chief of Borough Police, has asked that the council approve this additional administrative position which would be filled by a current sergeant in the department. This officer would help alleviate administrative work.

"We want to start a promotional process to promote one individual from sergeant rank," he said. "We didn't fill the captain position after promoting me to chief, so now we would have three lieutenants and one chief instead of just two lieutenants."

If a sergeant were to be promoted to lieutenant, there would also be a vacancy in that position, thus necessitating another promotion process for a new sergeant.

Federico noted that until January of this year, there have been four administrative positions in the Borough police department since 1992.

This proposal passed with a majority in the Public Safety committee meeting; however, there was ample debate on the matter among the council.

Councilwomen Mildred Trotman, who heads the Public Safety committee, said that "a majority of the committee thought that the chief should start the promotion process for the fourth position in the police department, and a majority also felt that promotion for sergeant should begin as well."

Councilmen Roger Martindell was the only member of the Public Safety Committee to turn down this proposal.

Martindell offered several reasons for his vote against this proposal, including a lack of study and research done on the need for an additional administrative position within the department.

"Our job is to think of the taxpayer and our residents," he said during the meeting. "We owe it to them to review requests from departments, make some choices, but we haven't done that job, haven't even started in this case. This is really premature in this case."

Martindell pointed out the possibility of appointing a civilian to do the work of an administrative officer instead of paying an officer more money. He also suggested consolidating services with other agencies, like the University officers, to take care of administrative tasks such as ordering uniforms.

"We shouldn't be adding any at the expense that is not required," he said.

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Councilman David Goldfarb also raised the objection that by filling the higher administrative ranks, the police department would be leaving a patrolling position vacant because the department has to keep to its 33 officer limit under current legislation.

On the side of the proposal, councilwoman Margaret Karcher said she wants the training of higher ranked officers to begin as soon as possible because of the chance that one of the two leuitenents or the chief chooses to retire in the next several years.

"Whoever is moved into this administrative position is going to be learning something that he or she needs to learn before exercising a leadership position at any time," she said.

Mayor Joseph O'Neill said he thought that more work should be put into exploring the administrative position and advocated continuing the discussion in May before making any decisions.

This idea was supported by all council members.

Another issue brought up at the meeting by a member of the community was the idea of renaming Pine Street Park in honor of Woodrow Wilson School professor David Bradford who died in February.

The council moved to set up a fund at the Borough whose proceeds would go to improvements for the park. There has not yet been a motion to approve the renaming, however, until the community devises a plan.

"This is an opportunity to promote the park and the memory of David Bradford," Martindell said. "I would encourage the neighbors to get together to produce a site plan for an appropriate memorial so that it is an opportunity for everyone to get together and make a lasting impression."

These plans will also be discussed at a later meeting in May.