Hackettstown police need support

[Kire]

Hackettstown police need support
Daily Record - NOVEMBER 24, 2008

The Hackettstown PBA Local 369 is very proud of the longstanding relationship that exists between our officers and residents. Because this relationship is so important to us, we now ask for your help.

The Hackettstown Police Department has dipped to a manpower level not seen since 30 years ago. We fear that this lack of officers may jeopardize important programs and levels of service. Even worse, we believe that the safety of our residents and officers is being compromised. Future retirements will bring our manpower levels even lower. This dangerous situation must be corrected now.

As we all know times are hard. And in times such as these, we have seen the effect on crime rates and types of crimes being committed. Many residents have expressed concern to us; some are afraid to walk down Main Street at night. Without the replacement of officers, foot patrol may no longer be possible. Response times will certainly be affected by the common practice of having only two officers on patrol during many times. Officers on duty can be occupied at a call for service for hours at a time, leaving no officers on patrol or able to respond quickly to another call. The obvious problem with this is that both the public and officers are put in an unsafe situation.

We wish to continue to provide residents with the same level of service and safety they have always enjoyed and absolutely deserve. The next town council meeting is tonight at 7:30 p.m. We ask residents to attend to show support for their police officers and safety. The PBA is asking our town council to replace only the vacant positions. We feel that this is a reasonable request and hope that our elected officials will meet their obligation to the voters.

Brian Ficarra

President PBA Local 369

Hackettstown

There is discussion in the comments section: http://www.dailyrecord.com/article/20081124/OPINION02/811240313/1095/OPINION

This is also being discussed in two threads in HackettstownLife.com.

http://www.hackettstownlife.com/forum/69639

and

Hackettstown PBA asks for your help
http://www.hackettstownlife.com/forum/67567

Finally, I have gone into greater detail on BlueJersey.

Please read this diary:

http://www.bluejersey.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9813

Sincerely,

Erik B. Anderson
Independence Township, New Jersey
Established 1782

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

1. Not enough police to harass Centenary students

Awww