Morrisville Borough Council approves hiring three new full-time police officers
Advance correspondent
MORRISVILLE BOROUGH--In a unanimous vote Aug. 19, borough council approved a motion to advertise the hiring of three full-time police officers to fill the vacancies created by retirements and sick leave.
Currently, Morrisville, which has a population of roughly 8,700, has nine full-time and four part-time officers. However, manpower levels have recently dropped. One full-time officer is set to retire next month, and another is scheduled to take sick time. Several part-timers have also resigned.
The levels of police staffing has been a concern for many borough residents and officials, including Mayor Rita Ledger, who read a prepared statement at the beginning of the council meeting before the vote was taken, imploring council members to immediately hire more full-time officers.
“To be quite frank, the staffing levels of this police department are at dangerous levels that cannot continue,” read the mayor, “our residents and police officers deserve better.”
In her remarks, Ledger maintained that borough council was “playing politics” in not hiring more police, and that more officers were needed to reach “safe levels.”
After the vote, the mayor thanked council for agreeing put additional personnel on the street.
According to borough manager Tom Bates, even though the number of full-time officers has dropped, the community was never at risk because the part-time staff had picked up the slack.
Several residents who spoke at the council meeting criticized the recent level of policing. Taylor Ford of East Birch Drive said that he didn’t see a real police presence in his area over the last seven years, and warned that the rising criminal activity in Trenton would eventually spread into Morrisville.
“People on the other side of the river will look up and say, ‘It’s great there’s no police,’” Ford asserted.
Todd Weber of Franklin Street agreed, noting that in the last two years homes on his street had five mid-day break-ins.
“There must be a perception that there’s no police,” he stated.
To facilitate the hiring, borough council also agreed to use the Bucks County Consortium, a non-profit group which helps screen police applicants for municipalities. It also administers written and physical testing of the candidates, therefore saving Morrisville the time and cost of finding applicants.
The names of qualified individuals will then be given to the borough’s Civil Service Commission so the candidates can be interviewed. The commission will then make its hiring recommendations to borough council, which has the final say.
“The Consortium will save us the cost of doing the tests and will save us time so we can start on the hiring,” said Council member Victor Cicero.
Meanwhile, Morrisville is also in the process of hiring a new police chief to replace Jack Jones, who retired last December after heading the department for 10 years.
In order to do this, the borough has retained the search-firm CityBurbs Group, which is run by Lower Makefield Township Police Chief Ken Coluzzi, to help vet candidates for the position.
The salary range for the new police chief is reportedly between $85,000 - $90,000, depending on experience, and applications are being accepted until Aug. 30. CityBurbs will narrow the list of applicants to a handful of candidates, with borough council eventually interviewing the top three jobseekers.
The new chief will lead a department in which several members are involved in lawsuits filed against each other.
To facilitate the hiring, borough council also agreed to use the Bucks County Consortium, a non-profit group which helps screen police applicants for municipalities. It also administers written and physical testing of the candidates, therefore saving Morrisville the time and cost of finding applicants.
The names of qualified individuals will then be given to the borough’s Civil Service Commission so the candidates can be interviewed. The commission will then make its hiring recommendations to borough council, which has the final say.
“The Consortium will save us the cost of doing the tests and will save us time so we can start on the hiring,” said Council member Victor Cicero.
Meanwhile, Morrisville is also in the process of hiring a new police chief to replace Jack Jones, who retired last December after heading the department for 10 years.
In order to do this, the borough has retained the search-firm CityBurbs Group, which is run by Lower Makefield Township Police Chief Ken Coluzzi, to help vet candidates for the position.
The salary range for the new police chief is reportedly between $85,000 - $90,000, depending on experience, and applications are being accepted until Aug. 30. CityBurbs will narrow the list of applicants to a handful of candidates, with borough council eventually interviewing the top three jobseekers.
The new chief will lead a department in which several members are involved in lawsuits filed against each other.
16 comments:
We can't seem to manage the ones we have, so let's hire more!! Nice planning by the leadership. WTF?
Low-hanging fruit?
Lord I am tired of reading spewing comments. Grow up!
Rainbow. Unicorn. Better?
Anonymous said...
Lord I am tired of reading spewing comments. Grow up!
Yeah, the Internet is serious business!!
Hah! Hah!!
If you don't like reading it, don't read it. But nooooo! You'd rather read it, take the time to feel your impotent rage and post another useless post in reply.
I'm getting the image of Grandpa Simpson with his headline "Old Man Yells at Cloud"
Grow up? So I can be just like you? No thanks.
"impotent rage" this blog is funny
Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in cage.
Then someone will say what is lost can never be saved.
And what do you want?
I want to change
And what have you got, when you feel the same?
Although I am concerned at how Morrisville is going to pay for the new policemen, I'm delighted that some new officers are being hired. I have been thankful that my property taxes haven't been increased in the past couple of years but I would be willing to take a bit of an increase when it goes to any of our emergency services.
Over the years there have been a few times when my family has had to call for an officer and I have had no complaints about their promptness or their behavior. I know others have had less than positive interactions with some of our officers, but that has not been my experience. A few years ago, one of our children was involved in a car accident in town and the police were very kind and professional throughout the situation. I was thankful for it. I have heard complaints about the police behavior so I thought I would relay my own interactions with them.
Neighborhood watch time! Keep our town safe!
Go fot it. A little more neighborhood vigilence can't hurt.
Are we really ready to do a George Zimmerman right here in town? Keep calm.
Lock your windows and doors for one thing.
You damn right I'm gonna Zimmerman out. I'm gunning up. Loading it. Putting it right under my pillow or on my nightstand. Invade my castle, you gonna pay the piper, mofo. You fall outside the threshold, I'm dragging your dead ass in. Only sissies and liberals believe that in the fog of panic, confusion and irresponsible gun handling, you or a family member could get shot dead.
I haven't left my doors unlocked since I was a teen & lived in my parents house. That was a very long time ago.
In our home our doors and windows are locked at all time. All of our outside doors have two locks on them. (This was done many years ago because we had a dog who could open doors. But it has served us well.) Our front door even has an automatic lock on it, which is sometimes a pain.
I can't remember a time when I left our kids outside alone. We were always together. I never thought we were living in the world as it was when I was young. I have always been careful about leaving our dog outside, (in our fenced yard) as well.
We don't leave our upstairs windows open ever because three sides of our house has porches and it would be possible to enter by a window that is open if a person was able to get onto the porch roof.
We also have wonderful porch lights on all of our porches and motion censors on our garage and on our shed.
We keep the gates to our backyard locked at all times.
Our cars are always locked. As a rule we don't leave anything in our cars that someone can see & might want to obtain by robbing us.
These are not things we do because we live in Morrisville. We do these things because crime in general has increased since we were young.
All of these easy things make us feel safer. All that being said, I learned a long time ago that if someone wants to get into your home, they will. So I guess what I'm saying is do what you can.
See-eye-ell-ell, kill.
Oh-cay.
My teeth are like the stars because they come out every night.
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