EGG HARBOR CITY — More than a month after the Atlantic County Proseuctor’s Office released a report calling the city’s Police Department “dysfunctional,” Mayor Lisa Jiampetti released a statement saying she has taken personnel and other actions to correct the problems.
She also acknowledged the situation has cost taxpayers a lot of money.
The city’s per-claim deductible
for insurance has been raised from $10,000 to $25,000, and its overall
premiums increased $60,000 per year, said Jiampetti, who has clashed
with police Chief John McColgan over the management of the department since she took office in 2013.
McColgan did not return calls for comment.
Excessive overtime, inefficient
scheduling and a high number of worker’s compensation injury claims have
further worsened finances, Jiampetti said, as have the costs of
disciplinary actions and legal actions and claims by citizens against
the department.
“Quite frankly, the Prosecutor’s
Office’s report is highly embarrassing, but details significant
deficiencies within the department which can only be attributed to years
of malfeasance and mismanagement,” she said in her statement. “I
appreciate the Prosecutor and his staff’s candor and professionalism in
bringing these issues to light.”
Atlantic County Prosecutor Jim
McClain’s report, completed in early March, said gun cabinets were left
unlocked, Internal Affairs complaints unaddressed, and the handling of
informants and confidential sources left to officers’ discretion, even
after one officer pleaded guilty to pressuring a female informant to
give him sexual favors.
It also said McColgan never
prepared a budget, is often absent without notifying subordinates and
manages shifts in a way that maximizes overtime and leaves the
least-experienced officers working by themselves without support and
supervision.
Under state Civil Service Law,
the city had 45 days from the time it received the report to file
charges against McColgan and/or others.
Jiampetti had not made a
statement before because of concerns about threatened and pending
litigation and said she cannot be more specific about recent actions
taken for the same reasons.
Jiampetti is running for
re-election. She faces a primary challenge from fellow Democrat and
Councilwoman Hazel Mueller, who has criticized what she saw as
Jiampetti’s micromanaging of the Police Department.
“The chief is not a bad person,
I’m sure he’s worked hard to do his job,” Mueller said Friday. “Most of
us on City Council have been kept in the dark.”
She said she is embarrassed for the city to face so much negative publicity.
“He (McColgan) was put in by
former Mayor Joe Kuehner, who was mayor for eight years,” said Mueller.
“Did things just go bad, or were things neglected for years? Why all of a
sudden is everything bad when for eight years the department ran quite
well? I truly believe that.”
Jiampetti said she suspected for a
long time the department was in trouble, and her first act as mayor was
to try to work with the department to improve morale and safety and
update run-down conditions.
“My efforts were met with significant resistance,” she wrote.
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/opinion/editorials/our-view-ehc-officials-need-to-reassure-public-on-police/article_d8e0364e-0df4-11e6-a280-3fd1aa18f26b.html
Jiampetti then approached the
Prosecutor’s Office for help, she said, and last year McClain assigned a
member of his staff to monitor the department.
McClain outlined 27 specific
recommendations for changes in the way the department is run. His office
monitored the department daily for about eight months.
The prosecutor will still have a representative monitoring the department for another several months.
McColgan makes $110,782 a year to run the department of 13 officers, according to city records.
Contact: 609-272-7219
Twitter @MichelleBPost
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/ehc-mayor-says-she-s-correcting-dysfunctional-police-department/article_fcbaa5ae-0e53-11e6-8d40-0b1be01197bf.html
Related articles
http://gadfly01.blogspot.com/2015/06/prosecutor-places-monitor-in-ehc-police.html
http://gadfly01.blogspot.com/2016/03/prosecutors-report-egg-harbor-city.html
Press Editorialhttp://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/ehc-mayor-says-she-s-correcting-dysfunctional-police-department/article_fcbaa5ae-0e53-11e6-8d40-0b1be01197bf.html
Related articles
http://gadfly01.blogspot.com/2015/06/prosecutor-places-monitor-in-ehc-police.html
http://gadfly01.blogspot.com/2016/03/prosecutors-report-egg-harbor-city.html
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/opinion/editorials/our-view-ehc-officials-need-to-reassure-public-on-police/article_d8e0364e-0df4-11e6-a280-3fd1aa18f26b.html
1 comment:
So , Mueller says she has been kept in the dark, the chief and department are wonderful, and everything's been great for 8 yrs? Talk about a cover up! Thank you mayor Jiampetti, for bringing this at best , waste of taxpayer money, and at worst, total corruption, to the attention of the prosecutors office. It's what you where voted into office to do. As to the lady in the dark, I don't want you running my town.
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