Tedesco Wins Bergen on promises of police-sheriff consolidation
November 5,2014
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ , While most would admit that taxes are the prime issue , we have for some time questioned the viability of Bergen County . The ugly reality is Bergen is a former shadow of itself . The county depended for years on Wall Street paying extremely high salaries giving the county the luxury of a tax at will mentality ,but since 2008 when massive layoffs hit the street and employment declined in finance that tax at will party came to an end . Unfortunately the promises made during that period have not . The the ever increasing cost of doing business in Bergen has driven out not only taxpayers but employers to seek other arrangements another words leave . Leaving the county with a declining tax base but increasing costs for services.
Consolidation of services has been pushed by both parties as a way to save money . Getting off to a fast start with cost cutting Donovan went astray and erred in not realizing that the county government in Bergen is mostly redundant and is itself the cost problem . Donovan pushed for consolidation into a lager county pie which seemed to feed the image of a county power grab , but in Bergen with so many towns having so much of everything it was doomed to fail .
The most obvious point of contention was her attempts to thwart the Police Merger, According to PolitickerNJ ,”Donovan has struggled with the freeholder board over plans to merge the Bergen County Police Department and the county’s Sheriff”s Office. Donovan is opposed to the plan, while the majority of the freeholder board, including Tedesco, now controlled by the Democrats by a 5-2 veto-proof margin, supports the move. The final decision depends on the outcome of ongoing legal battles related to the merger proposal.
Donovan defended her stance on the county police merger issue for both financial and political reasons.
“It’s bogus. I think police departments should merge, but you don’t put a politician in charge of a quasi-military operation,” Donovan told PolitickerNJ.com is response to Tedesco’s comments. “There is no saving of money, because [if the merger took place] we will have to hire non-police people to do things that the police now do.”
https://politickernj.com/2014/03/bergen-county-execs-race-donovan-swipes-at-tedesco-calls-county-police-merger-issue-bogus/
Donovan’s attempts to justify her position fell on deaf ears for over taxed over regulated Bergen residents ( https://theridgewoodblog.net/reader-says-donovans-opposition-to-police-merger-is-the-problem/ ),the feeling being the real story was the ticket income from the Bergen County Police (https://theridgewoodblog.net/county-police-merger-off-due-to-ticket-revenue-from-bergen-county-police/ )
On the other hand , ” Tedesco promises the police-sheriff consolidation will be one of his top priorities during his first 100 days in office. We remain skeptical of the promised savings, but leadership is about taking risk. And if the merger is a bad idea, Tedesco will fully own it.
Promoting smart consolidations and shared services has to be part of the county executive’s mission. So should be addressing alarming drug use – particularly heroin – in the county.”
https://www.northjersey.com/opinion/opinion-editorials/tedesco-for-executive-1.1124795
