Randolph had a murder in town last year. There has been gang activity and brawling at Obsessions. Earlier this week there was a crack smoking/kidnapping incident. This summer we had a rash of petty vandalism and street sign thefts in Shongum Lake, and recently, a Morris county oxycontin ring involving dozens of young people in our surrounding towns was . Morris County in general, and Randolph Township in particular, is not immune to crime, gangs and drug problems. 

Late last year the Police Department made a presentation to the Town Council. Citing manpower shortages they asked the Town to hire up to 6 more officers. If you look at this year’s budget, you’ll notice that they hired NO additional police officers. Citing budgetary problems, they decided to not hire any new cops, but to “re-organize” its patrol shifts. One consequence of this shift was to discontinue the SRO (school resource officer) program at the Middle School. In other words, there is no longer a police safety officer in the middle school.

Police safety officers, or resource officers, are physically present within the school during the day. They teach DARE and other classes and perform other police duties at the school. They are available at the schools to handle problems, make arrests if necessary, provide guidance to students, and to serve as a positive role model. They get to know the students, and the students get to know them. Our young people learn that police officers are regular people and not the enemy. The police officers have an opportunity to get to know the kids, to have an eye and ear on the pulse of the student body, to identify and intervene early with troubled or at risk kids or gang situations. I know of no one who feels that this program was ineffective. To the contrary, it has been considered a rousing success!

As parents of children in the middle school and as interested citizens, we’re concerned that the safety officer program has been discontinued. Many other parents we’ve spoken to are also concerned. This is part of a bigger issue too. The police force has not been increased in over 20 years, but the town has grown in leaps and bounds. In the last 6 months the town manager has done all he can to restructure the schedules of the force to get more needed police on the streets. One thing he has done, has been to take the 2 police officers off the 911 desk and replaced them with civilians. The people of Randolph should know that there are only 39 officers on active duty for the town of 26 thousand people.

Not only are there are only 39 officers for 26,000 people, but obviously the officers are not all working at the same time. Last year in the Daily Record (June 20, 2006 p. A13), town Manager John Lovell said that “there is a desire to have six officers during a 12 hour shift.”

“We’re often short of that” he said, adding that when there’s fewer than six on a shift, overtime usually is incurred, or the department will call in another officer.

“We had short shifts on a chronic basis last year,” Lovell said.

So in a town of 26,000 people, we sometime have less than 6 officers on any particular shift. I think many people would be shocked to know this.

If you take a look at this year’s budget, you will see that the Police Chief asked for funding for a manpower study, and the town council declined. Our town council made a choice to not fund a police manpower study but to fund a swimming pool study in the same year for nearly the same amount of money. Where are the Council’s priorities?

The Randolph Democratic Candidates support and stand behind our police officers, and if we are elected, we will vote to give the men and women on our police force the manpower and the resources that they need to do their jobs effectively.  We will put the safety of our kids ahead of political patronage jobs. The current administration seems to have plenty of money for no bid contracts for lawyers. But if there was a riot at the Middle School, or a gang fight, or an armed robbery at the supermarket, who do you think the people of Randolph are looking to for a response and for protection? It’s not a bunch of guys in 3 piece suits, it’s our men and women in blue.

Daniel Lynn
Nancie Ludwig
Michael Van Allen