Who Really Cut the Police Budget in Point Beach?

How the budget for special police officers was cut, whose fault it was and other questions pivotal to pressing "quality of life" issues were the subject of great debate among Point Beach mayoral candidates on Thursday night.

Democratic Borough Council President Tim Lurie told the audience filling about half of the auditorium at the G. Harold Antrim Elementary School that it was the mayor who cut the budget for special police officers to work during the summer.

Democrat Lurie and Republican Stephen Reid are challenging Mayor Vincent Barrella, a registered Republican who is running as an Independent for the second consecutive year.

"We got to the middle of the summer and the specials were not fully funded," Lurie said.

Reid also said Barrella had cut the budget for specials by $60,000.

Barrella countered by saying, "I actually fought hard to keep that money in the budget. That $60,000 was cut by council, not the mayor. Anyone who says otherwise is practicing revisionist history."

"If anyone wants to know anything about the 2010 or 2011 budget, ask him," he said, gesturing towards Lurie, who was sitting to his left. "Because he voted for it and he knew what was in it."

which included the police department's spending cuts.

in the "weak mayor" borough council form of government, the mayor is allowed to vote only when there is a tie, which is why it is called a "weak mayor" form of government. Since the budget vote was unanimous, the mayor did not vote on it, although he did speak in favor of it.

Lurie countered that Barrella and Borough Business Administrator Christine Riehl had drafted the budget that did not include sufficient funding for specials.

"The mayor was very involved with the budget," Lurie said. "The mayor said he would fully fund specials and it never happened."

Both Barrella and Lurie told residents that Riehl would back up each of their version of events.

Reid said, "When I hear people say, it's a weak mayor form of government, it's not my fault, they did this, they did that, that's nonsense. It's all about leadership."

Council had initially voted, with Lurie and Councilwoman Kristine Tooker dissenting, to alert the state that the town may lay off three officers. 

But at a subsequent meeting, on March 8, council voted to accept the chief's proposed budget cuts in lieu of any layoffs.

O'Hara said at the March 8 meeting that he had originally requested $365,000 to hire special police officers, $40,000 for parking enforcement and $120,000 for projected overtime costs. Those costs amount to $525,000.

"The $60,000 came from that lump sum," he had said at the time. "It's not coming from overtime because if our officers work overtime, they have to be paid."

O'Hara had also said, "We will have more special officers' shifts in 2011 than we had in 2010 but, not as many as we had originally budgeted for. This cut in the budget still leaves the department with more shift coverage than last year, which should amount to an increase in violations being issued."

Lurie, who has served for three terms on council, said he made the motion at a July meeting for $95,000 to pay overtime to full-time officers. That was part of , which, Lurie said on Thursday night, should be maintained.

"That was through President Obama's federal grant program and cost the town nothing," he said.

Lurie said the police overtime and the state police helping with traffic and drunken driving patrols helped.

"I think we saw the situation under control a little better," he said.

Barrella countered that Lurie arranged for state police to come to town without first talking to O'Hara or any other high-ranking members of the police department.

"I would never do that, that's just not my style," Barrella said.

"Well, all the mayor wanted to do is have business owners and residents meet," Lurie said. "We needed to act fast and that's what I did."

.

Specials go through Ocean County police academy training and then additional training in Point Beach.

Barrella noted that committees of business owners and residents have been formed.

"Hopefully, there will be some progress," he said.

He said he hopes those talks and maintaining, or possibly adding, to existing police coverage would be ways to help prevent another tough summer. However, he added that without additional revenue, the town may be looking at police layoffs, rather than adding more coverage.

At the last council meeting, Riehl reported that boardwalk business owners at those committee meetings have said they will not consider making last call for alcohol earlier at their bars. That proposal would not have required the bars to close any earlier, just to phase out drinking earlier.

Barrella has said that doing so may help curb excessive drinking in the wee hours of the morning, which has been cited as one of the primary reasons this summer was, as police describe it, the worst summer for crime in the past 17 years.

Barrella said he does not favor making a move now to close bars earlier.

"That's an absolute last resort," he said. "But if the boardwalk businesses aren't willing to work with us, then we'll have to consider that."

Barrella said, "In 2008, I met with boardwalk business owners and asked them how they can help generate additional revenue for the town in a way that would hurt the least. They never got back to me."

Similar requests were put to them, in vain, in 2009, he said.

Lurie also said that the mayor and council should explore establishing "zero tolerance noise zones" in certain parts of town by adopting an ordinance and using warning signs and police enforcement.

At a recent council meeting, Lurie said he saw signs to that effect at the ends of beach blocks in Beach Haven on Long Beach Island this past summer and thought Point Beach would benefit from doing the same thing.

Lurie and Ried both said they want to have code enforcement personnel working on weekends to address that aspect of quality of life violations.

Lurie said the revenue from municipal court fines and parking may be enough to fund weekend code enforcement coverage.

Reid said perhaps existing municipal staff could be "cross-trained" to provide code enforcement on weekends.

A Point Beach high school student asked the candidates if the boardwalk businesses should pay a higher percentage for public services.

Lurie said, "With the right mayor and council, we can sit down with boardwalk businesses and talk about it."

He again emphasized the need for specials to be "fully funded" and for weekend code enforcement.

Reid also said the town should "sit down with the boardwalk businesses and have a dialogue, not a monologue."

He said if those talks don't go well, the town can use its leverage with the liquor licenses owned by boardwalk businesses that are up for renewal every year in June.

Barrella said he prefers to find ways to garner more revenue from boardwalk business patrons, rather than the businesses themselves.

In a statement that drew heavy criticism from his opponents, he said he continues to push for the state to enable the municipality to impose local option taxes on such things as alcoholic beverages and private parking lot revenue.

Barrella's opponents contend the state will never pass the enabling legislation and the mayor should forget about ever imposing local options taxes.