Police chiefs group drops Bergen's top cop from executive board

While visiting Minnesota on Tuesday to meet with security and law enforcement officials at the Mall of America, Bergen County Police Chief Brian Higgins learned he had been voted off the executive board of the county police chiefs association.

Though Higgins said he visited the Mall of America outside Minneapolis not as county police chief but in his other role — director of public safety — his trip intensified ongoing speculation from officials in East Rutherford that the county police are maneuvering to be the primary policing agency for the American Dream Meadowlands shopping complex when it opens.

The association's president, Lodi Police Chief Vincent Caruso, said increasing displeasure over the county department's overtures to towns to take on local policing duties had cost Higgins his spot on the body's executive board.

The decision followed an informal meeting on May 4 in Maywood between county and local officials, including Higgins, Mayor Gregg Padovano, Bergen County Executive Kathleen Donovan and County Administrator Ed Trawinski. According to Padovano, Donovan included the county police in a pitch for cost-saving shared services.

"We listened to their proposal, but we've never even heard numbers," Padovano said. "We have a pretty darn good Police Department here. If someone makes an offer, we'll listen, but we're not out there trying to have the county take over our Police Department."

Maywood Police Chief David Pegg, who did not attend the meeting, said Padovano had assured him that Maywood has no intention to merge its police force with the county's. However, he added that he was dismayed that Donovan would suggest such a plan with Higgins present.

"I don't know what games are being played behind those doors," Pegg said. "If is informal, why is the county police chief there and not the town's police chief?"

Donovan has aggressively pitched mergers or shared-services agreements with the county police as the best way for municipalities to lower their policing costs.

Jeanne Baratta, Donovan's chief of staff, said the meeting in Maywood was informal, lasted only 30 minutes, and that Donovan brought up policing.

Donovan "talks about it like a menu: 'Anything you'd like us to do, we can help you with — we have the K-9 unit, bomb squad, or if you need us to come in and help you out with traffic detail,' " Baratta said.

Mergers debated

The county chiefs association has been less than enthusiastic about these offers.

The chiefs met earlier this year to voice their concerns when the county police negotiated a patrol deal with Teterboro, ending a 16-year service agreement there with the Little Ferry Police Department. Officials in Carlstadt, Elmwood Park and Rutherford have rejected merger talks with the county police, but Demarest officials are negotiating a policing plan with the county that has drawn fierce opposition from residents. Last week, the Borough Council voted unanimously to hold a referendum on whether the issue should be studied.

In separate interviews, East Rutherford Police Chief Larry Minda and Mayor James Cassella said that rumors have swirled for months that the county police want to be the primary policing agency for American Dream, the much-delayed, $3.7 billion shopping and entertainment complex adjacent to the Izod Center. The Mall of America was built by Triple Five, the Edmonton, Alberta-based company that is working to operate American Dream. Word that Higgins headed to Minnesota this week only fueled fears that the county Police Department is angling to assume policing duties there, Minda and Cassella said.

Higgins and County Administrator Ed Trawinski dismissed those concerns. Trawinski said any discussion about policing American Dream is premature, particularly because the project has yet to receive final approval.

Higgins said he traveled to the Mall of America to meet with the security team there, as well as local police and officials from the FBI and Department of Homeland Security. The purpose was to learn how security functions at the complex in anticipation of the demands American Dream will place on county services, particularly emergency management and communications, Higgins said.

"I wasn't there to sell our wares," Higgins said.

Cassella said this explanation will do little to quash speculation in East Rutherford.

"I believe there is some interest on the part of the administration to have the county in there, just like they're interested in Demarest, and just like they've talked to Carlstadt and have had other discussions with municipalities about sharing police," Cassella said. "The part that bothers me is that this should be done together. It shouldn't be everyone working in their own little realm."

'It is retribution'

Caruso said he received a call from Pegg on Monday, and then called Higgins to discuss the meeting inMaywood.

"I said to him, 'Do you understand how it looks? You're a chief. You're in another chief's town trying to take away his patrol functions,' " Caruso said.

Higgins and Baratta said no numbers were discussed Friday, and any serious negotiation for policing inMaywood would involve the local Police Department. Higgins said he told those present at the meeting that any discussion of shared services with the county police should involve Pegg.

But news of the meeting was not received well by the chiefs association.

The association's executive board consists of its previous presidents, nine members appointed each year by the sitting president, and the nine members of the association's board of directors, all of whom are police chiefs.

As county police chief, Higgins was guaranteed a spot on the executive board.

At its executive meeting Tuesday, Caruso informed the membership of the meeting in Maywood. The group decided that Higgins should be removed from the executive board while the county police are engaged in merger talks with other departments, Caruso said. The members then removed Higgins on a roll-call vote.

Caruso later called Higgins — who that day was in Minnesota — to inform him of the vote.

"He wasn't happy, and I don't blame him," Caruso said. "It is what it is."

In interviews Friday, Higgins said he feels like a villain — a scapegoat singled out by those who oppose consolidation.

"It is retribution," he said of the association's vote to expel him. "But I haven't done what they're accusing me of."

Email: quirk@northjersey.com