TOMS RIVER, NJ – Toms River Mayor Dan Rodrick today said the township is in desperate need of eight additional police emergency service officers (CSO) and an extra ambulance on the road with a 24-hour shift is his current priority rather than backfilling the positions of two retiring police captains.
The move comes after years of resident pleas for better EMS service fell upon deaf ears under the administration of former Mayor Maurice Hill.
“As many residents may already know, Toms River is experiencing an emergency medical response crisis. Residents in many areas of our community are experiencing wait times of up to 30 minutes. There have been constant complaints for several years. This is a life and death matter and we are going to fix it,” Rodrick said today in a letter. “The township is facing a 3.5 million dollar shortfall and I won’t raise taxes. Two captains in the Toms River Police Department are retiring.”
Rodrick said those two officers cost the township $350,000 per year each.
“We will not be backfilling those desk jobs and this will save $700,000 a year. Combined with the elimination of the PIO position, we will have the money to hire 8 full-time EMTs,” he said. “This will put another ambulance on the road 24 hours a day – 7 days a week. We were initially advised that the township needed to amend the police staffing ordinance to limit the number of captains, but it turns out we received bad advice.”
According to the Mayor, the township code simply states that the department is, “limited to” three captains.
“One of those captains just retired and the other will be retiring in June. Chief Little hastily granted interim promotions without seeking approval from the administration, but in our form of government, it is the mayor and town administrator who ultimately makes those promotions permanent,” he said. “On February 3rd, my administration rescinded Chief Little’s interim promotions and instructed him to create a new table of organization based on the current staffing level of 1 captain and 1 deputy chief. The FOP – Toms River’s Police Management Union has teamed up with the remnants of Mo Hill’s new republican club to fight our ordinance.”
That fight is being led by Phillip Brilliant, a controversial political appointment of the former mayor who was appointed by Hill to the Toms River Township MUA. The MUA is a well-known patronage pit that provides political insiders an annual salary and a full township benefits package for meeting a few times each month. Brilliant is joined by Dana Tormollan, a write-in candidate for council who received only a small handful of votes in the November election. Rodrick won that election with 71% of the vote township-wide.
“Together, they organized two small demonstrations and disrupted our Zoom meeting,” Rodrick said. “They did so in vain. I will not allow a small group of special interests to endanger the welfare of our entire town. This is a life or death matter and I won’t be deterred. With or without a new ordinance, we will not be backfilling those captains’ positions. I will not put desk job promotions ahead of public safety. We need more boots on the ground, not another two $350,000 dollar-a-year employees.”
Rodrick said he and his team are meeting with the EMT union this week to discuss opening up their contract to attract the best EMTs to work for Toms River.
“The fight is over and the administration is moving forward,” he added.