TOP MAN: Capt. James Hawkins takes the oath of office to become LEHT police chief from township attorney Melanie Appleby; his wife Staci holds the Bible. (Photo by Pat Johnson)
Little Egg Harbor Police Capt. James Hawkins was sworn in as police chief at the Sept. 9, township committee meeting.
“The position of police chief has taken on a new dimension with change and growth as well as new approaches (to policing) besides focusing on the department as a whole,” said Little Egg Harbor Mayor John Kehm. “It’s an immense responsibility and we thank him for all the support, guidance and education that has led to this day. We also have gratitude for all the sacrifices he and his family have made over the years. Chief Hawkins has been chosen for his intelligence, fair-mindedness and integrity. Today we begin writing the future of the Little Egg Harbor Police Department.”
Hawkins thanked Kehm and the entire body governing body for their support and trust. “It’s a responsibility I don’t take lightly and I hope to continue to provide a high level of service to the community.”
He also thanked his peers in law enforcement, both professional and community based, and his family: “Without them this wouldn’t be possible.”
The township and the PBA are still negotiating his chief’s salary, said Township Administrator Rodney Haines.
According to a prepared statement, Hawkins began his career with the Little Egg Harbor Police Department in 1998. During his 23-year career, Hawkins has served in various positions including patrol sergeant, school resource officer, lieutenant in charge of both patrol and administrative divisions, a member of the Ocean County Regional SWAT team and most recently the captain of police operations.
Throughout his career, Hawkins has been instrumental in the implementation of the many systems used by police officers on a daily basis including the Spillman Computer Aided Dispatch/Records Management system. Most notably, as the lieutenant of the administrative division, Hawkins led the police department through its initial accreditation in 2018.
Hawkins has completed several professional development leadership trainings and is a graduate of Fairleigh Dickinson University with a master’s in administrative sciences.
During the same meeting, the committee hired Kelly Lettera as municipal clerk at a salary of $95,000. Lettera was the municipal clerk of East Windsor for four years after rising through the ranks from her start in that town’s police department in 2012.
In other news, the township bonded $120,000 for the purchase of 1.4 acres adjacent to the public works yard on Route 539. The Butensky family sold the property to the township for $80,000 and the land was assessed for $170,000, said Haines. The $40,000 of additional bonding is for “soft costs” such as attorney’s fees and engineering, said Haines.
NEW CLERK: Kelly Lettera, formerly the East Windsor township clerk, now works for Little Egg Harbor.
An additional $236,000 was appropriated from the capital fund to pay for phase II Mystic Island drainage improvements on East and West Mullica, Delaware and Mohawk roads.
Township engineer Jason Worth has applied for a New Jersey Department of Transportation Safe Routes to Schools program grant to provide sidewalks in the area of the Pinelands Regional high and junior high schools. The township has awarded a $1,546,831 contract to reconstruct the four soccer fields and one football field at the LEH Sports Complex to American Athletic Courts Inc. Haines said the alternate bid that was accepted dispenses with some of the drainage stone and saved the township $370,000.
Committeeman Ray Gormley said a second bid for the maintenance dredging of lagoons in the Mystic Island West and Atlantis sections of the waterfront has failed to attract a bid at the level of bonding approved for the projects. The Mystic Island West bond is $8,550,000 and the bid was $8,618,838 and does not include money for engineering and attorney’s fees, just construction. The bond for Atlantis is $1,525,000 and the bid was $1,492,640, but this again does not provide for “soft costs.” Gormley said the next step was to try and negotiate with the two companies that provided the bids to see if there was any leeway in lowering their bids.
During the public comment period, Kate Goode, independent candidate for township committee, asked if the committee could provide the bills list before the meeting so the public could peruse the line items before the township approved the list. At the last meeting Kehm said the township has to approve the list first before dispensing to the public. But township attorney Melanie Appleby said there was no legal reason why the public could not view the list before the meeting. Kehm said the committee would revisit the issue.
Goode then asked whether the township was putting aside money for the $4 million FEMA loan the township must repay before 2023. Kehm said representatives in Congress are still hoping to get legislation passed that would forgive these loans. The money was spent on replacing township vehicles ruined by Superstorm Sandy and for overtime accrued during the disaster. The loan was not forgiven because the township had one year in the three-year period after Sandy where it had a $41,000 surplus of funds.
If the loans cannot be forgiven, the township will ask FEMA to extend the deadline five years, and if that’s not possible the township will ask the Division of Local Finances to allow it to bond the $4 million and stretch out the payments over a number of years, said Haines.
The LEH Environmental Commission is hosting a township-wide cleanup on Sept. 25. Volunteers should meet at the town hall complex at 9 a.m. If they sign up on the township website, leht.com, they can get a T-shirt.
— Pat Johnson
The Link LonkSeptember 16, 2021 at 06:23AM
https://www.thesandpaper.net/articles/little-egg-harbor-picks-new-police-chief-from-within-force/
Little Egg Harbor Picks New Police Chief From Within Force - The SandPaper
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