Mayor favors keeping Ogdensburg police force intact

Proposal to merge into Sparta Police gets thumbs down from Sekelsky, By Beth Kalet Ogdensburg — “I am for keeping the police in Ogdensburg,” said the borough’s mayor James Sekelsky, in an interview Tuesday. Since the release of a recent study that recommended Sparta’s Police force absorb Ogdensburg’s, talk has swirled around whether the borough would lose its character and the hometown coverage its own force provides. “I want people to know that’s where I’m at. It’s not a referendum on the police force because they’re damn good. I’m damn proud of them. They’re damn good and they’re keepers.” Where it started The feasibility study was undertaken entirely with state funds on behalf of both Sparta and Ogdensburg to see whether some combination of the forces could save money. It all began back in March 2008, when New Jersey started feeling the financial pinch. When the 2008 state budget came out, Sekelsky said, “they said towns with less than 10,000 people are targets of withholding funding.” Smaller municipalities were urged to look at ways to consolidate. State aid was cut back, as was extraordinary aid, which many towns, including Ogdensburg, had factored into their budgets. In particular, Ogdensburg stood that year to lose nearly $600,000 in aid, Sekelsky said: $285,000 in state aid and $320,000 in what is called extraordinary aid. The mayor said he soon received calls from Franklin and from Sparta about police consolidation. They also looked into working with the Wallkill Valley towns, Hardyston, Franklin and Hamburg, but that didn’t pan out. Maintaining integrity Above all, the mayor said, council people were concerned that Ogdensburg maintain its character. They felt, he said, “We can lose a lot of our identify if we’re not smart.” That’s one reason Sekelsky says he doesn’t favor the results of the study just recently made public. “There’s never been a doubt in my mind about what our department delivers. It’s more than expected...and that would be lost. There’s qualities that the individuals themselves bring. We gain an intimacy with the selected officers that we have that we could never gain from any type of other arrangement.” To read the entire report, go to the borough’s Web site: www.ogdensburgnj.org. A meeting is set at the Ogdensburg School for Nov. 30, with a representative of the consulting firm that conducted the study on hand to explain the report. And, what about the money? In the wake of the 2008 budget crunch, Ogdensburg followed a cost-cutting measure. Among the changes made: the police force was reduced by one member, thereby saving about $134,000, the mayor said. The town also decided it would not factor into its future budgets an expectation of extraordinary state aid, and it has done without it this year. As things turned out in 2008, Ogdensburg ended up receiving all but about $100,000 of both types of aid from New Jersey. But because of measures it took then, “We are financially healthier,” he said.