Franklin gives police chief new contract

FRANKLIN — The Franklin Borough Council unanimously voted to approve a new three-year contract for Franklin Police Chief Eugene McInerney.
The contract grants McInerney a 2 percent raise over his 2016 salary to a new total of $138,010 in 2017, with additional two percent raises scheduled for 2018 and 2019.
Councilwoman Dawn Fantasia, who sits on the Borough's Finance Committee, noted that body “did not have hesitation at all” in recommending renewal of McInerney's contract and felt the salary figure was fair compared to those offered by other towns.
McInerney has served as chief since his formal appointment in March 2012, and Fantasia said the Borough has reaped the rewards of having a stable leader in the department.
“The borough has enjoyed some benefits from having the longevity of the same chief, one being a close look at the overtime and the staffing,” Fantasia said. “I think that the chief is doing an excellent job with that and in his general oversight of the department.”
According to Fantasia, McInerney indicated this week that the department's overtime pay for this month is currently hovering around an “unheard of” level of around $2,000. For comparison, Councilman Robert Dabinett said overtime pay for the full year 2013 ran upwards of $231,000 and increased to more than $240,000 in 2014. Dabinett said “tremendous savings” have been achieved through a combination of adding additional patrolmen to the department staff and McInerney's implementation of a strict overtime policy.
The council also approved a new three-year contract for Department of Public Works manager Brian VanDenBroek at a salary of $99,891 in 2017 with 2 percent increases scheduled for 2018 and 2019.
Council moves to ban cutting new roadsThe council approved the re-introduction of an ordinance that will ban cuts into freshly paved roads and sidewalks except in emergency circumstances.
Ordinance 17-2016, which will be up for a public hearing at the Council's next meeting on Dec. 27, would implement a three-year moratorium on digging into recently paved roads. Exceptions in the case of an emergency could be approved by the Board of Public Utilities, which would include members of the council itself.
“What the aim of the ordinance is doing is protecting the taxpayer from paving a road and then having someone shortly thereafter that cut open the road to do some work that could potentially been done before that,” Mayor Nicholas Giordano said. “We just don't want people to cut up a new road.”
The Council noted that a similar moratorium already exists in Newton.
The Council on Tuesday also introduced an ordinance that would combine the Borough Planning Board and Zoning Board of Adjustment. Giordano said the goal of that ordinance is to “streamline” bureaucratic processes to make the town more friendly to businesses. That ordinance will also be up for a public hearing on Dec. 27, and Councilwoman Dawn Fantasia said she is hoping to hear from members of both boards at that time.