Reps from two towns plan to discuss police coverage
BY KATHY BARATTA
Staff Writer

ENGLISHTOWN - A meeting is being planned that will bring together representatives of Englishtown and nearby Millstone Township to discuss police coverage in Millstone.

Borough Councilwoman Jayne Carr confirmed that officials from both towns will meet in the near future to discuss the possibility of having the English-town Police Department take over responsibility for police duties in Mill-stone.

At present, Millstone receives free police coverage from the New Jersey State Police. The situation arises from Millstone's history as a rural, largely undeveloped municipality. Residential construction over the past decade, however, has pushed the town's population past 9,000 residents.

Within the past month, Gov. Jon Corzine floated the idea of requiring New Jersey municipalities that receive free coverage from the state police to begin paying for that service. The proposal has not received approval in the state Legislature.

Millstone is about 37 square miles in size. No part of Millstone borders Eng-lishtown, but Millstone does border Manalapan.

Millstone is largely located on the south side of Route 33, although a small piece of Millstone is near Englishtown on the north side of Route 33.

As a means of comparison, English-town is about 0.57 square miles in size and Manalapan is about 30 square miles in size. The Manalapan Police Depart-ment has about 60 officers.

The Englishtown Police Department is currently staffed at six full-time police officers and Carr said a contract with Millstone would allow the department to not only return to its previous staff level of eight officers, but would provide for further expansion of the force.

Carr said that the Borough Council recently approved the hiring of two police officers. She said the hiring of the two new officers will fill the void left by two officers who recently left the department.

She said it is her understanding the state is planning to put off instituting any charges for state police services until 2007. Carr said it is wise on the part of Millstone officials to start planning now for an easier transition if the community is eventually required to pay for police coverage.

Carr said that with the potential of having to pay for police services looming over them, Millstone officials are reaching out to explore their options for police coverage.

She said the discussion with English-town representatives would be the most preliminary step in a process that would eventually have to include a public referendum in Millstone in which voters would be asked if they want to contract with another municipality to perform police duties or remain with the state police.

"Either way will raise taxes," Carr said.