For years, the traffic-heavy Lincoln Tunnel that bisects Weehawken has delayed police response from one side of town to another. Last Friday, Mayor Richard Turner held a ribbon cutting to celebrate the conversion of an old firehouse at 133 Jane St. into a new police annex, bringing the number of police offices in the town to three – essentially one for each ward.
The new annex is west of Town Hall, toward Union City. It will be operational 16 hours per day and will handle emergency management, storage of equipment, and the training of new officers. The only thing it will not be able to do is process and hold prisoners.
A low-cost solution
A headquarters in Town Hall (400 Park Ave.) and an uptown annex (4518 Park Ave.) may be sufficient for most towns, but not Weehawken. A neighbor of New York City, Weehawken saw firsthand nine years ago that swift response and a pervasive police presence are instrumental to dealing with a serious emergency.
“If we totally lost the city, it would take me 15 minutes to set up and be completely ready.” – Sgt. Pat Cannon
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With part of the tunnel under Weehawken jurisdiction, the Police Department also must react to accidents or emergencies there, which also diminishes police presence in the 1st Ward, according to Turner.
Another problem is the issue of space. With no open space in City Hall, a new facility was needed to house operations as well as equipment.
Weehawken found a low-cost solution to these problems in an old firehouse in the 1st Ward, which cost virtually nothing to lease and was remodeled for a mere $15,000, materials included.
All repairs, according to Turner, were done in-house by the public works department.
“It gives the neighbors more comfort knowing that the building is not just empty, and gives us as a township yet another place at the least expense possible,” said 1st Ward Councilwoman Carmela Silvestri Ehret.
Emergency-ready
In addition to providing better security for 1st Ward residents, the new police annex is also a fully-equipped dispatch and operating center with emergency technology, according to Weehawken Director of Public Safety Jeff Welz.
From the annex, police can access remote cameras in town as well as Fios and Cablevision to keep abreast of emergencies in surrounding areas. With this technology, the police can see what the dispatcher and supervisor are looking at in real time and even dispatch police and EMS.
“It’s truly disaster recovery,” Silvestri Ehret said.
Since 9/11, said Turner, the town, which receives homeland security money due to its location and various transportation routes, has installed back-up emergency management systems and a new generator. A back-up location, Silvestri Ehret said, “makes a lot of sense.”
“If we totally lost [City Hall], it would take me 15 minutes to set up and be completely ready,” Sgt. Pat Cannon said, explaining that a live feed from City Hall to the upstairs training room is accessible through a secured pipeline.
In-house operations
According to Turner, the annex is “perfect for training, perfect for the bicycle squad, and perfect for the motorcycle squad,” because everything can be done in-house.
The greatest cost-saver, Welz said, is the training room upstairs, “because we can [train] in-house instead of farming it out to other agencies.” A typical class in the academy, according to Cannon, costs approximately $200 dollars.
Teaching officers in-house also allows for added police presence should an emergency arise.
Training in the annex, according to Weehawken Deputy Chief of Police Jeffrey Fulcher, also extends to seasoned officers, who can learn upgrades to the emergency management system.
Equipment such as an off-road transport vehicle for waterfront and remote locations are now housed in a safe, convenient space, rather than a trailer or the boiler room of City Hall. In-house repairs are also an option, according to Welz, with a lieutenant certified in auto repairs on call to repair bicycles.
“It really makes a lot of sense, and we wish the Police Department a lot of luck in their new home,” Silvestri Ehret said.
Deanna Cullen can be reached at dcullen@hudsonreporter.com.