Edison police director ordinance tabled
Township needs time to address legal concerns from state PBA
BY CHRIS GAETANO Staff Writer

EDISON - The Edison Township Council tabled a pair of ordinances that would establish a civilian police director as head of the township police department and change the criteria for promotion within the force. The announcement to do so was made Feb. 13 before a packed council chambers filled with local police officers opposed to both measures.

The choice to delay action on the matter was done amid certain legal concerns the New Jersey Policemen's Benevolent Association, the umbrella organization for local police unions, had raised with the township on the matter. There was a worry over whether a police director, if installed, would appropriate the powers and abilities usually reserved for a chief of police, which would be against state statute.

State PBA Executive Director Anthony Wieners said that the legal concern specifically has to do with whether giving the police director actual control over the daily affairs of the department would constitute