File photo: Woodlynne Municipal Building in 2020. Credit: Matt Skoufalos.

At a raucous meeting of its municipal government last Tuesday, the Woodlynne Borough Council voted both to dissolve its local police department and to proceed with a shared services agreement (SSA) with the Camden County Police Department for those services.

Since its formation in May 2013 after the dissolution of the Camden City Police Department, Camden County Police has frequently referred to itself as the “Metro Division.”

Although it’s a county department, and open to strategic deals that would absorb the police departments of other communities, its officers only police Camden City. Starting September 1, however, Camden Metro will add the quarter-mile, 2,900-resident community of Woodlynne to its jurisdiction.

Those changes were driven by a number of issues in Woodlynne, including a depleted roster of officers, none of whom ranks above Acting Sergeant, and several of whom were resigning, retiring, or statutorily unable to work enough hours to protect the community.

But Woodlynne Mayor Joseph Chukwueke believes his community could have preserved its police department with outside help, and alleged that he was frozen out of discussions that would have supported its ability to determine its own fate.

At the August 13 meeting of the Woodlynne Council, Chukwueke chose to read every item on the agenda — including a resolution establishing an SSA with Camden City for fire service — before coming to the items dissolving the Woodlynne Police Department and establishing an SSA with the Camden County Metro Police Department for public safety services.

Then — and with members of the Camden County Government and New Jersey Assembly in the audience — the mayor addressed the room.

“This is an ordinance made to abolish the police department of the Borough of Woodlynne,” Chukwueke said. “However, I’m standing in front of you here as your mayor of Woodlynne. I was not involved in any discussion between the Camden County Police and the Camden County Prosecutor. Even when we started to call them, they never returned our call.

“I don’t know any specific thing, or the specificity of all the things they discussed with the council,” the mayor continued. “I am willing to give them opportunity for a further discussion if they want to.

“I do not see why we should abolish our police department; for what reason,” Chukwueke said. “They did not come talk to me. They did not talk to our attorney. I am tabling this discussion.”

Despite offering publicly to make himself available to county officials to speak about the terms of the agreement, the council then began to move forward with introducing the resolutions themselves. Confusion set in instantly.

The conversation that followed was inaudible beyond the dais. The crowd in the room grew impatient, calling out to the elected officials to speak up. Eventually, the mayor called for a five-minute recess to confer with solicitor Darryl Rhone.

Afterwards, Rhone addressed the crowd, attempting to re-establish the proceedings by reminding them that whatever action the council took, it wouldn’t change the function of the policing in the borough overnight.

“Every member of the governing body has a distinct opinion about that [issue],” Rhone said, and then, “a supermajority of the council has asked to move that forward.”

The council introduced and approved both measures by a unanimous, 4-0 vote, with council members Wilfredo Rodriguez, Pablo Fuentes, Edwin Fontanez, and Council President Sharon Earley in favor.

Council members Shana Feliciano and Lavar Edwards were not present for the proceedings; Feliciano was attending her son’s birthday party, and Edwards, who had previously chaired the borough Department of Emergency Management, resigned his position, officials reported.

The structure of the Woodlynne Council dictates that the mayor only votes in the event of a tie, and so Chukwueke did not register a vote on these matters.

Camden County Metro Police Officers address Woodlynne Council meeting. Credit: Matt Skoufalos.

‘A lot of unknowns’

After the resolutions cleared the vote, Camden County Metro Police Chief Gabriel Rodriguez was invited to address borough residents about the issues Woodlynne faces in its policing.

“The situation is scary,” Rodriguez said.

“I’ve heard some things that are unreal: staffing issues, management issues, crimes going unreported,” the chief said.

“Three full-time officers to cover seven days a week. They don’t have supervision; they’re not receiving training. We don’t know if their jobs are being handled the way they should be.”

Several times throughout the meeting, members of the governing body offered that Woodlynne has a low rate of crime. Rodriguez’s remarks underscored that those prior data won’t be strong predictors of future outcomes if the borough police department isn’t stabilized.

“Bad people are going to be released,” the chief sad. “People are going to be re-victimized. Internal affairs matters is something I’m huge on, as is professionalism and accountability. A lot of that is not being provided as well. A lot of unknowns.”

Having lived through the disbanding of the Camden City Police Department in the course of forming the Camden County Metro Division — a process whereby he was twice laid off — Rodriguez said he appreciates the discomfort of the circumstances.

“It was a horrible experience that our police department was being disbanded,” the chief said. “I don’t think there was one officer that wanted this to happen. In hindsight, 11 years later, it was the best thing that ever happened to Camden City.”

Camden County Metro Deputy Chief Janell Simpson, who oversees internal affairs, professional standards, and compliance, told the residents in attendance, “You guys really need the oversight on investigations.”

After the meeting, Simpson said, plainly, “This is not a functional police department.

“The police officers are doing their best,” she continued. “Woodlynne does not have the same crime issues remotely close to [those of]  the city of Camden, but they’re lacking the leadership and the fundamentals to keep a police department functional and up to standards. And they’re getting burnt out.”

Other Camden Metro officers, like Captain Vivian Coley, spoke about the benefits of employing community policing strategies in Woodlynne, including reviving the borough municipal building to facilitate events as much as to modernize its police offices.

“Barbecue, senior bingo, open gym for the youth,” Coley said. “We want to give them a safe place to enjoy themselves.”

Woodlynne Mayor Joseph Chukwueke reviews the Woodlynne police roster with a borough resident. Credit: Matt Skoufalos.

When the officers had finished speaking, Chukwueke rose and addressed the room.

“I don’t have any beef if Metro comes to town or not,” he said.

“But as a Christian, I want things done right,” the mayor said.

“God does not sleep. It’s just that way.”

Those remarks touched off a chaotic public comment session, with community members like Elizabeth Huerta chastising elected officials for the disarray.

“This is not about God or anything like that,” Huerta said. “This is about the safety of our families and our property and our taxes being charged. We just need clarity when somebody calls, and somebody to help us and help our family when there’s a situation.”

Huerta, who said she’s experienced plenty of criminal behavior on her property, including trespassers and people exposing themselves, was plainly frustrated.

“This is just crazy,” she said. “We need the help  [of Camden Metro]; we need their technology. We need them. You’re going to wait until something happens to one of our kids?”

Resident Luis Reinoso said he isn’t opposed to the cost of paying for police services, nor to officers choosing to leave the department. But he also said he wouldn’t wait for the borough to figure it out.

“How fast can I get a weapon to defend my family if there are issues?” Reinoso said. “I have to defend my family. If they don’t want to work here, then they can leave.

“I only have two choices: I stay here, or I move,” he said. “We have to find a solution not only for the community but for everybody.”

Woodlynne resident Elizabeth Huerta expresses her public safety concerns to the borough government. Credit: Matt Skoufalos.

‘The deficiencies started piling up’

After the meeting, Earley spoke about the collapse of the Woodlynne Police Department owing to issues with staffing and supervision.

The bulk of its force comprises Special Law Enforcement Officers (SLEOs), whose work hours are statutorily limited.

The position is meant to help recent academy graduates to find their footing as they train into the role of full-time police officers.

Amid the struggles to recruit full-time officers, Woodlynne SLEOs worked more hours than they were statutorily able to. When a long-term solution never materialized, the department continued to turn over recruits.

“That’s where the deficiencies started piling up,” Earley said.

“We have kids going through the academy; they won’t graduate ‘til December, and once they do graduate, they’re still going to need training,” she said. “They don’t come out and know everything right off the bat.”

Earley, a 32-year resident of the borough, said she voted to move forward with the Camden Metro SSA despite Chukwueke being “not onboard with it.”

“As much as every small town likes to keep their small-town department, it’s just not feasible,” Earley said. “We’ll have the manpower; way better technology than you’d ever see.”

Asked to account for the outcries of residents during the meeting, the council president replied, “They’re concerned. They have every right to be.”

For his part, Chukwueke railed against a process that he said had “spooked” the Woodlynne Police duty roster into resigning or retiring, and from which he claimed to have been excluded.

After the meeting, the mayor spoke further about the difficulty the borough police department has had retaining officers, stretching back a year or longer, when he said the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office (CCPO) notified Woodlynne that it would begin monitoring its police department.

Woodlynne Council President Sharon Earley (foreground) and Council Member Edwin Fontanez. Credit: Matt Skoufalos.

As a Civil Service Commission jurisdiction, the borough is bound by regulations that constrain both its pool of applicants and the process involved in hiring them.

Chukwueke said CCPO offered to help navigate those regulations to broaden the pool of applicants from which the department could hire.

The Woodlynne Police Department was led by a civilian public safety director, Edwin Ramos, who resigned his position last week. Behind Ramos, the highest-ranking officer in the department is 28-year veteran Acting Sergeant Luis Ruiz, who is retiring September 1.

Nobody in the department is qualified to test for a higher officer rank, and without a waiver, civil service regulations for intergovernmental transfers mandate that ranking officers may only join a new department at an entry-level title when they move.

“You can’t leave another department or civil service commission will drop you down,” Chukwueke said. “You cannot hire somebody of a higher rank and put them in.”

The mayor said that he had tried to work around these regulations, attempting to secure a waiver from Trenton to bring in an Atlantic City Police Officer at the rank of captain. When that didn’t happen, Chukwueke said he attempted to recruit a retired New Jersey State Trooper to fill Ramos’ position at the civilian level, but by that point, the groundwork for the deal with Camden Metro had already been laid.

Chukwueke said that he even went as far as to reach out to mayors of other Camden County communities — Cherry Hill, Collingswood, and Pennsauken — to explore a shared service agreement that would allow one of their ranking officers to oversee the Woodlynne department.

“I have had prior conversations with other mayors around us,” Chukwueke said. “At that time, we were going for shared services of the whole department, but when I found out that none of them would do that, I said, ‘Can I just have one leader to lead my department?’

“Even if it’s a captain or a lieutenant, I just want to have that shared service,” Chukwueke said. “We will provide them with a laptop, we will provide them with a phone, anything they need for the prosecutor.

“All of a sudden nobody talked to me again.”

Assemblyman Bill Spearman and Camden County Commissioners Melinda Kane and Ed McDonnell at the August 13 Woodlynne Council meeting. Credit: Matt Skoufalos.

Shopping for services

Local leaders from those respective communities confirmed that Chukwueke had made those requests, but ultimately, that they were unable to divert any of their own policing resources to the task.

“What he was asking was very unrealistic for us,” Pennsauken Mayor Marco DiBattista said.

“It’s very difficult being fully staffed.

“We are able to maintain a safe environment in our community with what we have, [but] it’s a dance,” DiBattista said. “I was respectful of what he asked me, but I told him the probability of that doesn’t really exist.”

Collingswood Mayor Jim Maley said he fielded a call from Rhone, who “knew my answer before he got his question out.”

For four years, Collingswood had policed Woodlynne through a shared-service agreement that ended in 2010 with Woodlynne re-establishing its own police force, and “the nicest way to put it is, it just didn’t work out,” Maley said.

“Today, we have pressures like keeping people,” he said. “Our staffing issues continue; we’re not at all in a position to take on more.”

Jennifer Sweet, Director of Communications for Cherry Hill Mayor David Fleisher, said that Chukwueke’s request “just wasn’t feasible.”

UPDATE (August 19, 2024, 1:30 p.m.): In response to Mayor Chukwueke’s allegations about being left out of the discussions about the Woodlynne Police Department, the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office issued the following statement:

The Camden County Prosecutor’s Office (CCPO) has been working with the Woodlynne Police Department since early 2023 and officially began monitoring the Police Department in November of that year.

The CCPO has had numerous meetings with the Woodlynne Council, Mayor, and Solicitor to discuss a plan moving forward.

In December of 2023, the CCPO obtained an independent assessment of the Woodlynne Police Department from the New Jersey State Chief’s of Police Association.

The purpose of this assessment was to identify any deficiencies within the Police Department and to provide a roadmap to effectively addressing them and thus provide stability to the Police Department.

Subsequent to those meetings, Public Safety Director Ramos issued a memorandum stating, in sum, that the Police Department was not sustainable and cited numerous deficiencies.

The issuance of this memorandum resulted in Woodlynne seeking the Public Safety and Community Outreach services of the Camden County Police Department for the borough of Woodlynne.

As previously stated, the consolidation of the Woodlynne Police Department to become part of the Camden County Police Department will at long last afford the residents of Woodlynne comprehensive public safety and community outreach.

The Camden County Police Department is a nationally recognized model for community policing and has a proven track record of success in addressing crime, the needs of the community, and building sustainable relationships with community partners.

Formed on a foundation of mutual trust and respect, these new relationships will serve as an impetus for positive change in Woodlynne.

This consolidation will enable Woodlynne to prosper as a community.

The Camden County Prosecutor’s Office joins with Camden County leadership in full support of this initiative.

CCPO Chief Bob Ferris also challenged Chukwueke’s timeline of events, and denied that the prosecutor’s office was in any way trying to undercut the ability of the community to police itself.

Ferris said the CCPO first met with Woodlynne in September 2023 to speak about helping to rebuild a department that had been battling to replenish a depleted staff.

Its plan at that point was to help Woodlynne Police reinforce its patrol functions and offload the work of investigations to CCPO — work that Ferris said the prosecutor’s office has been performing since November 2023, when it began monitoring the department.

“We never used the word ‘takeover,'” he said; “we never intended to supersede the department.”

File photo: Camden County Prosecutor’s Office. Credit: Matt Skoufalos.

As Woodlynne began seeking new candidates for the department, CCPO performed the background checks to vet those candidates, which led to three recruits enrolling in the academy, Ferris said.

“We weren’t scaring anybody out,” the chief said.

“We were trying to help that department become stable for people to work there.”

Chukwueke had said that CCPO offered to help the department get a new website, which Ferris confirmed. However, the mechanism to do that would have involved Woodlynne signing a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) to join the National Law Enforcement and Community Policing Integrated Network, which Chukwueke declined to do.

“That was one thing we felt we could come in right away and change the outlook,” Ferris said.

The CCPO chief also denied that his office had helped Woodlynne circumvent statutory requirements for the use of SLEOs, which limit the number of such officers that may comprise a police department, the hours they may work, and the nature of the duties they may be assigned.

“We never gave them any compliance waivers or said their SLEOs could work longer hours,” Ferris said. “They had six SLEOs; you’re allowed a maximum of two under Title IV. They were told that numerous times. You’re allowed to designate one SLEO to work over the 20-hour threshold. That was a majority of the police force.”

Likewise, Ferris said CCPO does not have the authority to change any civil service requirements, nor to issue compliance waivers for processes that don’t meet those statutes. He said the prosecutor’s office had directed Woodlynne to meet with the Civil Service Commission on those issues directly.

As far as general communication obstacles, Ferris said that Woodlynne has retained three different solicitors in the past nine months with which his office has discussed these issues. He confirmed that, in July 2024, CCPO had been working on background checks that would have facilitated the transfer of a police captain to Woodlynne from Atlantic City.

That process was halted, however, after Woodlynne Public Safety Director Edwin Ramos’ July 31 memo to CCPO Deputy Chief Randy McNair seeking guidance on how to provide police protection for the town as its ranks were continuing to thin.

“We’ve been working with Woodlynne all year to try to move them forward and try to become a more sustainable police department,” Ferris said. “We are still monitoring the Woodlynne Police Department; based on the letter written by Ramos, oversight from CCPO was the action plan.

“We didn’t assign Camden County Metro to oversee the police department,” Ferris said. “That was an agreement between local and county governments.”

Next steps

Two days after Woodlynne Council pushed forward with the resolution to dissolve its police department and sign an SSA with Camden Metro, the Camden County Government similarly passed a resolution “for the provision of temporary law enforcement services” starting September 1 on a 30-day basis.

That resolution also allows for the extension of those services “on an emergent basis, if necessary.”

Rodriguez told the public that Camden Metro will host a community meeting with the residents of Woodlynne on August 26.

That meeting will be held at 7 p.m. at the Asbury Community Church, 2220 Woodlynne Avenue in Woodlynne.

Stick with NJ Pen for updates.