A Safer City

Bill O’Dea believes strongly that every single neighborhood in Jersey City must be a safe place to live, work and raise a family, and that every resident deserves to feel safe where they live. As Mayor, Bill will modernize and improve police operations and install a modern COMPSTAT system that ensures police know where hotspots and problem areas are located to deploy resources efficiently, addressing criminal activity before it happens utilizing preventive techniques. As Mayor, Bill will mandate weekly performance meetings of senior police staff to address conditions in neighborhoods that have a high concentration of crime and will demand results for residents.

Bill’s Plan for a Safer City Includes:

Better Management for a Safer City

1. On Day One, separate the Police and Fire Departments, each with its own Director with relevant experience in managing large organizations. 2. Create a JCPD Traffic Squad in part by reactivating the defunct Motorcycle Squad in order to significantly improve traffic safety and enforcement. 3. Eliminate the stationary squad car for an entire shift policy. Convert to direct patrols of small areas and allow officers to respond to calls for service in those areas. 4. Deploy motorcycle and bicycle units in high-crime areas to foster a strong presence and signal a zero-tolerance approach to criminal activity. These specialized units will enhance rapid response times, act as a deterrent, and provide a visible commitment to public safety. 5. Eliminate over-deployment to calls for service and accident calls. Currently, many calls for responses result in over-deployment of law enforcement personnel, especially when units stay longer than needed at calls where one unit can handle resolution of the matter. This can lead to manpower shortages in other areas. Police Department supervisors must effectively manage units deployed to address accidents and arrests to ensure units return to patrol and call for services as quickly as possible. 6. Streamline bureaucratic processes to expedite purchasing and ensure the fire and police departments receive essential gear without unnecessary delays. 7. Undertake a study to see if bringing ambulance service under the Fire Department can be a more cost effective approach to providing these services.

Learn more about Bill's plans for JC

"My commitment to public safety goes back to my college years when I started a group called Citizens Against Crime that lobbied successfully for a minimum police staffing law and minimum sentencing for handgun crimes, through serving as Chair of the City Council Public Safety Committee, to working closely with community leaders to make our neighborhoods safer.” — Bill

Investing in Public Safety

1. Ensure that fire companies are never closed due to understaffing, especially during holiday season. 2. Expand and better monitor Urban Enterprise Zone extra duty patrols funded through Special Improvement District budgets, in order to ensure that shoppers feel safe and patronize local businesses. 3. Create a separate five year capital plan for police needs and for fire needs and commit the funding for them. Bond for these improvements utilizing Hudson County Improvement Authority programs if needed based on bonding capacity and bond rating. 4. Hire dedicated grant writers at the Jersey City Fire Department to help fund the department and reapply for grants that the city no longer receives. 5. Fund Fire Prevention and empower it again to enforce the fire code by ensuring the department is fully staffed with the inspectors — this investment would pay for itself in additional revenue and preventing losses from fires. 6. As the City is expanding both horizontally and vertically, there is a need for more fire houses and better equipment. 7. Building a new fire house in the Bayfront development will be a priority and should be tied into the early phase of the development. 8. Ensure the JCFD has adequate civilian administrative staffing to assist in administrative paperwork. At the current moment, if an administrator gets injured on an emergency call, the work does not get completed until they return.

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HELP BILL FIGHT FOR JC

Putting Our Community First

1. Create a de-escalation center to handle incidents responded to by the ARRIVE TOGETHER program. I am currently working with JC Housing Authority, Alliance Health and local clergy and non-profits to develop a mental health de-escalation center with health and mental health services on Oak Street and MLK. This will allow diversion to proper care as opposed to an arrest or being brought to the JC Medical Center, allow officers to get back on patrol sooner, and make the ARRIVE-TOGETHER program more effective. 2. Revamp JCPD’s internal community policing policies and procedures; giving community relation officers a more active role in community building. 3. Implement a policy in domestic violence cases where consultation with a licensed professional (utilizing local nonprofits) shall be required before a restraining order is lifted. 4. The City will partner with Jersey City Public Schools and Hudson County Community College to build a career pipeline for police, fire, correction and sheriff officers The Jersey City Public Safety Junior Academy. It will include Summer Youth paid internships at fire houses and Police/Sheriff and Corrections facilities 5. The City’s 911 Communications system MUST remain under the City’s control; will ensure that the department is modernized and fully staffed. Provide ongoing in-service training to existing employees and new hirees. 6. Provide additional funding to both the PAL and BLESC and encourage more uniformed officers to volunteer time to these expanded programs. 7. Increase police presence in immediate school areas for traffic violations.