Two on council object to hiring
Retirement wave looms, but Gerlach, Siegel oppose adding 11 officers
Allentown hired 11 police officers this week, and some officials hope to bring more on board in anticipation of a looming retirement wave.
City Council voted 5-2 on Wednesday to bring on 11 patrolmen at a starting salary of $60,807 each. Joshua Siegel and Ce-Ce Gerlach, who voted no, argued that the action is fiscally irresponsible and runs counter to their goal of re-imagining the city’s public safety initiatives.
The recruitment class will, at least temporarily, bring the
police department up to full staff (222 officers) for the first time in several years, city police Chief Glenn Granitz Jr. said. It will also enable the department to tap a 3-year-old, $750,000 federal grant to hire six additional officers specifically for community policing.
Grant recipients must be at full staff before tapping the funds. Allentown is in the process of conducting background investigations on many other applicants, Granitz said, andhopestomakethe additional hires soon.
“We have made it a priority to utilize this grant in order to again attain actual community policing in Allentown,” Granitz said Friday.
The department will be recruiting intensely for a while. Thirty officers are eligible to retire with a pension at the end of this year, and another 40 will become eligible by the end of 2021, whenAllentown’s police contract also happens to expire.
Council President Daryl Hendricks, a former Allentown police captain, said he expects at least 11 officers to retire by the end of the year, and fears another 30 or more will choose to retire by the end of 2021. He blamed it on a nationwide “climate of negativity toward police.”
“Many people say to me, ‘I don’t understand why anyone would want to be a police officer anymore,’” Hendricks said. “Unfortunately, manypeople in our ranks across the country feel that way, too, and the first opportunity they get to retire, they are doing so.”
City Council passed a bill earlier this year that allowed the police department to actively recruit previously certified officers who do not have to attend the city police academy, cutting about eight months of training before they can hit the streets.
Among Wednesday’s hires, six can immediately enter the department’s field training program. Granitz and Assistant Chief Bill Lake emphasized that all the hires were thoroughly vetted, and that the department’s existing hiring process meet the standards outlined in a recently passed state bill related to background checks.
The bill requires police departments to disclose to other departments their officers’ employment histories, including disciplinary actions, complaints and reasons for separation, if applicable.
The latest recruitment class includes four women and two Hispanic maleofficers. Oneisbilingual, and several speak Spanish to some degree, Granitz said.
Lake commended Human ResourcesDirectorMeloneySallieDosunmu for her involvement not just in the initial vetting stage but throughout in the hiring process, helping the department identify behavioral red flags of some applicants along the way.
Gerlach said she voted against the additional police hires because it came less than two weeks before City Council and Mayor Ray O’Connell’s administration commence 2021 budget negotiations.
During those negotiations, Gerlach vowedto pursue “budgetary, policy and protocol changes” within the department establishing a “more holistic approach” to public safety. This includes reallocating some police budget toward funding other professionals who Gerlach believes would be better suited to handle “social service calls” related to mental health incidents, drug and alcohol abuse, and homelessness issues.
“I think a more appropriate time to discuss items with large budgetary impacts is during the budget season,” she said. “Weneed to prevent crime, which means investments in education, housing and employment opportunities.”
O’Connell plans to deliver on
Oct. 19 a proposed budget with no tax increase, and a deficit once projected at nearly $10 million has been cut to less than $400,000.
But the pandemic’s long-term budgetary ramifications aren’t yet clear, Siegel said, and even if the additional police positions were already baked into the budget, hiring is a bad look when all other city departments are being pressured to make additional cuts.
Siegel also questioned the wisdom of accepting the 2017 federal grant. While it covers six additional officers’ initial compensation, city taxpayers will bear the long-term burden of funding a “bloated” police budget, he said.
Dismissing community policing as a “buzzword,” Siegel said he doesn’t believe simply increasing the presence of police in a given neighborhood will prevent crime or even lead to more crimes being solved. The city, he said, should instead focus on addressing the social inequities that actually drive crime — like a lack of affordable housing, treatment services and recreational opportunities for youth.
Siegel and Gerlach have butted heads with other council members since a July incident outside St. Luke’s Hospital-Sacred Heart, whenapolice officerusedhis knee to restrain Edward Borrero Jr.
The first-year council members participated in many ensuing protests and publicly apologized to Borrero after a July 15 council meeting (Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin later concluded the officer’s use of force wasnotexcessive). Theyalso introduced a resolution calling for a slew of police reforms, including departmental funding cuts, reflecting a nationwide debate following George Floyd’s death at the hands of police in May.