NEW JERSEY COPS ■ AUGUST 2014
5
We will get through all of this together
If the phone rings at 3 a.m. and you are sleeping, you answer the call. That is what we always
do. That is what we are trained to do. Because if
somebody is calling at 3 a.m., it’s probably somebody who needs help. And it’s probably a brother or a sister officer.
My phone seemed to ring non-stop during
Marc Kovar the early morning hours a few weeks ago. The
call came
14 with the word that JerExecutive firstCity Police on July Melvin Santiago had been
sey
Officer
Viceshot and killed in the line of duty.
President
Now, Officer Santiago is not a PBA member,
but he is a brother in blue. This was a New Jersey
police officer that was killed, and after the phone call, the text
messages started rolling in. I reached out to Ken Burkert, the
chairman of the PBA Peer Liaison Committee, and we went
down to the Jersey City precinct where it happened to offer our
assistance. We met Carmine Disbrow, President of the Jersey City
Police Officers Benevolent Association, and Vinny Disbrow, the
First Vice President, and we talked to some of the kids who were
in the academy with Officer Santiago and some of the veteran
Jersey City cops who had been on the job 20-25 years. We told
them we are your brothers and we’re here to help.
POBA or PBA, initials didn’t matter here. We came together
and we made it through together.
Four days later, the phone rings again at 3 a.m. Another officer has been killed. This can’t be happening. We went up to
Waldwick and met Mark Butler, the Bergen County Conference
Chairman, and Vincent Rizzo, the Allendale/Waldwick Local 217
State Delegate of which Christopher Goodell was a member. We
saw the scene. We talked to the dispatchers and the officers up
there. Waldwick borders several other Bergen County towns,
and the members from all the border towns responded in ways
I will never forget. It made me think of how we are at our best
when the times are at their worst. Again, this comes back to the
camaraderie we share.
After that, I was trying to get to Montana for the National
Association of Police Organizations (NAPO) annual conference
when the phone rang again at 1 a.m. A couple of Beachwood
members were in a bad accident, and one had to be air-lifted
to the hospital. And then another call came in a few days later
about a Clifton officer who was hurt on the job. Fortunately, all
three of these guys are going to be OK.
But, again, these incidents show us answering the call no mat-
THE PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE FROM PAGE 4
little influence on how and where our investments are
made. The director is appointed by the treasurer; the
treasurer is nominated by the governor. FINDINGS:
Legislate a change to our Investment Council and give
it some teeth. Let US decide who gets OUR money and
what kind of risk and fees we want to pay. It should not
be in the hands of a person politically connected to a
sitting governor - ANY sitting Governor.
The time is now 3:08 p.m. I am now disbanding my commission after 21 minutes of work resolving the New Jersey
ter the time or circumstance. We come running. That’s what we
are trained to do.
Now, fast forward to the afternoon of Christopher Goodell’s
funeral: The governor is holding one of his town-hall meetings
at a spot on Long Beach Island right next to where cops, firefighters and teachers came together to build a playground to
honor Lauren Russo, one of the teachers killed in the Sandy
Hook Elementary School shootings in Newtown, Connecticut.
This was one of the playgrounds constructed as part of the
“Sandy Ground Project” former FMBA President Bill Lavin is
running to honor the Sandy Hook victims.
Once again, we came running in a time of need. Our members staged a rally on the site to let the governor know how disrespectful he was being by holding his meeting here. Sure, it’s
frustrating the governor would be so disrespectful, and, on top
of that, he started the meeting by taking more verbal shots at
public workers.
Still, the governor might not have said so, but he knew we
were there. He felt our presence. We always make our presence
felt.
NJ State PBA President Pat Colligan and I have begun to meet
with state legislators. We have asked them about the governor.
We will continue to demand explanations, and to get them, we
will need to make our presence felt. Like Pat says, we are all the
union, so we must come together and respond.
You know how to do this. You do it every day on the job. You
do it to support the PBA. You do it to support your brothers and
sisters. And just like when my phone was ringing throughout
that tumultuous week, you come together every time the call
comes at 3 a.m. d
pension crisis. I really wish I could say that this is in jest and
an exaggeration, but unfortunately and sadly it isn't. The
work and the research really have been done already. All the
answers are well known to everybody. My job right now is to
make sure that whoever is sitting at this desk a decade from
now will not be dealing with yet another "new" commission
from another governor that has to deal with an unfunded
pension.
Fool us all Mr. Governor; make a quarterly payment and
show us some good faith. Some politicians just break promises. Not making these payments is breaking the law.d