Another anonymous letter from someone with knowledge inside the township’s police department is alleging, yet again, that the department is circumventing the state law against mandating ticket quotas.
According to the letter, officers are being questioned when the number of summonses they issue is low in comparison with their colleagues’ numbers — a way around the illegal practice of creating a mandatory number of summonses for each officer to issue.
“The department can’t tell us to write 20 or 30 summonses, but they feel they can say we are low as per department average or in comparison to other officers,” states the letter. “What if you have two or three officers writing a tremendous amount of summonses? Are we compared to that average?”
The letter also alleges that the department is trying to “mask” its violation of the ticket quota law by also measuring other numbers — including whether an officer is performing fewer “area checks” in comparison with other officers. “This is not their ‘personal improvement plan’ program that they use to force officers to write summonses,” the letter states. “This is directly asking officers why they are not writing an amount of summonses which is quantitatively based on an average of other officers. That is a violation of the quota law.”
Police Chief Richard Furda said he had no comment on the letter.
