@Thomas It was stated last night that the third-party biller being considered promises a 35% reduction in false alarms.

I believe the push for registration is more about getting the police a complete and accurate account of emergency contact information for residents/businesses/non-profits across town since that is currently lacking. Currently, Sgt. Schultz said he spends about an hour each day just doing paperwork on false alarms and contact info that could be spent more productively elsewhere if a third-party biller took this out of the police's hands.

As it was discussed last night -- with only five officers on patrol at a time, when two are responding to a false alarm, it's a significant blow to the available manpower

You also fail to recognize that many FL Volunteer Fire and Rescue personnel are employed by the town. When they leave their jobs to respond to a false alarm, those are lost man hours. Plus the fuel and resources that are wasted when fire apparatus has to be transported to a scene only to be turned around. Add to that the road hazards by having volunteers responding on our roads to their fire stations with their blue lights and then rigs responding, light and sirens to the scene.

Zak, thank you for the follow up.

IF They really expect a 35% reduction in false alarms, the council should have no problem with setting a baseline 10% less then the current number of false alarms as an automatic sunset provision.

IF Sgt Schultz is spending 5 hours a week on paperwork, we need to understand why. I doubt its his proficiency, maybe we should look at the process. Maybe we should look at the whole department's processes for potential savings.

Since we are no longer charging for registration, how does the 3rd party get paid? Will it be just an additional expense? Or will we see a reduction in the police budget to capture these savings?

How do we ensure this third party maintains the data on who does (and by omission doesn't) have an alarm? What safe guards do we have for that personal data? Doesn't the alarm company ask their clients whom to contact? Isn't it already illegal for a robocall, and such the police are speaking with a live person who already has that information?

@FL1985 I fully recognize what the volunteers do. Bergen County is fortunate to have so many people willing and able to volunteer. I patronize their fund raisers, their flowers were a hit this year.

The problem is the proposed ordinance has nothing to do with reducing false alarms. Its the improvement over the years in the technologies that Tyco and some of the smaller players have integrated into their systems. Its process improvements in how they respond to those signals. Aside from reducing the number of alarm systems, there isn't much Fair Lawn can do to curtail the number of false alarms.

Thomas, while it is the fee increases that generate your comments let me speak of spending cuts. The proposed 2012 budget as presented to council has a 1.04% increase over last year or an increase of $474,678.95. Yet salaries, health care and other expenses have increased $1,446,463. The difference is spending cuts.

The issue facing Fair Lawn is the depleting surplus. Almost 10 million dollars in 2008 it will be under three million this year. To ignore this problem today will result in a major financial crisis in 2014.

This is all public information, check it out!

"In the know", its nice to see more new profiles commenting, healthy discussions are vital to good governance.

When I do my budget, the total matters. An increase in the total is an increase in the total no matter how you slice it. When I reduce my spending at the supermarket by switching from prepared foods to making the meals myself, that is a cut. But when I spend more then I save on other expenses like tax increases and generally spend more then I reduced spending, that's not really a cut in my budget, its an actually increase. Your pointing out that we INCREASED our spending.

I will concede reducing expenses is a cut. And frankly I would love to see the manager publish some details on where those cuts came from. This town, like most other does a poor job of publishing that information.

@In the know - where did you get the budget detail from?

The budget crisis is not coming in 2014. Its here now. Waiting to loose so much blood that you faint makes matters worse. We are bleeding now. We need to address this now. The answer isn't more infusions, its less bleeding.

I know previous regimes made matters worse, like the $800,000+ a year we lose on the community center. But this council signed up for the job at hand. As you point out, its public information, they asked for our trust, they represented they knew what they were doing. What's new? Some of them were around to vote for these spending projects.

Why is it that government employees are guaranteed not only pay increases, benefit increases for longevity, but an increase on what those increase should be. Should we have a tax assessor who makes $153,000+ a clerk that makes $145,000+ a year?

Thomas, the boro manager discussed the numbers with the council last evening at the work session.

I wonder why the borough hasn't published that information on its website....

Agreed and that was something I was wondering about last night - I did not understand how if a fine was sent out it was not collected - however, it was mentioned that these fines go to court and the judge can dismiss them - something I don't understand but will be attending the next council meeting to find out more

http://www.northjersey.com/news/82227302_Sergeant_tries_to_disarm_a_live_mortar.html

He sure was, I wonder what the outcome was to the investigation.......

@Interested: no requirement for people to update information with alarm companys and the majority of the time the company barely has an information to provide that is useful for a followup. Quick question, when did this issue of your alarm and issued summons occur and in what town? Something doesn't seem right...

If you received a summons, it was not your first false alarm.

My mistake..I realized after I posted...it was a warning, but, nonetheless upsetting to receive in that circumstance when we were truly afraid someone had broken into our house in the middle of the night. We also had an instance in which we were away and there was a bad windstorm here. our alarm company called to tell us the alarm went off but we didn't want to tell them to send the police in case it was the wind that had set it off. Why should we have to be uneasy that our house was possibly broken into while we were way because we didn't want another warning or summons in case it was the wind? what is the purpose then of having an alarm?? things happen and sometimes the alarms are false, but again, circumstance should dictate

@Interested Party There will be a provision for false alarms that occur during extenuating circumstances (like during serious weather events or while you're on vacation, etc.) and the council wanted these situations to be considered individually when fines are assessed.

Mr. Antonelli, What would you like to see cut? Last night it was revealed the 2012 budget has a 1.04% increase. It will cost you more than that to run your own household. Have you purchased gasoline in the past week? So lets say to have a zero increase will take $1,000,000. Keeping in mind that this cut is not a one year cut but forever, list what you would like to see cut.

When in the minority Mr Trawinski pointed out the library is $700k over funded.

Memorial Pool is used by less then 10% of the population for a mere 2 months.

We have over 100 employees who make more than $100k while the median salary is 1/3 of that.

We could have saved on health benefits.

The council has some explaining to do.

@Bruce: holding who accountable? Alarm violations ARE handled but there is no incentive for compliance under the current outdated ordinance, if there had been then we would be seeing as many violators with double digit amount of false alarms. Updating the ordinance would hold the person with an alarm responsible and bring them into compliance AND reduce the amount of false alarms

Chris, you post here, Wyckoff, Teaneck, Fort Lee, Paramus, Franklin Lakes, Ridgewood, Overdell/River Edge, Glen Rock, Mahwah, Hasbrouck Heights, Tewksbury, New Milford, Bridgewater, Cranford, Huntington, Westwood/Washington Township, Poway, CA, Bensalem, PA, Attleboro, MA, Albany, CA, Redondo Beach, CA

Should I continue?