IRVINGTON, NJ — Irvington Township was well-represented at East Orange Mayor-elect Ted Green’s Public Safety Meeting inside the Langston Hughes Elementary School Auditorium in East Orange on Tuesday, Dec. 12, thanks to the participation of Public Safety Director Tracy Bowers and Deputy Public Safety Director John Brown.
Both Bowers and Brown are part of the Public Safety Team on Green’s transition team, headed by Chairwoman Tracy Munford and Executive Director Bo Kemp, with U.S. Sen. Cory Booker serving as honorary chairman. Former Irvington Police Department Capt. Amanda Koontz is also a member of Green’s Public Safety Team.
Green also served as the director of Irvington’s Building Department, which may explain how Bowers and Brown wound up on his transition team. In much the same way his friend, Mayor Tony Vauss, has made it his mission to make Irvington Clean and Safe, Green has said public safety will be the top priority of his new administration in East Orange.
“Let me just thank all of you for coming out this evening and sharing with our transitional Public Safety Team but, first of all, I want to thank all of these men and women who have been working very hard over the last two or three months. We have individuals with experience, not only in law enforcement, but other areas, too, from former police officers to current police officers, to current and retired firefighters, to members of the Essex County Sheriff’s Department to the Prosecutor’s Office and public safety directors, not to mention our only female, Amanda Koontz, who sits on our transitional team and with Billy Oliver and Ron Salahuddin,” said Green on Tuesday, Dec. 12.
“As we walked and knocked on doors during this election, one of the things that we committed to that’s essential to really make East Orange great again is public safety and, when it comes to public safety, we think of you first.”
It won’t be any easier in East Orange than it was in Irvington, according to Bowers, who said at Vauss’ third annual State of the Township Address that he, the mayor and Irvington Public Safety Department employee Joseph Santiago once used East Orange’s success in fighting crime and increasing public safety as a model to inspire the Irvington Police Division.
This is in light of Irvington suffering its sixth homicide of the year Saturday, Dec. 9. Ahmad J. Carson, 33, of Newark, was shot and killed on Myrtle Avenue shortly after 1 a.m. that day; the fifth homicide of the year was Monday, Dec. 4, just five days earlier, when Marco Angamarca-Yupa, 29, of Irvington, was shot and killed on the 800 block of Grove Street.
Irvington suffered four homicides last year and, 14 in in 2015.
“Last year, we had a record low number of reported crime. Now, we are up against our own success,” said Bowers on Tuesday, Sept. 12. “In November 2017 and January 2018, we are planning to add more police officers to the force, to replace officers that have retired, as well as those officers who will be retiring in 2018 and 2019.”
But first Bowers and Brown have to help Green out in East Orange. They said his public safety meeting was a good first step to addressing concerns from residents.
“It was excellent,” Bowers said. “It’s a tremendous thing to get information from the community so, when he comes in and takes control of the administration, he can hit the ground running with the information that he had. So he doesn’t have to start from the beginning. He has a lot of information that he can implement simultaneously, as soon as he takes office.“
Brown agreed with Bowers.
“The only way to solve a problem is to know what the problem is,” said Brown, who formerly served as a battalion chief and spokesman for the Newark Police Department, prior to being named Irvington Public Safety Department deputy director, on Tuesday, Dec. 12. “That way, you know what the problem is, by getting get it from the community, from the people that are right there. This is a great forum, having direct information from the community, so that he can start using from Day One on the job.”
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