Mayor appoints Brown as new OEM coordinator

IRVINGTON, NJ — Mayor Tony Vauss appointed Deputy Public Safety Director John Brown to serve as his new Office of Emergency Management coordinator during his swearing-in ceremony on Sunday, July 1, at Christian Pentecostal Church on Clinton Avenue.

Both Vauss and Public Safety Director Tracy Bowers said Brown’s new job won’t preclude him from continuing as Bowers’ deputy.

“John Brown is still in the capacity of deputy public safety director, as well as OEM,” said Vauss on Monday, July 16.

“John is still the deputy Public Safety director, as well as the OEM coordinator,” Bowers stated Monday, July 16. “Joseph Santiago is still employed here in police department administration, where he works in policy and planning, as well as serving as a hearing officer designee for disciplinary matters. He’s also doing some consultant work in Mountainside, not Maplewood.”

Bowers and Vauss said the continued employment of Brown and Santiago in the department is good because they have been key to carrying out the mission to make Irvington clean and safe.

Brown, a retired firefighter and spokesman for the Newark Police Department, brings many years of experience to his new position. He said he will free up the mayor, who serves as the de facto OEM coordinator, in the event of an emergency, and explained his viewpoint on the importance of the various departments Saturday, June 16.

“The Department of Public Safety enjoys coming to all community events,” said Brown at the Friends of Irvington Park annual Father’s Day cookout. “This is our way of showing the mayor’s initiative on a cleaner and safer Irvington and that Irvington has become a great place to invest in, live in and raise a family.”

Brown was the township’s first black fire director, prior to becoming Bowers’ deputy director of the Irvington Department of Public Safety last year. He was appointed by Vauss in 2015, while still working in the Newark Fire Department, but after he retired from that department in 2016, he resigned as fire director. According to state law says, any police officer or firefighter who retires must wait six months before taking another job in the same municipality.

Similarly, Bowers also stepped away after he retired from the Irvington Police Department in 2015; roughly six months later, he returned to the Vauss administration as the PSD director.

While Brown will serve as both the township’s new OEM coordinator and deputy public safety director, fire Chief Antonio Gary, the fire department’s first black chief, is still on the job, technically running the Irvington Fire Division’s day-to-day operations.

  John Brown, Tracy Bowers