Borough Council: Police Chief Change Will Improve Morale, Relationships with Neighbors

At the Malvern Borough Council meeting , the council addressed at length the changes made to the Malvern Police Department, and the possibility of more changes to come. Below are comments from the council, the mayor and a Malvern Police officer.

To begin, Malvern Borough Council President Woody Van Sciver read the following statement on behalf of the council:

Relative to outsourcing:

I believe I can state unequivocally our outsourcing exploration was instigated by our increased understanding of the workings of the police department; what our neighboring communities spend on their police departments and how they manage their police departments. We have come to this increased knowledge primarily through efforts made to negotiate the 2012 police contract, where an incredible amount of data was accumulated relative to the cost of personnel and the associated cost of the police department. During the negotiation process the police made us aware of issues which are not unique to Malvern and are characteristic to small police departments. One issue in particular is the requirement for backup and the way Malvern has addressed this concern through the use of the power shift, which has not been a contract requirement. Related issues are matters concerned with supervisory communications and training. These issues are important to address for a well-functioning and safe police department. 

The trend in police contract negotiations has been for the negotiating groups representative of small departments to seek having a minimum of two policemen on duty at all times in order to address matters with backup and patrol coverage where an event occurs that may require an patrolman to be away for the normally assigned patrol territory, such as when they have to escort a drunk to the hospital for blood work or some such thing. In anticipation of providing for such backup and staffing levels, the current and past borough councils have considered regionalizing and subcontracting with our neighboring departments. This pursuit of "bench strength" for patrol backup as well as specialized services, such as accident investigation, detective investigation follow up, better supervisory communications and direction in the provision of our police services, has been the primary driving force in this borough council's exploration of subcontracting and regionalization.

You may also be aware that the borough council and the mayor instigated an investigation into our police department, as well. These are comments we're making relative to that investigation:

Coinciding with perhaps the increased communication between borough council and the police surrounding the contract negotiations, as well as some issues raised by our residents and businesses, a number of incidents have come to light related to how our police force functions. Many of these issues when viewed from a disinterested standpoint revolve around seemingly juvenile matters—personnel demonstrably soiling toilet rooms in the offices and work places; lack of communications between patrolmen and borough staff on matters related to policy, procedures, investigations and simple shift transfer acknowledgements; suits against each other over a few hundred dollar expenditures; reports to the DA's office of criminal behavior against each other, none of which the DA saw any merit in pursuing. Given these sorts of personnel conflicts and including some more egregious reports related to brazen weapon brandishments amongst these personnel and subtle suggestions of poor performance, the borough council and the mayor determined we would conduct an investigation into the police force to determine how we can address these issues.  The Malvern Police Department was reported to have significant low morale and comments, some emanating from the police department itself, suggested the department was dysfunctional.

Borough Council sought to begin to address some of these departmental difficulties with new leadership and these incidents, not a focus on outsourcing or subcontracting, is what has led to the installation of our new Chief of Police. It is our strongest desire that all of the personnel matters which have characterized our department for the past few years can be worked through to raise the entire department's morale. Through this leadership change we expect to develop a closer working relationship with both of our neighboring municipalities' police departments. As one might imagine, having a cooperative patrol in a neighboring community adds significantly to all of our region's wellbeing and security.

After Van Sciver finished reading the council's statement, individual council members added their personal opinions on the matter.

Council Vice President Catherine Raymond said she became more interested in outsourcing as "our investigation revealed to us that, for reasons of morale and lack of properly dealing with discipline among the officers, our department was becoming dysfunctional. My concern has always been that the borough not be left in a situation where it was effectively without a police department."

Raymond said she is hopeful that the new chief, Mark Ercole, who is being contracted out from the East Whiteland Police Department, will be able to rebuild the department's reputation. She indicated the borough might want to contract out detective services from nearby departments in the future.

Council member Bill Macaleer said the borough might need to consider increasing the percentage of the borough budget spent on police services from 26 percent up to 40 or 50 percent, to properly train and equip the officers. He said his primary concern was officer safety and borough coverage: "Some of our officers were some in instances were being put unnecessarily at risk, in terms of their safety, because of the way things were being managed."

Mayor Jerry McGlone said he had asked the council's public safety committee to fund an investigation into the department. "It was very obvious to me that there was a lack of leadership and a loss of trust within the department over the past 12 months ... I think through the investigation, we were able to validate that there was a complete lack of trust within the department, and the morale couldn't be any lower. I think we are in an incredibly positive position, having the ability to bring somebody like Mark, with his experience, on to help us."

McGlone said Malvern Police Department has always been viewed by its neighbors as a second-class police department, and "I don't think there's any reason we should be."

Council member Dick Sponenbergh said he recognized at the meeting that a vocal majority of residents want to maintain a local police department, but he wasn't willing to dismiss the option of outsourcing police services.

"What I want to do, personally, is to see how a functional Malvern Police Department compares with an outsourced police department, and see how, then, you all feel about going one way or the other," Sponenbergh said.

Council President Van Sciver observed that there is still disagreement among council members about whether outsourcing could be in the best interest of borough residents, but it need not be an all-or-nothing approach.

"If during Mark's discovery of how we work and how we should best work, he finds out that we do need a detective service, or a tender-age investigator or something like that, we could just say, 'Can we just buy that service, we'll keep our police force ... and just buy that service on a pay-go basis,' " Van Sciver said.

Regarding regionalization, Van Sciver noted that, years ago, the borough was forced to close its school—which became the borough administration building—and incorporate into the Great Valley School District. Were the council to try to undo that change today, he said, residents would likely disagree, which shows that concerns and priorities can change over time.

Several officers of the Malvern Police Department attended the meeting. Following council's statements, Officer John McNamee spoke up to push back against the characterization of the department as "dysfunctional."

"Tomorrow's going to be 90 degrees. You could put me in with [Officer] Pat Dougherty, who is here, and we could have no air conditioning, and we could spend the entire day together and get along fine," McNamee said.

"We love this department. We've had opportunities to go to Tredyffrin or Willistown or even Radnor Township, but we choose to stay here because we love this community. The notion that we're dysfunctional, quite frankly I'm insulted, because we're not. There was a personnel issue that involved one person, and that was the amount of the dysfunctionality in the police department."

Mayor McGlone said he understood how the term could be offensive: "There's plenty of people in the department, and I'll acknowledge that they get along very well. But it did go further than just one person, in my opinion. There's one, in particular, that we're having a problem with. And that will be addressed. But the leadership, and lack of leadership, to me is also part of that definition of being dysfunctional.

Council members Macaleer, Raymond and Zeyn Uzman underscored that they were impressed with the professionalism and quality of service of the officers, but saw dysfunction in the management of the department.