Pennington Council has officially appointed First Sgt. Daryl Burroughs as officer-in-charge of the Pennington Police Department.
With former Police Chief Doug Pinelli’s retirement on Feb. 1, Burroughs takes over the decision-making authority and responsibilities held by Pinelli.
He has already been serving in the role of officer-in-charge since the new year when Pinelli assigned him the role. Burroughs was reporting to Pinelli while the former chief was on leave, according to borough officials.
Council members approved Burroughs appointment at a council meeting on Feb. 3.
Burroughs has been a member of the Pennington Police Department since 2008. Borough Attorney Walter Bliss administered his oath as officer-in-charge. Council members congratulated Burroughs, who simply answered, “Thank you.”
Borough Administrator Gian-Paolo Caminiti explained Burroughs will receive quarterly performance reviews as OIC, which is a temporary position. These reviews are the same for all borough employees.
“We have the option of having support for the OIC (officer-in-charge) come in the form of a retired chief through DCA (New Jersey Department of Community Affairs) and/or the prosecutor’s office,” he said, noting these options are not mandatory.
Caminiti noted they do have an offer of support for Burroughs through NJDCA.
“I will be working with OIC Burroughs to make sure that he is comfortable, competent, and proficient,” he said, adding they do not have to draw from those options, but “if needed we will draw upon those resources.”
Based on the borough’s personnel and policies manual, the borough will review a snapshot on whether Burroughs has met all of the criteria required for the appointment to the chief position within a 12-month period.
Caminiti said the 12-month timeline is not binding as Pennington officials are discussing whether they will continue with the chief of police model for the police department or go into an alternate direction.
“The OIC is designation that is not binding in terms of a timeline. He may or may not turn out to be the best and the proper candidate. The OIC status is not bound by 3-months, 6-months, 12-months, 18-months, 24-months,” he added. “There are numerous cases in other municipalities in the state of New Jersey where the OIC designation has gone on for far longer.”
Prior to approving the appointment, Councilman John Valenza took issue with bringing in an outside assessment of Burroughs.
“My concern is that Officer Burroughs is an excellent asset to the community and that you are now bringing in an outside assessment of his ability…I like the lack of bias in that but what I don’t want to do is set up an accelerated timeline, have this go sideways, and we lose an asset to the community,” he said.
Caminiti noted the outside assessment was just an offer and the 12-month timeline was not a binding timeframe for officials.
Councilman Charles Marciante raised concerns with the current chief of police model.
“We got into a situation where ‘I’m the chief and you can’t tell me what to do,'” he said. “Well, I don’t want to go back to that. I’d rather pay Daryl the money, but don’t get locked into that …”
Council President Nadine Stern added, “I was under the impression that we were not sure what [we wanted] our final model to be.”
“Do we want to have a chief or is there some alternative?”
Caminiti said the OIC designation and 12-month period just gives them a framework and is in line with the rest of the borough employees according to the personnel and policies manual.
