Could cost $30 to implement
The mayor and council voted down a capital ordinance to appropriate $31,700 for an automated fingerprint identification system (AFIS) and a listening device at its meeting on March 25. The ordinance was voted down by a vote of 2 to 4, with Councilmembers George Fecanin, Joseph Sommer, Maura Keyes and John Sasso voting against it and John Genovesi and Rose Inguanti voting in favor. But the ordinance could make its way back to the next meeting agenda.
The AFIS system would turn a process that currently takes weeks to months into one that takes minutes to hours. An individual places his hands on a screen, which records an image of his fingerprints and sends the results to be cross-referenced with state and federal databases. If an inquiry is prioritized, any matches in the system can be found within minutes or hours. Currently the department gets ink and paper fingerprints, mails them to the state police and receives a response in weeks to months.
The system would actually be made up of two devices: one stationary and one mobile. The stationary device would remain in the police department while the mobile device would be in the patrol supervisor’s vehicle.
In a pre-written statement the councilman delivered at the regular meeting before introducing the item, Genovesi noted that the device was not requested by the police department but rather that he had proposed it to them. He mentioned he had spoken with Captain Joseph Merli and Lieutenant Patrick Feliciano about the device.
"The purchase of this equipment is a preventative measure to make sure an incident like what occurred in 2005 doesn’t happen again," said Genovesi. He was referring to an incident in which borough police officers allowed armed bounty hunters from Pennsylvania to remove a resident, Claudia Santana, from her home on the belief she was a wanted fugitive named Claudia Rincon. It wasn’t until Santana was brought to Dover that police there determined she wasn’t the fugitive. In the wake of the incident four officers were fired and multiple suits were filed against the borough.
After Genovesi’s statement, councilman Sommer requested exactly how much the system would cost, due to confusion regarding the total amount to be appropriated ($31,700) and the cost of the AFIS system in particular ($24,000). Sommer noted he wanted a brief answer. When Genovesi requested Feliciano come up to speak about the system, Fecanin refused to give consent to have him speak.
Fecanin and Keyes both noted at the meeting that their objection wasn’t to purchasing the machine in question but to the lack of time they had had to review the proposal. It was not included on the work session agenda at the March 18 meeting and was placed on the agenda by Genovesi at the beginning of the March 25 meeting.
In a letter sent to Genovesi and forwarded to the South Bergenite the next day, Sommer said that Genovesi would have his future support to proceed with the purchase of the two devices.
"If time had permitted me to ask my questions during the work session regarding cost and why our current shared services arrangement with Lyndhurst—which is documented in court filed papers—was inadequate, I would have been able to support [Genovesi’s] motion in full chambers," said Sommer. "I requested a brief and concise answer [from Genovesi] last night because the reading of long pre-written statements sound like campaign speeches to a reasonable person and are unnecessary to perform our governance."
Genovesi took issue with Sommer’s statement, noting that Rutherford occasionally uses Lyndhurst’s AFIS system but that the towns don’t have a shared services agreement.
"Usually if we have a situation where we feel someone may be lying about their identity we’ll call them," said Feliciano. "They’ve been extremely helpful. [But] we don’t have unfettered access." The lieutenant noted that Rutherford needs to request permission to use the system and that sometimes Lyndhurst officers who are qualified to operate it aren’t available.
Genovesi also objected to the claim that the other councilmen didn’t know enough about the system to make a decision, since the part such a machine would have played in preventing the Santana case was so prominent. He claimed it was hypocritical for the council to return three of the fired Santana officers to work in the same meeting in which they voted against a device that would, he claimed, prevent such an incident from occurring again.
