Toms River Council Approves $13.2M for Emergency Communications Towers, Equipment

The communications tower at the Toms River Police Department headquarters, Oak Avenue, March 2022. (Photo: Daniel Nee)

The Toms River council approved a $13.2 million plan to construct two new emergency communications towers and install new equipment that will allow the township to comply with an upcoming federal mandate.

The council voted 6-1 in favor of the measure, which was introduced earlier this month.

Police Chief Mitch Little had previously explained that communications issues have grown significantly as larger and more modern buildings have begun to spring up, such as the new OceanFirst corporate headquarters building, which had to install a $300,000 repeater system since police would not be able to communicate inside during an emergency. On top of the coverage issues, the federal government is mandating a shift to the 700 MHz frequency spectrum, as previous frequencies used for police communications have been turned over to broadband providers. Despite the federal requirement, no funding has been provided for cities, counties or states to make the switch, which must be implemented by Dec. 31, 2023.

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The communications tower at the Toms River Police Department headquarters, Oak Avenue, March 2022. (Photo: Daniel Nee)

“This is an unfunded federal mandate,” said Councilman Matthew Lotano. “The township is going to pick up the cost of changing our radio frequency that was mandated by the federal government. We have looked into shared services agreements, we’ve whittled the price down as far as it can go and we really sharpened the pencils. This is the best we’re going to get.”

Lotano, in his comments before voting in favor of the proposal, referenced an earlier objection by Councilman Dan Rodrick, who argued that the township should have gone farther in seeking to partner with Ocean County, another municipality or using existing towers instead of building new ones. Officials have said, however, that Ocean County refused to provide police communications services due to Toms River’s size and call volume, and switching to county dispatch would not alleviate the cost of installing the new towers.

Rodrick said he could not support such a large expenditure following the township’s recent tax revaluation, which led to tax increases for some residents whose home values appreciated.

“We’re all feeling the effects of inflation,” said Rodrick. “Residents throughout the community are tightening their belts and the township should as well. I believe we should have explored more shared services agreements with neighboring towns as well as the county.”

“It’s this kind of wasteful spending that is driving residents out of New Jersey,” he added.

Hill said later in the meeting that he recently contacted the mayors of Brick, Lakewood and Berkeley townships to reach out for their take – one more time – on shared services, and all said they were told county dispatch could not handle their call volumes either. None of the towns had the capacity to take on Toms River’s calls for service.

“For the police side, merging with Ocean County is just not an option,” said Councilman Kevin Geoghegan, a retired township police supervisor. “We’re too big, we’re too busy.”

Geoghegan said just hours after the township’s last council meeting where the plan was introduced, police found themselves at Community Medical Center, one of the examples of a major building in town where signals often become garbled due to a lack of radio coverage.

“That night after our council meeting, there was an individual who was shot and dumped at the hospital,” said Geoghegan. “It was in the paper. It required a large police response. This is necessary for public safety.”

The communications tower at the Toms River Police Department headquarters, Oak Avenue, March 2022. (Photo: Daniel Nee)

Little said the two towers would be located at the former animal shelter building and adjacent to the East Dover fire company building on Fischer Boulevard. An existing tower near the firehouse was not able to be utilized for the project, officials said.

The project is badly needed, the chief said previously.

“We got to the point where we found equipment from 1985 still being used throughout the town,” said Little. “Some of this equipment isn’t even manufactured anymore and can’t be replaced.”