Police Chief James Riccio and Mayor John Ducey, Dec. 5, 2017. (Photo: Daniel Nee)
Brick Mayor John Ducey said one of the goals for his administration’s second term is to expand the township’s police department.
Ducey, whose second four-year term began Monday, has already added a few officers and brought in more special police officers to perform routine tasks to free up patrolmen to work on the streets. Police Chief James Riccio, appointed by Ducey, reworked the township’s patrol districts.
“One of my goals, and one of the chief’s, is increasing the size of our police department to the amount deemed necessary to be able to continue to provide the full [level of] protection our residents deserve,” Ducey said.
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The mayor and chief will work in concert to select a target number of officers and work to meet it. The department has been generally working with between 132 and 134 sworn officers at a time over the last two years.
Ducey said the police department has been kept especially busy due to Ocean County’s opiate drug epidemic. Brick was the first police department in the state to run the Blue HART program, where addicts can come to the department without the fear of arrest to receive treatment.
Other goals, Ducey said, include continuing to rebuild all of the township’s parks, host more family events and develop additional tourism and economic development outreach with grant funding.
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