Just found this on my doorstep today, and wanted to share. I also researched this, and its 100% FACT!!
Here some interesting township facts.
The police department has recently initiated a policy of taking incident report numbers for anything and everything. Why? Because the police department has averaged approximately 25,000 calls for service each year since 1976! Yet, the police department budget has doubled in the last 15 years to over $21,000,000.00. This despite the fact that the police department is no longer Nationally Accredited! What does that mean? It means that up to 1998 the Bensalem police department was Nationally Accredited putting it in the top 1% in the country! In plain English this means that the department was once able to meet all the nationally recognized police operational and procedural standards in the country. Due to mismanagement and improper procedures, the Bensalem police department can no longer meet those standards! In fact, Director of Public Safety Harran joked at the last township budget meetings (November 2010 and December 2010) that he removed the Accreditation budget line item to appease the council who repeatedly challenged the line item when the police department failed to retain National Accreditation status! It was a joke to Director Harran that the police department no longer maintained those standards! This means that the police department no longer provides the nationally recognized standards of service to the community!
The Director of Public Safety and the head of the rescue squad told us that we needed to once again increase the tax revenue for the rescue squad. They told us that they were currently not meeting the national response times. Now we learn that the ambulance that had been placed in the Cornwells Fire Company station has been removed! How is that improving service after a tax increase?
The council and the Mayor repeatedly refuse to answer what they intend to do about an additional budget deficit for 2011. The only thing they did for the $6,500,000.00 budget deficit in 2010 was lay off six people and take the $6,500,000.00 from the reserve fund. The Mayor had the nerve to tell someone who questioned what the budget shortfall was for 2011 to say; "we will tell you when we think you need to know"! Are you kidding?
The Township "traded" land parcels with the head of Public Works. Has anyone looked at the land we gave the head of Public Works? What a disgrace!
We have blindly allowed these people to tell us that we are great without actually having them show us what they have done to prove that statement!
As we did into the training center fiasco we have learned that a select few people within the Department of Public Safety and the Fire Marshal's office have wasted over $5,000,000.00 for a facility that will do LESS than a facility in Bristol Township that would be free to our local fire companies! A facility that THEY KNEW WAS BEING BUILT CLOSE BY!
We will follow this up with additional information regarding the misuse of authority by the Director of Public Safety and members of the Fire Marshal's office who have publically made false and slanderous statements against the Union Fire Company. Has anyone else noticed how quiet township officials have become?
Not a word from any of the councilmen! When asked, they reply; "we aren't being told what happened"? Are you kidding us?! See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil and make excuses!
We are facing at best another $6,500,000.00 deficit with NO PLAN from the Mayor or council!
Are we surprised that a council that has a history of doing nothing, bringing no new ideas or even asking the Mayor what he is doing with our money has no answers to another pending budget deficit?
We are looking to get in contact with the former Bensalem Fire Marshal. We hear that he reported to work, was given less than an hour to remove his belongings and told to leave. This is very similar to the way the former head of public relations David Fidler was treated. The township stated that he was laid off because the township was going "in a new direction". The fire service and the community has yet to be told what that direction is!
MORE TO FOLLOW
Gee, a public safety director FAILING to follow proper nationally recognized police operational and procedural standards in the country?? With a power hungry, dictator like Harran, of course that would happen. It all started with Steve Moran, losing this accreditation in 1998, and he lied about why it is no longer a part of the department's budget. Now, his little toady and accomplice Fred Harran, the new Public Safety Director, further abuses and misuses the authority given to him, (which can just as easily be taken away), by FALSELY ACCUSING AN HONORABLE FIRE COMPANY AND ITS CHIEF of things it was proven innocent of, and has yet to apologize for it!
CAN WE SAY DESPERATION, FREDDIE???
