Police Overtime Nets Sparta $60K From PSE&G

By Michael Daigle

Sparta will receive nearly $60,000 from PSE&G in payment for police services provided during the recent construction of a regional power line.

Mayor Gilbert Gibbs announced the donation at Tuesday’s Township Council meeting.

He said the funds would be used to purchase a new $41,000 police cruiser and $17,000 would be used to purchase a new vehicle for use by various administrators.

In June, Administrator David Troust proposed that the township purchase an additional police car using some of the funds the township received from PSE&G for providing police coverage during the recent construction of a power line switching station in the township.

Troust said that Police Chief Ernest Reigstad said that the township is replacing one police cruiser this year, but the additional purchase would move the department ahead in its scheduled replacement of cars.

At that time Troust also proposed using left over grant funds from a Clean Cities grant and a share of the recycling receipts  Sparta gets from Sussex County to replace a vehicle used by the township engineer as the recycling coordinator, and the plumbing, building code, and construction inspectors and sometimes  the fire code inspector.

PSE&G is rebuilding a Hopatcong switching station located near Tomahawk Lake Park as part of the Susquehanna-Roseland reliability  project,  $1.2 billion project to built a 146-mile  500-kilovolt power line through Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The station work was largely completed in June.

Residents from the New Star Ridge Road neighborhood near the construction site complained to the council about the impact of the project.

Like other towns along the construction route, Sparta accepted a payment from PSE&G for the disruption. In Sparta’s case the payment was $205,000.

The funds to be used for the vehicles were not from that contribution, but were in payment to the  township to cover the cost of overtime for Sparta police officers assigned to the construction site.