Hackensack officers express no confidence in police director as city extends his contract

HACKENSACK — Policemen's Benevolent Association Local 9, the union representing the city’s rank-and-file officers, voted Wednesday to express no confidence in the department’s police director, Ray Guidetti.

The vote came three weeks after the supervisory officers' association for the city, PBA Local 9A, voted no confidence in the department’s leadership.

Frank Cavallo, the president of PBA Local 9, said the group decided to take the action after seeing the city’s response to the vote last month.

“Once we realized that their vote wasn’t looked at by the city as significant, it held no weight with the city, we realized we needed to express how the majority of the members feel — the rank and file — in hopes that they understand the problems that we face in the department,” he said. “We’re hoping we’re able to open communication with the mayor and council, the city manager and the director and come to some resolution.”

But on Friday, city officials announced they will be extending Guidetti’s contract by another year, to run through 2026.

In a statement, officials said the extension reflects their “confidence in his leadership” and “ensures Guidetti will be a major voice and intermediary” during the department’s next round of contract negotiations.

Guidetti has “demonstrated exceptional leadership and a dedication to the principles of law enforcement and public safety,” Hackensack Mayor John Labrosse said in the statement. “His commitment to implementing sincere reform policies has contributed greatly to the positive trajectory of our police department.”

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Guidetti was hired as director in August 2022, after a report found widespread overtime abuse by ranking officers, a drop in arrests, low morale and a lack of accountability.

When he came to Hackensack after a long career with the state police, Guidetti pledged to reform the troubled department, which has been been in turmoil over the past 15 years.

He has since made sweeping changes, but he also has faced pushback. Since his appointment, five lawsuits and numerous grievances have been filed by officers against the director and the city, claiming retaliation against those who have spoken out against him, and alleging that the director has abused his authority.

City officials have touted the changes Guidetti has made and pointed to the initial report and a second audit that revealed overtime abuses by high-ranking officers as evidence of the need for significant reform.

In a statement after its vote in November, PBA Local 9A, the supervisors’ union, called the audits “misleading assessments” and said the reluctance of city officials to appoint a chief and the “continued politicization of our department have significantly impacted the morale and effectiveness of the police department."

The city responded with a statement dismissing the vote as a “token, meaningless gesture that reflects a desperate effort to return a broken status quo" that did not represent the views of the department.

But Cavallo said a lack of communication between police leadership and officers has caused morale to plummet. The union's vote reflects deep concerns about the state of the department and its management, he said.

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When Guidetti came in, “we had open communication and high expectations of having a successful relationship with him,” Cavallo said.

But over the past year, that communication has stopped and changes to divisions, policies and schedules have been made unilaterally without consulting the union.

Officers have been reassigned from divisions “without a fair process everyone would benefit from,” Cavallo said.

Some divisions have been “totally dismantled,” he said, and an increased workload has cut the time investigating officers have to dedicate to cases.

“The guys are doing as much as they can, given what they are allowed to do,” he said. “The director does have a good vision, but it’s unrealistic. We’re very short on manpower. For a department our size, we cannot implement all the changes he wants to implement and do it successfully.”

Cavallo, a 20-year veteran of the department and a lifelong Hackensack resident, said he was dismayed at the city's decision to extend Guidetti's contract.

"Rather than addressing departmental issues and consulting with unions, they chose an extension, causing morale decline, increased sick leave, and elevated overtime," he said.

Anthony DiPersia, the president of PBA 9A, said the city’s response to the unions’ actions is "demoralizing" and amounts to “willful blindness.”

“When faced with a vote of no confidence by an overwhelming majority of the employees, the city’s response is to thumb its nose at repeated allegations of misconduct by this director rather than to engage in a dialogue with us and actually address the concerns,” he said.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Hackensack NJ police officers vote no confidence in director