Wilmington gets last-minute extension of $1.8M police grant

A $1.8 million grant for community policing in Wilmington is awaiting the approval of the mayor, but Dennis P. Williams doesn't plan to sign off on it.

"We were going to leave this for the new administration," said Gary Fullman, the mayor's chief of staff. "They would have to look at what their strategies for policing are ... and we did not want to make (a decision) for them."

The $1,875,000 grant from the Department of Justice was awarded in early October. It would fund the salaries of 15 community police officers for three years with a 25 percent match required from the city at first. The city's contribution would need to increase by 25 percent annually.

Mayor-elect Mike Purzycki said in a statement that once he is in office, he will consider "what sort of fiscal consequences we would be locking ourselves into if we accept the grant."

"We plan to have more police officers on the streets interacting with the community, and whether we accomplish this through a revised deployment plan or through options such as federal grants, these are matters that I’ll determine in consultation with our police chief," he said. "Decisions about grants that seem beneficial on the surface but produce an untenable fiscal condition for us down the road cannot be rushed.”

To push the acceptance decision to Purzycki, who will be sworn in Jan. 3, the Williams administration approached Sen. Tom Carper's office on Dec. 21 asking for help in getting a 60-day extension of the Dec. 29 acceptance deadline, Fullman said. Carper's staff members said they contacted the Department of Justice on Dec. 22.

A Department of Justice representative told The News Journal on Wednesday that the department will extend the acceptance deadline to Jan. 20.

Fullman acknowledged that the city could have pursued an extension earlier.

"Quite frankly, we were just doing other things, and the deadline snuck up on us," he said.

Outgoing City Councilman Michael A. Brown Sr. said Williams should sign off on the grant "so at least we have it."

"We’ve got to afford it because it's the citizens' lives we’re talking about," he said. "You can’t put a dollar figure on people’s lives."

If an extension had not been granted and the mayor did not accept the money by Dec. 29, the funding would have been lost, Brown said.

Councilman Bob Williams, who will become vice chair of the Public Safety Committee, said the current administration should have submitted an extension request earlier than a week before the deadline.

"The fact that they literally dropped the ball is very disturbing," he said.

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Councilman Williams said it is the responsibility of the current mayor to make these kinds of decisions.

"You took an oath. You swore you’d go to your last day. There’s no caveat that says if you lose the election, forget the last four months," he said. "The mayor even said (in his farewell address), 'I’ll always be Mr. Mayor.' You have to be a little more mayoral, like right now."

Police Chief Bobby Cummings said he responded to the Department of Justice accepting the grant earlier this month, but Fullman said, "The full acceptance isn’t complete until the mayor accepts it."

Cummings said adding 15 officers would be a "tremendous" way to benefit the city, but the decision is "in the hands of the new administration." Cummings, who said he will remain the chief at least until February, said letting the money go would be a shame.

"Obviously, it would be a great missed opportunity because that’s something we fought for and applied for, and we were awarded the grant," he said. "It was something we wanted to implement."

Contact Christina Jedra at cjedra@delawareonline.com, (302) 324-2837 or on Twitter @ChristinaJedra.