Conterversy In Nearby Creskill (Bergen): VAC Disbanded

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Cresskill disbands ambulance corps    

Tuesday, June 7, 2005  

By PAUL H. JOHNSON

STAFF WRITER  

 

CRESSKILL - The borough has disbanded the Cresskill Volunteer Ambulance Corps and is investigating whether the group misused funds.

The Borough Council voted to dissolve the group at its meeting last Wednesday after an audit found spending improprieties.

 

"This is an unfortunate situation that the mayor and the council had to step in to resolve," said Cresskill Mayor Ben Romeo. The borough made the move after a May 11 audit said the ambulance corps may have used donated money to buy wedding presents and meals for its members between 1999 and 2004.

But former Cresskill Volunteer Ambulance Corps Capt. Cliff Cernek said the audit by the mayor was just a witch hunt to root out enemies and said the organization and its members did nothing wrong.

The donations audited over the past five years total about $63,000, officials said.

"Any of the moneys we spent were done in the interest of maintaining members," said Cernek, who stepped down as captain Dec. 31 after leading the group for four years.

The borough currently has a private company providing ambulance service to the town. But Romeo said he expects to create a new volunteer ambulance corps soon.

"We have already put in place some new EMTs, and we are looking for new members," he said.

According to a resolution passed by the Borough Council, the borough said the ambulance corps inappropriately gave wedding gifts and flowers to members, spent nearly $1,000 for an annual dinner for 18 people, gave a $599 clothing allowance to members who hadn't completed training and issued cellphones for corps operations and made available half-priced membership in the Cresskill Municipal Pool, among other allegations.

The council and mayor forwarded the results of its audit to the Police Department for possible criminal investigation. The ambulance corps is funded by a mixture of borough money - the borough spends about $55,000 annually - and money it receives in donations. The audit examined the corps' use of donated money.

But Cernek said that no member of the ambulance corps is being accused of stealing money and that the group used its donated funds only to retain members.

"How can you tell a volunteer organization that you can't go out for dinner?" he asked. He said wedding gifts and flowers to sick members are standard in other volunteer organizations, such as the Volunteer Fire Department. The new cellphones were given out after Sept. 11 so that members would be able to stay in communication with each other, he added.

He said that a woman suffering from breast cancer who was a volunteer at the organization got a clothing allowance even though she hadn't completed training but that she had given dozens of hours of volunteer service.

"I don't believe this is so much about this money being misappropriated," Cernek said. "I believe the mayor didn't like some of our members."

But Romeo disputed that assertion. "There was nothing personal here. We were guided by an audit," he said. He added that the ambulance corps wasn't doing enough to attract new members.

Cernek, a dispatcher for the Cresskill Police Department, said the pressure from the controversy over the ambulance corps has ruined his Police Department job and that he expects to leave his post soon.

"It's no longer a friendly place to work," he said.

He said it pains him to leave the ambulance corps, which he served on for 18 years.

"The whistle would go off and it would kill me not to go," Cernek said. "It's a shame."

[WAS967 97]

They're bitching about sunshine expenditures? $1000 for a (probably annual) dinner is not too bad. Please. Sounds like a witchhunt indeed.

[Guest]

It certainly is a witch hunt. Taxpayer money is for operational expenses. Donated money goes as the Corps sees fit. Buying dinner for a crew after a long standby or a particularly tough call is an inexpensive and reasonable thank you. Cresskill's Borough Council should be ashamed of themselves.