Recently our own Steve Morris had the opportunity to sit down with the Chairman of the Bergen County Board of Chosen Freeholders, Tomas Padilla.  Padilla, a career law enforcement officer with the Hackensack Police Department, is a self described “conservative Democrat” and was appointed to the board in 2002 to fill an unexpired term.  Since then, he was elected in 2005, and was unanimously elected by his fellow freeholders to be the board’s chairman. 

How did you first get involved in politics?

I got involved in county committee actually through Ken Zisa, who is the current police chief [in Hackensack] in 1989.  He asked me if I was interested in getting involved in County Committee, and after he explained to me exactly what they did, I thought it might be nice to get involved and meet people.  Unfortunately, like everything else I take on, I don’t like to do things half-way, so eventually I became the secretary, then the vice chair, and ended up going beyond County Committee taking over the Latino-American Democratic Association after Mary Donahue stepped down.    

What is your claim to fame?

I feel I really motivate the Latino Community to come out for the Democratic Party and that I bring people together.  I always look for the “win-win” solution to problems and try to stay above the fray. 

What has been your best day in politics?

The day that I won the second time [in 2004].  This is because it ratified in my mind and in everybody else’s that the voters actually do believe in me.  I think when you are re-elected it sends a message that people actually do believe in you.

What has been your worst day in politics?            

The day I lost my first election for freeholder in 2003.

What is your immediate political goal?

To make sure we work out a budget that is fair and provides the services needed by the citizens of Bergen County.  We may have some layoffs and we’re trying to avoid as many of those as possible, but the bottom line is we have to be responsible to the taxpayers of Bergen County.

What is your secret to success? 

I’m a very positive person, and I always look at the glass as half full and not half empty.  I also bring people together, and always look to find solutions to problems where both sides can feel as if they won.  I try to find the common ground and going back to Asian culture, you always give people an opportunity to save face, and a way out if you will. 

What is your prediction for 2008?

We will remain a 7-0 freeholder board.

Who are your heroes?

Theodore Roosevelt, My parents.   

What are your favorite movies?

Fools Rush In, Crash.

What has been your best moment on the campaign trail?

The best moments, to me, when I found people who remembered me from years ago.  Last year I was campaigning in Target and a lady walked up to me and goes “Hey Tommy, how are you? You don’t remember me, do you? ” We got to talking and it turns out that I went to college with her son.

What has been your worst moment on the campaign trail?

When people slam the door on you, or when somebody really wants to instigate you.  They claim they want to debate you but all they really want to do is antagonize you and tell you that you’re doing this wrong, and that wrong and offer no real solution of their own.  People like that just want to draw attention to themselves and do it in a negative way. 

Why are you a Democrat?

Really, when you look at it, the Democratic Party has really been the party of inclusion.  They’ve always given new immigrants and minorities entry and the opportunity to get involved.  I tend to be on the conservative side of the party, and I think that has a lot to do with I do for a living. 

Where do you see your party in 10 years?

We should have all the offices by then, but it won’t happen unless we keep doing what we’re doing, staying in tune with the people and doing what’s right for the people.  Good government is good politics. 

What is your opinion of CountyExecutive Dennis McNerney’s plan to merge small municipalities together, such as your home town of Park Ridge?

Dennis has come up with some very good ideas about sharing services and I think they’ve been misunderstood.  I’ve spoken with Dennis myself and I don’t think he’s looking to merge Park Ridge, Woodcliff Lake, and Montvale into “Park Lake”, which is how some people are approaching this. 

What my vision of it is I think in tune with most people’s, is that in Bergen County we’re very comfortable with home rule, knowing who our cops, knowing who our elected officials are.  The way I see it happening is sharing services that make sense.  I don’t think you want to merge towns you want to share services, because you don’t want to lose that sense of community. 

There is an incredible amount of pride in one’s town felt by Bergen County residents.  I may live in Park Ridge, but when people ask me where I’m from, I say Hackensack, where I grew up.  There’s a certain sense of pride you carry with you, and people think that we’re trying to take that away from them. 

I think that you can have that, and that you can have the best of both worlds. 

What that means is trying to find ways that you can merge services, like having a larger police department.  I’m a cop, so let’s stick with police for this example.  You can have a larger police department, and still have that community touch.  Take us [Hackensack] for example; we’re the largest police department in Bergen County.   If you asked me how many guys do we have assigned to community policing, I’d tell you, we have 112 guys assigned to community policing.  We don’t believe in having one guy in touch with the community, we believe in having everybody in touch with community, and we’re very committed to this end. 

We could take five towns, and merge the departments into like the “Central Valley Police Department” and it would be good for the guys too.  When you become a police officer in one of these small towns, it means you’re probably going to be a patrolman for 20 or 25 years, working rotating shifts. 

In a larger department, you are going to have more opportunities, not only for advancement but to work in different career fields as well.  One of the great things about working for the Hackensack Police Department, because we are a larger department, is that I’ve been able to work in the juvenile bureau, I’ve worked in the traffic bureau, detective bureau, patrol, records bureau.

About every five years, I’ve had a new career, and that could work, and that could be a great motivator for the PBA’s and for others to say “You know, this could work, this could be a great thing.” 

What we’ve done wrong, and when I say we I mean politicians, is that we come out and say we should merge towns and merge this and we never sit down with the people that this is going to affect. 

How do you do you make this happen? If you really want to make this happen you find a couple of places that want to do this and you sit down with the stakeholders.  This means you get the PBA, the fire fighters, the DPW, the people whose lives this is going to affect and you have sit down with them.  

You know what, if you talk to the average guy, he isn’t totally opposed to this idea, because there is room for advancement, for growth.  I’m not going to tell you it’s 100%. There are people out there who will say “no, no, no I love this the way it is.” 

But I venture, if you really do your homework, you will find some people who want to try this and do this.  Take court services.  We have 68 something municipal courts.  Do you realize that if you have a district court, I’m told, I haven’t researched this, I’m trying to find out you could keep more of the money instead of sending it down to the state. 

What better way than to have district courts?  There are ways that it could be beneficial.  The biggest drawback to this is the state themselves, because they’ll tell you merge, merge, merge but they don’t give you the tools to do it. 

Take Westwood-Emerson for example.  Awhile back they tried to merge Westwood police and Emerson police, but we can take any two towns.  Lets take town A and town B and lets say they want to merge.  The first question is - are they both civil service?  If one is civil service and one is not, there is your first obstacle. 

Let’s say you tried to merge Maywood and Hackensack.  Hackensack is civil service, Maywood is not, but lets forget about those two, a big town and a small town, people might feel that their identity would be lost in the merger. 

Let’s say we merged Maywood and Rochelle Park police, two similarly sized towns with lots of other similarities.  One of them would have to abolish their police department and the other town would have to pick it up.  That’s the problem you have because Rochelle Park is going to say “Why do we have to abolish our police department, what if it doesn’t work out?” and Maywood is going to say the same thing. 

There has to be a system created at the state level because remember, we cannot do anything unless the state law, the statues, say you can.  There has to be some kind of state law that says you can do this, you can merge towns and share services, because it’s all very well and good to say merge towns when you’re sitting in Trenton, but you know what, you have to give them the tools. 

One of the things I did on the county level a few years ago which we’re continuing to do, is setting aside money to pay for studies of regionalization of shared services.  My vision is I don’t want to see a county wide police department.  Everybody will tell you. 

There are things that I think we should do.  We have a fantastic health department.  We already do 27 or 28 municipalities.  That’s a service that if you look at the statistics, at all of the studies that have been done, you cannot have a really efficient health department for 8,000 people, for 5,000 people you really need between 100,000 to 150,000 people before you can really provide a fully functional health department, and that is something I really think we can do more efficiently on the county level than on the local level. 

Police is not one of them.  Police I think, you’re better off [regionally], because people want that touch.  I would love to see one day, several regional departments.  What we can do on the county level, and we’re going that way, is to provide communications services to the local departments, emergency management, SWAT, you know, things you don’t need every day.  I think there’s a way of finding a hybrid of this system where towns merge.  We really need to talk to the people who this will directly affect, the guys in the trenches, and the residents too, to get their input.  I’m lucky because I know what it’s like, so I feel I have a certain inside look at things, but I know I don’t have all the answers, that’s the one thing I’m certain of.