Vineland City Council deadlocks on vote for federal safety funding

Why wouldn’t a city council jump at the offer of $365,000 in federal funding to hire two firefighters?

It’s the question some are asking in Vineland, where council members were deadlocked Tuesday on a vote about the money.
The federal safety grant would have hired two firefighters – but only for two years.

“We have a responsibility,” Councilman Douglas Albrecht told the Daily Journal about why he voted against the money. With only two years’ worth of funding guaranteed, the firefighters could very well be laid off at the end of the grant.

Mayor Robert Romano plans to reintroduce the resolution in the hopes of a different outcome.