Moreover, as recent events like Pride in the Park, our Juneteenth Celebration, and the Independence Day fireworks demonstrate, community engagement is at an all time high. In communities like ours, it sure has worked, because our Township remains a very safe place to live, work, and play. National Night Out was first introduced by the National Association of Town Watch (NATW), responding to then increasing crime rates nationally and a growing sense of disconnection among neighbors. As I recently shared with our Police Department’s leadership when I had the privilege of swearing in recently-promoted officers to their new positions of leadership within the department, ensuring that our police have all the state-of-the-art equipment and training that they need to perform their valuable function for our community has been one of the great personal pleasures of my time in office. Since 1984, the first Tuesday of August has been celebrated as National Night Out, a community event that we proudly celebrate every year in Scotch Plains to reaffirm and renew the strong bonds between the residents of our community and our fantastic police department.Īs the liaison to the Scotch Plains Police Department from the governing body and the son of a retired police chief, this is an especially important event to me. We are now planning for National Night Out, set for Tuesday. Especially with all that is being accomplished at Town Hall right now on recreation, downtown revitalization, and more, the days feel like hours and the weeks feel like days. This summer, unlike any other that I have experienced in recent memory, blew by at lightning speed. I cannot believe that it is almost August already!īefore you know it, we will be talking about Back-to-School preparations and all the exciting happenings that the change of seasons brings.

Lower merion township library