Residents press Middlesex County on homelessness services, emergency declaration and missing misconduct reports

During public comment at the Middlesex County Board of Commissioners meeting, Charlie Crabill of New Brunswick Today asked several questions about winter-storm response, homelessness services and law-enforcement transparency.

Crabill began by asking whether the county had ended its winter-storm emergency declaration for the recent storm. County staff responded that the emergency was rescinded the Friday after the storm.

Crabill also asked about a Green Acres park-development hearing in Metuchen and was told it is scheduled for 6 p.m. on Feb. 19 in the same meeting room. He pressed for results from the county’s point-in-time count of people experiencing homelessness; staff said preliminary data should be available by March after deduplication of multiple surveys and confirmed last year’s count was about 620.

On police accountability, Crabill asked whether the prosecutor’s office or sheriff’s office had published required annual summaries of major discipline. He said corrections had published its report but the sheriff’s and prosecutor’s offices had not, and asserted those offices were in violation of a policy requiring such publication by Jan. 31. He asked the board to call the sheriff and the prosecutor to the next meeting to explain the missing reports.

In response, the chair said he would have “Mister Filomena” speak to the prosecutor about those reports and that comments about an active shooting investigation would not be discussed at the meeting. A public commenter also spoke about the 68‑year‑old Deborah Terrell, who was killed in an incident in New Brunswick, and named an officer in connection with that death; the board did not adjudicate that allegation at the meeting.

The meeting closed after a motion, a second and a voice vote in favor of adjournment.

What officials said:
• A county staff member: “We did rescind that. We rescinded it the Friday after the storm.”
• A staff contact on the homelessness count: “We should have data on that by March. We have to go through due to data duplication from the different entities that do those surveys.”

What was requested:
• The reporter asked the board to invite the sheriff and the prosecutor to the next meeting to explain why the offices had not posted required discipline summaries.

Next steps: The chair said a county official would speak to the prosecutor; no further timeline for publication was provided and no formal motion to compel attendance by the sheriff or prosecutor was recorded.