So, Mayor Tony F. Mack isn’t even going through the motions of reappointing several of his “Acting” Directors who were dismissed from their positions as Department Heads last week by City Council. Having exceeded their statutory maximum of 90 days in their “Acting” capacities, Council dismissed Harold Hall, Carmen Melendez and Ruth Carter. Mr. Mack was expected to turn around and reappoint those three, taking advantage of a loophole in our city ordinances I have encouraged Council to fix.
Instead, he refuses to recognize Council’s action at all, deeming it illegal. According to an article by Erin Duffy in this morning’s Times,
Mack said reappointments weren’t even necessary: he did not believe that council members, whom he called “combative,” acted legally in discussing and voting on the appointments in the first place.
“Legally we know it’s wrong,” he said. “It’s not even a matter of challenging it.” According to Mack, the employees in questions should have received Rice notices, which inform a worker their employment status may be discussed publicly.
“In order to discuss personnel matters of that nature, you have to notify the employees, have to give them ample time to respond to what it is you’d like to talk about and then the employee has to agree … to such a meeting,” he said. “By doing this kind of irrational, irresponsible thing, council puts us in harm’s way regarding legal matters.”
Sigh. Do we have to review this, again?? Hey, Mister Mayor. Listen Up, and take notes this time, OK?? We first went over this on December 28, 2010. I know you have a notoriously short attention span, but this is pretty fundamental stuff. I am just going to excerpt from my first piece on the matter. As I have said many times before, I am not a lawyer, so take this for what it’s worth. I tend to think the language is pretty clear, so I can’t understand why you are not hearing this from the City’s “Acting” Law Director Walter Denson.
The statute in question is N.J.S.A. 10:4-12, Section 7.b. (3) (note: this link may not take you to the right subsection; use the arrow button in the lower right-hand corner of the screen to scroll to the correct page):
I have given emphasis to the section that says the individual has to waive his privacy right in writing.
That’s some pretty dense language, so let’s parse this out and see whether we think the Mayor’s position is appropriate. I will list the circumstances that require either an executive session or a personal waiver, and see if any of them apply to this evening’s session. Here we go!
- Educational? – No
- Training? – No
- Social Service? – No
- Medical? – No
- Health? – No
- Custodial? – No
- Child Protection? – No
- Rehabilitation? – No
- Legal Defense? – Hmmmmm. I don’t THINK so, but I’ll say No. (Hey. don’t prove me wrong about this, guys!)
- Welfare? – No
- Housing? – No
- Relocation? – No
- Insurance? – No
- Similar program or institution operated by a public body pertaining to any specific individual admitted to or served by such institution or program, including but not limited to information relative to the individual’s personal and family circumstances? – No
- Material pertaining to admission, discharge, treatment, progress or condition of any individual? – No
These are the matters which, by law, may not be discussed in public open session, unless the individual in question responds to a “Rice letter” and waives privacy.
None of these apply.
A public body may exclude the public only from that portion of a meeting at which the public body discusses: …Again and again, and again over the last two years, the Mayor and his mouthpieces have trotted out the same old tiresome excuse for ignoring Council and other critics: that just about everything is a “personnel matter” not to be discussed in public.
Bullshit. As discussed above, the matter of extending – or not – the term of an “Acting” appointment involves NONE of the factors that the law describes as personal in nature. Council was entirely justified in considering the reappointments of these three in open session, and entirely justified in terminating their temporary tenure. The Mayor has no grounds to defend his position.
I wonder if anyone will ask him about this at his so-called “Biennial Review” this morning. Hmmmm??
First, the Honorable Mayor did not take questions. The press conference, itself, was smoke and mirrors. I’m being polite; it was bullshit. The Honorable Mayor announced a press seminar – he wants to learn from the media how stories are picked for publication, why they are so negative, why they never write about his wonderful accomplishments – this seminar is being held at the Marriott on Saturday, June 23. That’s the day of Heritage Days. He never said a word about Amazon. Sadly, the Honorable Mayor just does not get it.
“A press seminar?” And our local papers agreed to attend? That should be a joke.
If our “one dissertation short of a Ph.D” mayor needs a Journalism 101 refresher, it ain’t gonna happen during one “press seminar.” Sounds like one more opportunity to be nothing but another meaningless photo op for our almost-Doctor Mayor.