>Lame-duck Bergen freeholders approve 19 appointments
Bergen freeholders approve 19 appointments in lame-duck session
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
BY MICHAEL GARTLAND
The Record
STAFF WRITER
The Bergen County Freeholder Board approved 19 appointments to county positions Wednesday night in their next-to-last lame duck session of the year.
The appointments, which typically are recommended by the county executive and then approved by the board, included the selection of Uwe Malakas as Bergen County police chief, Louis D’Arminio to the Bergen County Improvement Authority and Nicholas Rotonda to the Northwest Bergen County Utilities Authority.
The Democrats on the freeholder board, three of whom were voted out of office last month, supported all of Democratic County Executive Dennis McNerney’s recommendations.
McNerney also was defeated in the November and will leave office in January.
Republican Freeholder Rob Hermansen voted against most of the Democratic appointments and criticized them as “extremely questionable” because three of the Democrats currently on the board will not serve next year.
“I don’t think it’s right,” he said. “They shouldn’t have been made at this time … They had all year to do this when they had the majority.”
