Category: village of ridgewood

file photo by Boyd Loving

July 21,2015
by:  Anne LaGrange Loving

Ridgewood NJ, Some of us are having trouble understanding what appear to be a contradiction in the actions and statements of Mayor Aronsohn, Deputy Mayor Pucciarelli, and Councilwoman Hauck.  For the record, I pointed this out twice at public meetings (which did not result in an explanation of the discrepancy), and recently wrote to each of them for clarification (none replied).

In January of 2014, all three of them seemed pretty adamant that they did not want to violate the Village Code by hiring anyone into a position that did not exist (in that case, it was police officer positions in excess of the stated limit).  Quotes from the Minutes of the 01/29/2014 meeting include the following:

Mayor Aronsohn pointed out that the most important question to be answered is whether the Village is now in violation of what is permitted by the ordinance as far as police hires are concerned.  Mayor Aronsohn commented that the concerns are twofold: one is that the Village would not be in compliance with its own law, leading to the question of how to remedy that situation;

Councilwoman Hauck sees the current problem as an administrative problem and how it would appear if the ordinance were changed to facilitate an administrative error. She suggested that it might be better to wait until the next round of Police Academy candidates graduate, and hire new police officers in July. That would avoid being in violation of Village Code. Councilwoman Hauck said she feels uneasy about amending the current ordinance in order to bring people in prematurely.

Councilman Pucciarelli said that….for him, the issue is law enforcement, and the Village must obey its own laws.

How, then, do these statements fit in with their more recent actions regarding the hiring of a Human Resources Director (or Confidential Secretary, Senior Personnel Assistant, Senior Human Resources Professional or whatever the job title turned out to be) prior to the creation of this position and its official inclusion in the Village Code?   It seemed that in January of 2014 they were determined to follow the letter of the law, whereas in the this situation they decided it was acceptable to completely disregard the Village Code, and then re-write it after doing so.

Certainly the creation of an HR position was not an emergency, and due process could have been followed to first create the position and have it officially entered into the Village Code, and then to advertise the job and hire the appropriate person.  Our elected officials are put into office with a clear expectation that they will uphold the laws of our Village, in addition to their other duties.  It strikes me that in the case of this Human Resources position, they openly disregarded their own law, even when such was being pointed out to them by Councilman Sedon, Councilwoman Knudsen, and various members of the public.  No matter how badly they wanted a Human Resources person, the end does not justify the means.  We have a set of laws and procedures, and we expect our elected officials to follow them.

Until the Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and Councilwoman Hauck clearly state why they acted one way in one instance, and quite the opposite in this instance, we taxpayers will be left feeling very uneasy.