Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Coltenback vs. Aloia
Before the public comment portion of last night's council conference meeting, Mayor McCarthy acknowledged the town's latest lawsuit against them and stated they were advised by counsel not to comment on the situation because of the litigation. This caveat did not disuade anyone from stating their arguments for returning Memphis to the care of Jeff and Diana Coltenback, who filed the suit on Friday. The lawsuit is scheduled to be heard early in October in a County Courtroom in Newark.
The mayor waited for comments on all subjects to conclude before inviting Jeff to state his case and briefly explain the basis for his lawsuit agains the township. The details of the suit are yet to be made public, but one of the incidents that motivated the suit was his frustration at discussing the contract issues with it's author,town attorney, Brian Aloia -- who hung up on him. During Jeff's entire presentation, Aloia(above) could be seen staring intently at his Macbook without glancing up for a second to acknowledge Jeff. The Memphis issue goes way beyond just letting the dog out. Aside from the insanity of firing dozens of experienced volunteers and silencing whistle blowers, Bloomfield's unelected attorneys are the ones pulling the strings that have made us a magnet for costly lawsuits.
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5 comments:
Well said, Geoff. Agree about Aloia - come to think of it, it was his agreement that Jeff signed that caused all the trouble. If it had been more specific in what he was and wasn't allowed to do then none of this would have happened. However, I also think the real culprit is whoever it was who forwarded the FB pictures to Karen Lore and complained about it. And I have a pretty good guess who it might have been. On the positive side, I thought the Mayor seemed pretty sympathetic to Jeff in his own way since he let him speak last and seemed pretty pleasant to him under the circumstances. I can only hope that is a good sign.
I'd give the Mayor points if he was instrumental in getting the BOH forum together with Jim Crosby. But I'll deduct them if he suggested the same format as the redevelopment forum where questions are cherry picked and dialogue is ruled out. The BOH forum turned into a fiasco because Jeff was publicly dissed and Lore cut it short.
One would think, such as with the Federal government, that someone like the mayor, if he is truly sympathetic, could just "pardon" Memphis, tell all these bureaucratic morons to jump in a lake, and hand Memphis over to Jeff and Diana. At this point, the entire situation is ludicrous. If this were a regular business, which cities and towns are actually businesses regardless of whether or not they are governments, the boss, if he had any sense, would have cracked down on this irresponsible nonsense long ago, fired these people and fixed things. What they are doing to Memphis right now is flat out animal cruelty and probably against the laws in their town!
Agreed, Houndmom! I was planning a post on the business analogy as well! We're all the shareholders who may end up paying for mismanagement. Sometimes I wish we had a parliamentary form of government so we could have a vote of no-confidence. Recalls are nearly impossible and costly. I believe some New England towns can legislate on the fly with everyone who shows up at meetings having a vote.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_meeting#Open_town_meeting
Geoff- public comment is required by the Open Public Meetings Act. The Mayor did have a choice- the public gets 5 minutes each to comment. Do you think I'd be allowed to comment f it was up to the mayor?
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