Lower Council Votes 3-2 to Keep Grants Coordinator

VILLAS — Lower Township Council voted 3-2 July 7 not to allow Township Manager Joe Jackson to eliminate Township Grants Coordinator Colleen Crippen’s position effective Aug. 1.
Councilmen Glenn Douglass, Wayne Mazurek and Thomas Conrad voted “no” while Mayor Walter Craig and Deputy Mayor Robert Nolan voted in favor of eliminating Crippen’s job.
Township Hall’s meeting room was filled with Crippen’s supporters, some of whom held signs noting she should keep her job.
Controversy began when Mazurek and Douglass challenged Jackson’s June 17 decision to eliminate her job, one day after council approved the township’s budget. No mention of the firing was made to council June 16 and council approved her salary.
Mazurek said he was unaware Jackson gave notice to Crippen until he received a call from Douglass.
Mazurek said he did not believe the township manager had the authority to eliminate a position without council’s approval.
“I am totally opposed to abolishing positions,” he said. “I think we should cut stuff not people.”
Mazurek said Crippen’s position was necessary because a number of grants require a grants coordinator to administer them. He said abolishing the position could cost the township money rather than save it.
Mazurek said the mayor received a letter from the state Department of Community Affairs that stated Crippen “for the past 20 years was considered the most competent and productive grants administrators in the state.” The July 3 letter from Terence Schrider, administrator of Neighborhood Programs Unit of DCA, said Crippen was responsible for bringing in millions of dollars from the Neighborhood Preservation Program, Neighborhood Housing Rehabilitation and Small Cities grants that benefited lower income township residents.
The audience applauded Mazurek’s remarks.
He said the township’s chief financial officer, in a letter, stated that many grants require a match for the amount raised by the township and many times Crippen’s salary can be written off against those matches. Mazurek said if the township hired an outside firm to handle grants, they would take 5 to 10 percent of the grant money as a fee.
“If we get a million dollar grant, that is going to cost us way more than her salary,” he said.
Douglass said the process to eliminate Crippen’s job was not handled properly. He said he asked Jackson to rescind the notice of her termination, immediately.
Conrad concurred with Douglass that the proper process was not followed.
Nolan, who on two occasions suggested Crippen’s job be eliminated, said neighboring towns do not have a grants coordinator. He said Jackson handled the process properly.
Nolan said he asked Jackson to find Crippen another position in the township.
Nolan said he stood behind his decision to eliminate Crippen’s position, which received “boos” from the audience. He asked Township Solicitor Paul Baldini if Jackson needed council’s approval to eliminate the position.
Baldini said, in his opinion, Jackson has the authority to eliminate positions.
“Your code (township) in particular is silent as to whether the manager, in addition to council, may abolish a position,” he said.
Baldini said after reading the Faulkner Act, which governs the township’s council-manager form of government, he believed Jackson could abolish the position “if the enabling code is silent to that portion of his authority.”
Douglass quoted from a letter Baldini wrote to council stating under the Faulkner Act, the manager “could make recommendations to council” to abolish a position.
Baldini said the Faulkner Act does not specifically state a township manager can abolish a position.
Mazurek said he believed the township code was clear that council could abolish a position but the manager could not.
Mayor Walter Craig called the grant coordinator “a luxury position,” and said the township did not get “its fair share of grants.” He said the City of Wildwood from 2002 to 2006 received over $10.5 million without a grants coordinator.
Craig said according to Jackson, the township would be looking at layoffs in the future.
During public comment, Villas resident Joe Winters asked, “How many more people do we have on this hit list?” He noted former township manager Kathy McPherson was the first to lose her job.
Craig said he did not know where Winters came up with a hit list.
Winters said he went to Superior Court and “pulled papers” on the “whistleblower lawsuit.”
The lawsuit is captioned Margaret Vitelli and her husband Joseph Vitelli vs. Lower Township and Joe Jackson. (See related story)
Margaret Vitelli, Lower Township Purchasing Agent, sustained “adverse employment actions and sustained damages as well as personal injury” as a result of informing Jackson he could not award a $600,000 contract to township engineers Remington, Vernick and Walberg without putting the contract out to bid for the Bennett’s Crossing Recreation Area.
Baldini said he saw no reason the township would lose the lawsuit “because the township didn’t do anything wrong.”