Resolution Pending Between City, Prosecutor

CAPE MAY – Public comment at the June 1 Cape May City Council meeting swirled around the controversy concerning once-chief of police and now Capt. Robert Sheehan.
Following the March 3 meeting, and before a full month had passed, residents found themselves without a chief of police and the council member to whom they had given the highest number of votes in the November election, Jerry Inderwies, Jr. Inderwies resigned in protest over the action to rescind the appointment of Sheehan as chief.
Soon after those incidents, the city issued two press releases that outraged Cape May County Prosecutor Robert Taylor and led him to impose a monitor between city officials and police command.
Within that month, the city was served in a suit brought by Sheehan and the city itself launched a suit against Taylor and the Prosecutor’s Office to force the monitor’s removal. All of that stemmed from a dispute over the use of compensatory time by a senior police officer who served under Sheehan and whose contract with the city allegedly did not allow for use of compensatory time.
At issue was what the city valued at $11,000 in paid leave. A recall committee also formed to seek the required signatures needed to force a recall election in November for Mayor Edward Mahaney.
In the wake of a Superior Court hearing before Judge J. Christopher Gibson, who heard arguments in the city’s suit against the prosecutor, some resolution may be in sight.
In response to questions during council meetings, the public learned that the city was engaged in negotiations with the Prosecutor’s Office to settle the case. Both the city and Taylor notified Gibson and asked him to withhold any ruling pending the outcome of settlement discussions.
At an unrelated news conference concerning a renewed effort in a Middle Township cold case, Taylor responded to a question concerning the Cape May suit by saying “some news may be available by the end of the week.”
The settlement may involve some sort of resolution of the issue of the police chief’s position.
When asked why council did not just go ahead and reappoint Sheehan, Solicitor Anthony Monzo, speaking for council, said it would be “premature and inadvisable” for council to act, given that it also has to deal with Sheehan’s suit against the city. That response did nothing to calm the criticism leveled at council by residents.
Jerry Gaffney, an ex-mayor of Cape May and opponent of the city’s actions regarding Sheehan, asked, “When are we the people going to be told what’s going on? Rob Sheehan is hanging out there in limbo.”
During a heated exchange between Jerry Inderwies Jr. and Mayor Edward Mahaney, Deputy Mayor Terri Swain pleaded let “one person speak at a time.”
Inderwies objected to the fact that the mayor sat at the plaintiff table during the hearing before Gibson. The action was seen by Inderwies as another example of Mahaney assuming a role superior to others on the council, a role he does not have under the city’s form of government.
Mahaney defended his actions, saying he did what he was asked to do by the city’s special counsel.
Charles Hendricks, a member of the recall committee, picked up on Inderwies’ theme continuing to accuse the mayor of violations of the Faulkner Act. “This is not a strong mayor form of government,” he said twice.
To contact Vince Conti, email vconti@cmcherald.com.