Some City Residents Begin Process to Recall Mayor

CAPE MAY – The controversies that have dominated the Cape May political scene for the last two months have just added a new element, an attempted recall of Mayor Edward Mahaney. A recall committee consisting of Charles Hendricks, Thomas Keene and MaryJo Pinelli filed the necessary paperwork with the City Clerk’s Office April 27. The clerk has three business days in which to review the filing for compliance with state law.
At that point the committee faces the difficult task of obtaining voter signatures for their petition. State law requires “at least 25 percent of those registered to vote in the jurisdiction” sign the petition. In Cape May, which has approximately 2,000 registered voters, the petition will require about 500 signatures.
The recall committee put out a press release listing four reasons compelling the recall action. First, the committee alleges that Mahaney has violated the Faulkner Act. Cape May, organized under the act, is a city manager form of government in which the mayor is part of the legislative body but has no executive powers. The committee claims that Mahaney has acted as the city executive “aided and abetted by City Manager Bruce Macleod and City Solicitor Anthony Monzo and a willful city council.”
The second claim is that council members Terri Swain and Beatrice Pessagno cast unlawful votes at the March 3 meeting when council rescinded the appointment of Robert Sheehan as chief of police. The release quotes County Prosecutor Robert Taylor as saying, “The mayor falsely stated and implied that Chief Sheehan was under criminal investigation.” The committee says, “The mayor and council’s collective actions have done untold damage… while subjecting taxpayers to the burden of unnecessary legal costs.”
The press release continues with its third charge, that Mahaney “has wasted tax dollars by approving highly questionable sole source contracts to Temple University.” It goes on to state Mahaney oversaw “the disastrous construction and operation of Convention Hall which has cost the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.” The committee also places at Mahaney’s doorstep the charge that he “is needlessly increasing the city’s legal costs.”
For their fourth accusation, the committee cites Mahaney’s support for funding cuts to an “already understaffed fire department” which it states is in “direct violation of National Fire Protection Association staffing standards.” The press release asserts “the firefighters union is considering a lawsuit against the city for creating an unsafe work environment.” If true, such a suit would add to the legal action taken by Sheehan against the city and the city’s own suit filed against the County Prosecutor.
The issue of the Temple University contracts was the source of an ethics complaint filed by Hendricks and dismissed in 2012 by the State Department of Community Affairs as having “no reasonable factual basis.” Hendricks has been critical of the state ruling and brought the issue up again when he ran for a council seat last November. At that time the issue became the focal point of an exchange of letters in which both Mahaney and Hendricks threatened legal action against the other.
Mahaney’s current term runs until the end of 2016 and his seat would come up for election that November. For the recall action to have any impact, it would have to force an election in November 2015, one year prior to the end of Mahaney’s term. While state law gives the committee 160 days to garner the needed signatures, it also states that the petition needs to be filed and confirmed 55 days before the prospective general election. Given the filing date, the committee’s time for gathering voters support may be constricted. The recall committee is faced with what they admit is an “enormous challenge.”
Mahaney first ran for elective office in the city twenty years ago in 1995. In that election he was the top vote getter and became mayor. He has run four other times during the intervening years and has won every election, not always as the lead vote getter. Mahaney was out of office from June 2003 to May 2008. When contacted following the committee’s filing with the clerk, Mahaney said he had no comment at this time.
To contact Vince Conti, email vconti@cmcherald.com.