Stop this racism BS!

It's not racism - fulop

I agree JCIA needs serious reform. It's basically a patronage mill.


I doubt this is about racism....but why doesn't Fulop and the others just produce the record(votes, resolutions, statements...etc) that show that when the "others" got their cushy benefits....they were pretty much dead set against it as well????


Hard facts like that should shut up those claiming racism....which can too easily divide people, especially the regular folks of any city.

Embattled director of Jersey City agency says he won't accept pay hike

By Charles Hack/The Jersey Journal

The executive director of the Jersey City Incinerator Authority has announced that he is not going to accept the nearly 5 percent pay hike he's been awarded in his new five-year contract.

Last month, the board of commissioners of the autonomous city agency approved the new contract for Oren Dabney that took effect Wednesday.

The new pact gives Dabney a base salary of $126,215, a 4.8 percent increase from his current pay. He also will be entitled to annual increases of up to 4 percent after the first year.

But Dabney has received flak from several City Council members for getting a pay hike even though his agency has a nearly $7 million deficit.

And in light of discussions to consolidate the JCIA with the city's Department of Public Works, these council members object to the provision of the contact that grants Dabney pay and benefits for five years whether or not the JCIA is in existence.

Dabney said he has no intention of accepting a raise until his other workers at the agency can also be given pay hikes.

"I should note that although my old contract allowed it, I have voluntarily not taken a raise in three years," Dabney wrote in a letter to The Jersey Journal. "I will continue to not do so until we are able to afford raises to my dedicated union and non-union employees."

In three 4-5 votes Wednesday night, the City Council shot down three resolutions involving the matter.

One resolution called for the resignation of the JCIA commissioners who approved Dabney's new contract even though he still had two years to go on his old contract.

Another resolution called for the JCIA commissioners to void Dabney's new contract.
A third resolution would have established a council sub-committee to investigate the approval of director contracts at all of the autonomous agencies.

Council members Steven Fulop, Nidia Lopez, David Donnelly and Rolando Lavarro voted in the minority in each case.

Reiterating comments she made Monday, Councilwoman Viola Richardson said Wednesday that opposition to Dabney's pay increase was based on racism.

"My problem is that we sat around here and every other director got raises, benefits and whatever ever they wanted, and not a mumbling word was said until Oren Dabney got his," Richardson said. "You can call it what you like. It's a racist action."

Dabney is African-American.

Fulop dismissed Richardson's allegations of racism on Wednesday, saying that the consolidation of the JCIA has been at the forefront of discussions about reducing city expenditures.

"When you look at the performance of the Incinerator Authority you could say it was under-funded, but at the end of the day, you are given a budget of what to spend, and the director spends whatever he wants," Fulop said. "That's not called under-funding. That's not the way a business works."

__________________________________________

Viola says it's racism at work. What a freakin joke !

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That says a LOT

Records show Jersey City Incinerator Authority director Oren Dabney is not lowest paid of 6 autonomous agency chiefs

July 28, 2012, 3:00 AM
By Terrence T. McDonald/The Jersey Journal

When the Jersey City Incinerator Authority Board of Commissioners voted last Tuesday to award JCIA executive director Oren K. Dabney a new five-year contract with a nearly 5 percent pay hike, the city agency?s attorney compared Dabney?s salary to the pay of the city?s other agency chiefs.

Six autonomous city agencies operate with their own governing bodies, though some rely in large part on city funds for their budgets. The executive directors of the other agencies ?get a lot more? and do less than Dabney, JCIA attorney Timothy J. Hawkes said Tuesday night.

?He?s actually getting less than them,? Hawkes said.

But that?s not quite true. Dabney, whose current base salary is $120,205, is not the highest paid agency chief, but he?s certainly not the lowest, according to records obtained by The Jersey Journal.

Maria Maio, who heads the Jersey City Housing Authority, has the distinction of being the highest paid agency chief in Jersey City. Her 2011 salary was $173,276.

Dan Becht, executive director of the city Municipal Utilities Authority, earned $139,857 last year, while Bob Antonicello, chief of the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency, brought in $134,270. Dabney?s $120,205 in 2011 brings him in just below Antonicello.

Just below Dabney is Mary Paretti, chief of the Jersey City Parking Authority, who made $113,565 last year. Coming in as the city agency chief with the lowest base salary is Priscilla Gardner, director of the Jersey City Free Public Library. Her 2011 base salary was $113,162.

The salary hike granted to Dabney last week, which would bring his new base pay to $126,215, is not sitting well with city officials.

Mayor Jerramiah Healy expressed dissatisfaction, saying he wasn?t aware of the terms of Dabney?s new contract, while four City Council members are calling on the entire JCIA board to resign because the board was ready to approve Dabney?s contract last Tuesday without reading it first.

http://www.nj.com/jjournal-news/index ... ow_jersey_city_incin.html

Political Insider: Mayoral race politics dictated new Dabney contract

Published: Saturday, July 28, 2012, 7:23 AM

By Agustin C. Torres/The Jersey Journal
Follow

You just can't get enough of this story. The Jersey City Incinerator Authority approved the "Sandra Cunningham's not running for mayor" contract on Wednesday, guaranteeing a five-year compensation package for agency Executive Director Oren K. Dabney, one of Cunningham's chief political cronies -- even if the JCIA disappears tomorrow. Now we can begin the pummeling.
Let's put this situation in simple terms. The JCIA commissioners unanimously approved the pact Tuesday. It gives about a 5 percent pay hike to Dabney's $120,205 salary. He'll get up to 4 percent (and you know it'll be exactly that) for each of the remaining years. Dabney also gets a car that is available for personal use all the time, except that he can only use it for three weeks each time he goes on vacation. Go figure.

The kicker is that if the JCIA is dissolved or Dabney is removed, he gets paid the remainder of the contract and is guaranteed a pension and lifetime health benefits.
There is a real possibility that his position would not be needed should the city administration have the gonads to go ahead with its initial plan to combine the JCIA and city Department of Public Works into one entity.

One concern, as witnessed by Journal reporter Terrence T. McDonald, is that the JCIA commissioners haven't a clue of what specifically it is they approved. It is amazing that it was Commissioner Mike Rooney -- he of basketball fame -- who questioned what was in the contract. It must have been a knee-jerk reaction by Rooney, who recognized the back door cut to the golden basket.

JCIA attorney Timothy J. Hawkes described the pact to the agency's governing body as nothing different from the one the panel OK'd for the executive director in 2009 -- except the original expires in two years and the new one in 2017. Was it a fib, hyperbole, or perhaps a mental lapse? It almost seemed as if Hawkes was representing Dabney, but what do I know.


JCIA commissioner?
I don't want to paint everyone who serves on any agency during this city administration with the same paint-by-numbers brush, but what do you say when Phil Flood, widower of the late Councilwoman Willie Flood, advises Rooney that he can see the contract the next day, after he provides a rubber stamp vote?

To placate Rooney, and probably set him straight, the crew went into a closed door session to discuss the contract. I presume it was done because a reporter was the only member of the public. Had McDonald not been there, then we could have become more philosophical -- whether you would have heard the tree fall in the forest.

Why is it a "Cunningham is not running for mayor" contract?
Despite the protestations, Mayor Jerramiah Healy must have agreed to the pact. It helps state Sen. Cunningham's pal. Some believe Cunningham plans to challenge Healy and Downtown Councilman Steven Fulop for mayor. This vote appears to be a concession to Cunningham by the mayor to keep her out of the race.

Next, I suspect, the senator would like to name a number of Healy's council running mates.

The mayor does protest the Dabney -- or is that future Assemblyman Dabney (beware, Charles Mainor) -- contract, some.

He says: "We're going to review all of the contracts for the executive directors of all the autonomous agencies to make sure that there are no raises inconsistent with the fiscal restraints we've placed on all city directors and employees for the past three years."

The mayor's staff says they knew of the contract vote but were unaware of the pact's terms. Let's see, they knew there was a contract vote but were not made suspicious by the fact there was already one in place? One JCIA member who approved the contract is Kevin Lyons, who works in the Mayor's Office.

The proposed merger of the JCIA and DPW was being ballyhooed by the Healy administration as a way of cutting spending costs, including jobs, to the tune of about $6.4 million. Most of those whose jobs may have been threatened would probably come from the JCIA, where Cunningham has most of her patronage, but the main concern is obviously Dabney's position.

So naturally, Healy gets cold feet as the May election approaches and there is only talk of a small amount of downsizing. It reminds most people of the mayor's decision to postpone property revaluation -- until after the city election.
Then, the city decides to bail out the JCIA by providing funds to pay the agency's surprising $7 million debt in past due bills. Dabney claims the city is to blame for not giving the agency enough funds to pay carting companies -- who are probably not picking up garbage from restaurants, colleges, and other questionable sites. Remember, I said "not" ;).
I forgot to mention that the JCIA commissioners decided to reopen Dabney's contract to reward him for exceptional service. This probably includes providing a flatbed truck for Jersey City Democratic Organization use in the annual St. Patrick's Day Parade.

Fulop's reaction is stronger. He and fellow City Council members Rolando Lavarro, Nidia Lopez and David Donnelly have asked for the state attorney general to probe the JCIA's action, called for the agency's board members to resign, and plan to introduce an ordinance to place the JCIA within the DPW. They will also frown a great deal at the Aug. 1 council session.

I'm surprised they did not take the matter to the city ethics board. Oh, wait, is there one? I don't recall the panel of moral principles meeting in several years.


http://www.nj.com/hudson/voices/index ... insider_mayoral_race.html

Jersey City council members call for resignations over new pact for agency chief

July 26, 2012, 5:15 PM
By Terrence T. McDonald/The Jersey Journal

Four Jersey City City Council members are calling for the resignations of all seven Jersey City Incinerator Authority commissioners for awarding JCIA chief Oren K. Dabney a five-year contract this week.

The council members are also calling the state attorney general to investigate the action.

Ward E Councilman Steve Fulop, who has led the charge to dissolve the JCIA, said today he objects to the commissioners approving the contract even though some said they hadn?t seen the pact, which comes with an initial pay hike of roughly 5 percent.

?From a basic public policy perspective, there are so many things wrong with what the JCIA board did,? Fulop said in a statement.

The seven-member JCIA board unanimously awarded Dabney the contract at its meeting Tuesday. Dabney wasn?t due for a new pact until 2014, but the JCIA board acted two years early as a reward for ?superior services,? according to a resolution memorializing the decision.

At the meeting, commissioners asked to see the contract, but Commission Chair Phillip Flood urged them to vote on the agreement before reading it. JCIA attorney Timothy J. Hawkes told them it was the ?same contract? the board approved in 2009, though the new agreement comes with a salary that?s 4.8 percent higher than the one in the 2009 contract.

Neither Hawkes nor Flood returned repeated phone calls requesting comment.

Fulop?s colleagues David Donnelly, Rolando Lavarro and Nidia Lopez joined him in objecting to the action. Donnelly and Lavarro plan to run on mayoral candidate Fulop?s ticket in next year?s city election.

?This lacks basic leadership when you give yourself a raise while laying off low-level employees and not paying basic bills,? Donnelly said in the statement. ?This is just wrong.?

Council members interrogated Dabney earlier this year when they discovered that the JCIA hadn?t paid more than $7 million in overdue bills, a debt that Dabney blamed on insufficient city funding. The council later approved a $6.8 million payment to the JCIA to cover some of the debt, over Fulop?s and Lavarro?s objections.

"Given the scrutiny the agency is under for its mountain of debt, this action by the JCIA board makes absolutely no sense," Lopez said in the statement.

In addition to the A.G. investigation and the JCIA resignations, the four council members said they will re-introduce a city measure intended to dissolve the JCIA and merge its functions into the city of Department of Public Works. The measure stalled in April after hundreds of JCIA workers and their supporters voiced their objection.

Yesterday, Healy?s office said the mayor was unaware of the terms of Dabney's contract and that the mayor does not support a pay increase. Today, Lavarro questioned that statement.

?I don?t know how the mayor can say he didn?t know when his own employees sit on the JCIA board,? Lavarro said. ?Either he is not engaged in city government or is not being forthright. Either way it?s bad for the city, taxpayers and the average worker at the JCIA.?

http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/20 ... y_council_members_ca.html

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This SOP for this group. Remember Mary Spinello-Parretti? She was Oren's inept assistant, then she was rewarded by becoming Ward B's sellout clowncil person & after she screwed those poor people she was made the head of the biggest patronage pit in the city - the Parking Authority.

BTW this move with Oren is a desparation move on the part of Heely as Oren is Sandy's 'boy' & we all know that we must keep Sandy happy.

Bar Keep! Another round!

This is the kind of BS that quasi-government agencies get away with all the time. They are funded (or largely funded) by the government, yet they don't have to answer to the government, at least not in the same way like a regular government agency such as DPW would. Quasi-government agencies are the worst of both worlds - they don't have the pressure to make a profit like a private industry entity does and yet they don't have the bureaucracy that a regular government agency has to go through in making any important decision. This is a lot like the kind of crap that goes on at Amtrak, National Endowment for the Arts, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Universal Service Administrative Company, Legal Services Corp - the list goes on. They are heavily or entirely funded by the taxpayers yet don't have to answer to them. I am not necessarily against any of the things that these government corporations do, but they should just be folded back into the regular federal agency from which they came - why is the extra level of overhead necessary anyway?

Corruption just flourishes in these types of quasi-government agencies as well- they aren't subject to FOIA (or FOIL in JCIA's case), don't have to go through any competitive bidding process for purchases they make and they can approve ridiculous contracts like this one in total secrecy! Enough is enough!

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Sounds like he was reminded who he was working for. Hint: it's not the citizens of JC.

Jersey City Council Members Lavarro, Fulop, Lopez, and Donnelly call for investigation and intervention of JCIA contract
Will Also Re-Introduce Consolidation Plan as Contract Highlights need for oversight


July 26, 2012- (Jersey City) - One day after the Jersey City Incinerator Authority (JCIA) Board of Commissioners unanimously voted to award a new, five-year contract extension with a 5% salary hike to JCIA?s Chief Executive Officer Oren K. Dabney, Ward E Councilman Fulop, Councilman-at-Large Lavarro, Councilwoman Lopez, and Councilman Donnelly are asking for an immediate investigation from the Attorney General, the resignation of the board members that voted for the contract, and will reintroduce the consolidation ordinance to put the JCIA into city oversight within the Department of Public Works. They will ask the council and mayor to support the appropriate resolutions and ordinances to be added to the next council agenda.

The seven-member JCIA Board voted to approve this contract extension, including a pay increase, despite the fact that Dabney?s current contract is not set to expire until 2014. Despite commissioners and the public never seeing the contract vote was supported by unanimously including a ?yes? vote from Kevin Lyons who works within the mayor?s office in city hall.

?From a basic public policy perspective, there are so many things wrong with what the JCIA Board did last night,? said Ward E Councilman Steve Fulop.

?First, Mr. Dabney?s current contract doesn?t end for another two years and there was no logical reason for this board to vote to give him a 5 year extension at this time, let alone one that carries with it a pay increase. Second, just a few months ago we proposed merging the JCIA and the DPW as an efficiency and cost-saving measure and now we see the reason that the mayor and director opposed it which is pure patronage. We intend to reintroduce that consolidation plan at the next meeting as oversight and accountability is clearly needed? Fulop said.

Councilman Donnelly added, ?This lacks basic leadership when you give yourself a raise while laying off low level employees and not paying basic bills which the tax payers will be carrying for years as the JCIA has been doing. This is just wrong?

?I don?t know how the mayor can say he didn?t know when his own employees sit on the JCIA board. Either he is not engaged in city government or is not being forthright. Either way it?s bad for the city, taxpayers and the average worker at the JCIA .? said Councilman Lavarro.

"Given the scrutiny the agency is under for its mountain of debt, this action by the JCIA board makes absolutely no sense." said Ward C Councilwoman Nidia Lopez.

Lavarro, Lopez, Donnelly and Fulop are going to introduce the ordinances and resolutions at the August 1st City Council Meeting

# # # # #

This guy came to our block association meeting many people complained that their recycling was not being picked up Dabney states he never knew anything about it. The trucks that come around are private contractors for the salary that OB gets he should be monitoring the situation.

So, this guy Rooney gets shot down when he asks to see the contract before he's asked to vote on it, and then he votes for it anyway? Why didn't the guy abstain or vote no, at least to make a point?
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So the guy mismanages the agency to the tune of $6.8 million, has the city bail it out (1) and gets rewarded?

Being that his former contract did not expire until 2014, a new one was signed with so many loop holes that if the agency is dissolve or merged with DPW (as expected), JC residents will be stuck with paying this hack ~$126k to ~$150k annually over the next 5 years with benefits for the rest of his life (!) and to top it off, use of city car...."superior services rendered" indeed, suckers.

Where are the pitchforks people?


1. http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/20 ... city_council_appro_6.html

Jersey City agency OK's controversial 5-year contract for director

July 25, 2012, 7:48 PM
By Terrence T. McDonald/The Jersey Journal

The Jersey City Incinerator Authority Board of Commissioners Tuesday night awarded JCIA chief Oren K. Dabney a new, five-year contract that comes with a nearly 5 percent salary hike.

The new pact, approved unanimously by the seven-member board, gives Dabney a base salary of $126,215, a 4.8 percent increase from his current pay. He will also be entitled to annual increases of up to 4 percent after the first year.

Dabney's current contract was not set to expire until 2014. The commissioners awarded him the new agreement, which starts Aug. 1, and also provides Dabney with a JCIA-paid car, as recognition of "superior services rendered," according to the resolution awarding the new pact.

The JCIA is an autonomous agency founded in 1951 to pick up and dispose of city trash. It employs around 140 workers, and its roughly $33 million annual budget is funded mostly with city dollars.

Asked to comment, Dabney said he thanked the board "for their unanimous vote of confidence in me to continue to make Jersey City a cleaner, greener and healthier environment."

Dabney's new agreement also provides him with full compensation over the term of the contract, including health and pension benefits for life, if the JCIA terminates the contract or eliminates Dabney's position.

This provision could be pivotal since city officials are mulling whether to eliminate the JCIA entirely and merge its functions with the city Department of Public Works. Dabney's 2009 contact included the provision as well, but it was absent in the five-year contract approved in 2004.

Mayor Jerramiah Healy issued a terse statement indicating unhappiness with Dabney's new salary hike.

"We're going to review all of the contracts for the executive directors of all the autonomous agencies to make sure that there are no raises inconsistent with the fiscal restraints we've placed on all city directors and employees for the past three years," Healy said.

Ward E Councilman Steve Fulop, who is behind the push to dissolve the JCIA, noted that the city agency came under fire recently when the City Council discovered that the JCIA hadn't paid more than $7 million in overdue bills.

"It makes no sense to give a contract extension when the old one is not even close to being up, and furthermore the JCIA hasn't even been paying its bills," Fulop said. "This is exactly what we warned about months ago when the mayor and director pushed back against the consolidation plans. "

The seven-member board was set to approve Dabney's new contract sight unseen Tuesday night. After JCIA attorney Timothy J. Hawkes described the pact as the "same contract" the board had previously approved for Dabney in 2009, Commissioner Michael Rooney said he wanted to see the document before voting to approve it.

"He's entitled to see it," said Commissioner Roger Hejazi.

"He can see it after the meeting," Commission Chair Phillip Flood said before calling for a vote.

Flood and Hawkes did not return phone calls requesting comment.

http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/20 ... y_incinerator_authoi.html