Hard to believe, right? A lawsuit filed today in Mercer County Superior Court by a former City employee – Maria Richardson, formerly of the Recreation Department, laid off on September 16 – provides more allegations of theft, deception, graft, corruption and just downright meanness within the highest reaches of City Hall. This case, in one document, alleges some of the worst things we’ve heard coming out of City Hall during the current Administration.
The 41-page brief filed on behalf of Ms. Richardson by local attorney George T. Dougherty (who is also representing Trenton Water Works employees Edmund Johnson and Timothy London) charges Mayor Tony F. Mack and “Acting” Director of Public Works Harold Hall, as individuals and in their official capacities, as well as the City of Trenton. Which means that YOUR tax dollars, and those of taxpayers statewide who support our town, will be spent defending those two against these horrible charges.
Rather than recite all of the charges (did I mention it is a 41-page brief?), let me just “tease” the contents of this lawsuit with some select quotations from the document. Two notes before we proceed. First, these are just allegations, not yet proved in a court of law. Second, any readers on heart or hypertension medication are advised to go no further. These charges are guaranteed to make your blood boil.
Missing Money
Plaintiff [Maria Richardson] explained to the Mayor on May 26, 2011, that according to former Finance Director Ronald Zilinski, the money taken in by the City from the sale of seasonal ramp passes to boaters cannot be diverted to purposes other than the maintenance of the boat ramp…Based on prior years’ sales levels, a normal volume of sales [mostly in cash] of boat ramp passes would amount to no less than $10,000 during the month of June…[P]laintiff requested her replacement…to show her the June records and found to her surprise that there was no income recorded other than $832 but, most unusually, the supply of unsold decals was missing.
Missing Tents
On July 7, 2011, plaintiff received a hostile reaction from defendant [Harold] Hall when she reported to him that the City’s supply of outdoor tents was missing.
The twelve tents, had been last seen by her in their normal storage place at “the Cottage” in Cadwalader Park between City events which required such tents.
In preparation for the July 9-10, 2011 Heritage Days Festival, plaintiff found that they were missing from their storage place.
Upon reporting the missing tents to defendant Hall, he told plaintiff “The Mayor took them.”
In response to plaintiff’s admonition that the tents were “not the Mayor’s property but were public property”, Hall retorted: Any property of the City is the Mayor’s property, if you want them, go ask him yourself” leaving no doubt that he had no intention of taking any steps to rectify a bold misappropriation of the public property.
Plaintiff drew a further hostile reaction from defendant Hall by stating her opinion that“if the Mayor actually took those tents, that means he stole them.”
The plaintiff subsequently learned that Seasonal Park Ranger Robert Mendez had also confirmed to one of her co-workers that the defendant Mayor had taken the tents and that the City would have to rent replacements.
As a consequence, in order to equip the Heritage Days Festival, the City was forced to rent the tents it once owned.
Summer Food Program Hiring
[T]he plaintiff was required each summer to hire “food safety monitors” who had been trained and accredited by the N.J. Department of Agriculture…During 2011 the plaintiff received from the defendant Tony Mack via Defendant Harold Hall, a list of people who he was directed by the Mayor to hire as food safety monitors. In response, plaintiff made it known that all persons hired into the program had to be pre-qualified and pre-screened by the Department of Agriculture including a physical examination and a background check.
Defendant Hall told plaintiff in so many words “We were not going to hire people from the past, but that we will hire whoever the Mayor wants to hire.”
…Hall made it clear that he wanted the daughter of his secretary hired along with her friend and a special friend of the Mayor’s brother, Ralphiel, all as monitors, not merely aides, despite their lack of qualifications.
…Regarding Ralphiel Mack’s special friend, defendant Hall directed plaintiff to hire her as a supervisor, stating that the Mayor had promised her a job making $20/hr.
Plaintiff advised Hall that the State Department of Agriculture would not approve a $20/hr pay rate, noting that the highest pay contemplated in the grant was $15/hr for the program Secretary and the Bookkeeper, neither of which were within the skill range of this woman.
A Life Guard who Needed Saving
[I]n June 2011, defendant Harold Hall insisted that the plaintiff hire his grandson as a [city pool] life guard, even though he had not enrolled in the required training and certification program.
Not willing to accept the plaintiff’s advice that the hiring of life guards by the City was limited to those applicants who had earlier been certified as qualified in water safety and rescue in the off-season, Hall told plaintiff that his grandson “had been a lifeguard” and should not need to have enrolled in the certification program to be hired.
When Hall directed his request to Mark Bailey, the City’s pool coordinator, Bailey arranged for defendant Hall’s grandson to have his life guard skills tested in the water.
The matter was dropped by defendant Hall only after his grandson was found unable to swim and had to be removed from the water.
If this last story seems amusing in any way, recall that in July 2010, 3-year-old Darren Horton Jr. drowned in a Trenton City pool, while an inattentive life guard chatted with a girl only 20 feet away. In cases such as these, nepotism in the Mack Administration can literally put lives in danger. What if Hall’s grandson had been hired? What other unqualified, untrained people have actually been hired because of nepotism or favoritism?
The brief is full of other very serious accusations: of senior mayoral aides on the payroll with no defined duties and who seldom even show up to work. And employees on the Trenton Water Works payroll – paid by rate payers all over the county – working exclusively for the City of Trenton, in violation of Water Works policy. These includ Charles Hall, nephew of Harold, on the Water Works payroll while working as the city’s landscape architect – a job for which he has no qualifications!
This lawsuit is for wrongful dismissal and for wrongful punishment of an employee who blew the whistle on unlawful behavior. It is a bombshell of charges, which if proved will cost the City’s taxpayer a big bundle of cash. Read as a whole, it is a sickening moral and ethical indictment of individuals – Mayor Tony Mack and several individuals around him – raping the City of Trenton for all they can, while they can.
This is a civil lawsuit, although it begs the question: When, oh When, Do the Criminal Indictments Start????
Kevin, does she have any kind of proof to back up her story or is it all hear say? I knew about the missing tents, someone was talking about them on facebook. I hope she has something to back up a little of what she is saying.
Marge – I don’t know what kind of proof she has. I will say that for an attorney like George Dougherty to be handling the case, Ms. Richardson would have had to provide some proof for each of the charges made – and there are several that I did NOT include in my piece (the brief is 41 pages long, after all) – for him to include in the suit.
Form what I could tell from one of the filing papers, this kind of case has a Discovery period of 450 days, meaning it will be over a year before this goes to trial, as both sides will now produce all of the relevant documentation and other evidence they possess.
I provided some supporting documents in my blog post. Specifically,I know for a fact, that there is a large amount of supporting documents for the pump house.
I uncovered the pump house and took that as well as a couple other “splintered purchase order” “emergency” repairs to Mercer County Prosecutor Jim Scott.
The Mayor’s property? As I’ve said before, he is a third-world dictator. An even bigger embarrassment than Doug Palmer and in a fraction of the time. That’s his biggest accomplishment.
At this time, anybody who supports Tony Mack is either benefiting from such support financially or otherwise, or is irredeemably stupid. Probably both, actually.