And the chump of the day award goes to:
Doug Doyle. Will Doyle ever get paid? Will Doyle get paid less... i.e. only for those things he didn't cross out. Will Doyle be Blacklisted? Will Doyle ever work with any Edgewater organization ever again?
And to think this all could have been avoided if some members of one organization or another followed proper procedure.
I paste for reference only:
http://www.bergenrecord.com/page.php?level_3_id=54&page=6226438
Council trio, mayor in legal tussle
Wednesday, January 08, 2003
By LAURA FASBACH
Staff Writer
EDGEWATER - Three Borough Council members want a judge to decide whether the mayor deprived them of their right to fair legal representation when he voted to fire their defense attorney on Monday.
A month after the Borough Council voted to hire attorney Doug Doyle to represent it in a lawsuit filed by the Planning Board, the newly organized council members voted to fire Doyle and replace him with Borough Attorney Robert Regan.
Mayor Bryan Christiansen - who as mayor and as a member of the Planning Board is both a defendant and a plaintiff in the case - broke a 3-3 tie.
Just hours before he was fired, Doyle filed a counterclaim on behalf of council members Nancy Merse, Mary Hogan, and Denis Gallagher, opposing the resolution on Monday night's Borough Council agenda that resulted in his termination.
The counterclaim also seeks a ruling on whether Christiansen is entitled to sit in on private meetings between the council members and their attorney.
Christiansen, who supports the Planning Board's lawsuit against the mayor and council over affordable housing, maintains there is no conflict of interest in being on both sides.
"This is one public body suing another," Christiansen said. "It's not me, as a Planning Board member, suing myself, the mayor."
But Hogan, Merse, and Gallagher maintain that their right to fair legal counsel has been eroded by Christiansen since the Planning Board filed the lawsuit Nov. 25.
Just days before Doyle's firing, Christiansen ordered the town's chief financial officer to withhold payment to the attorney, who was hired in December to defend the council. Christiansen said in a Jan. 2 memo that he was concerned about blacked-out sections in Doyle's legal bill , and that council members might have broken the law when they voted to pay Doyle $5,400.
A day after Christiansen cast the tie-breaking vote, he said he did not see a reason to recuse himself.
"I don't feel I have a conflict," he said. "My job is to see that this gets resolved. My job is to make sure the proper procedures are followed."
Christiansen said he questioned the counterclaim's legality because there was no discussion in the Borough Council before it was filed. He said he thought the counterclaim was a violation of the Open Public Meetings Act.
The three council members disagreed.
"I think it's very laughable," Hogan said of Christiansen's claim that the three violated the law. She said that because there wasn't a quorum, the group was not in violation of the law.
On the contrary, the three council members argue in their counterclaim it was the Planning Board that violated the Open Public Meetings Act when it filed the lawsuit without a public vote.
Planning Board attorney Phillip Boggia has said the board was within its rights to sue without taking a public vote. Boggia said Chairman Jeff Peckham polled the the board's members before authorizing Boggia to sue.
The council members' counterclaim also seeks a judge's ruling to prohibit Christiansen and Council President Neda Rose from attending meetings between them and their attorney. Rose served as a Planning Board member last year with Christiansen.
State statute requires the mayor and a council member to serve on the Planning Board.
Rose has said she supports the Planning Board's decision to file the lawsuit, which claims the Borough Council did not follow the proper procedure when it voted 4-2 on Nov. 7 to pass an affordable housing ordinance.
By law, the Planning Board must receive a copies of ordinances before they are passed. The law also gives the Planning Board 35 days to review pending ordinances and to make suggestions to the council. The Planning Board maintains it didn't received a copy of the ordinance in time before the council passed the ordinance.
Rose, who voted against the ordinance along with former Councilman Lewis Desatnik, said she disagreed with Hogan, Merse, Gallagher, and former Councilwoman Valory Bardinas about passing the ordinance, because it could have avoided a lawsuit.
"Those four council members didn't follow the proper procedure," Rose said. "It has nothing to do with who voted for or against the ordinance."
The counterclaim maintains that Christiansen and the newly organized Borough Council cannot appoint an attorney to represent the mayor and all six council members because Christiansen and Rose have "adverse" interests in the pending litigation.
The claim alleges that Christiansen's and Rose's presence at closed meetings makes it "impossible" for Merse, Hogan, and Gallagher to communicate openly with their attorney.
The claim does not address whether Councilwoman Lois Fein is allowed into such meetings. Fein was sworn into the Borough Council on Monday and was appointed to the Planning Board at the borough's reorganization meeting. She formerly served as the vice chairwoman of the Planning Board, and served in that role when the lawsuit was filed.
