Montclair Town Council appointed Michael Lapolla as the new interim town manager at a special council meeting Tuesday. Lapolla will start as interim town manager on August 14. The search for a full time town manager is expected to last four months, according to exiting interim manger Joseph Hartnett, who Lapolla will replace.
Hartnett was hired as town manager for $1 a week at the July 18 council meeting. Before Hartnett was appointed, Brian Scantlebury served as Montclair’s acting town manager for eight months. Lapolla will make $10,000 a month, as a temporary employee without benefits, according to a resolution given to council members before the vote.
Lapolla was approved by a count of 4 to 0, but not before two councilors read into the record their protest of the resolution.
Deputy Mayor Bill Hurlock was absent but Councilor-at-Large Bob Russo and Fourth Ward Councilor David Cummings were present at the start of the meeting and made statements protesting the resolution to appoint Lapolla, before walking out of the meeting.
Lapolla served as the county manager of Union County from 1996 to 2002. Lapolla was recommended by Government Strategy Group (GSG), a consulting firm run by Hartnett.
“We hired him [Hartnett] as an interim manager and also gave his company a contract. That to me is a conflict of interest,” said Cummings, adding that it’s unethical that Hartnett as interim manager was supervising the paid service of his own company.
Cummings requested an investigation, adding that he also had an issue with a current township employee who also works for GSG.
“I really don’t understand how Mr. Gary Obszarny can be a managing director for GSG and also serve the township, running two or three of our utilities.”
Cummings said it was not lost on him the timing of this, given that “Mr. Scantlebury was looking into bringing in an outside firm to investigate the fire department. And I had questions about the validity of the promotion exam.”
Cummings also said that when he asked “this council to give Mr. Morgan the opportunity to present and defend his report, no one said yes,” speaking of the report made by the township’s affirmative action officer into the fire department’s promotional exam.
Cummings said he would not stay for the meeting and walked out.
Hartnett later responded to Cummings’ statement.
“I have a conflict of interest,” Hartnett said. “I had already informed Township Attorney [Paul Burr] that I felt I had a conflict of interest while I’m serving as interim manager, dealing with anything of the business of [GSG], the firm that I’m associated with.”
Russo also read a statement, calling for the council to be more transparent and to consider more candidates.
“It’s predetermined. Councilor Yacobellis and Councilor Price Abrams seem to have pre-knowledge of all of these consulting firm and law firm appointments,” Russo said. “I’ve never had input or discussions with these new hires as promised. I don’t have a problem with the individual. But I have a problem with the process.”
Russo left the meeting as well, leaving the mayor and three councilors on the dais.
Yacobellis was critical of Cummings and Russo for leaving early.
“What we have been doing is completely legitimate and completely legal,” Yacobellis said. “You may not like the outcome, but you cannot say that it’s not legitimate. You should not abdicate your responsibility and leave the council chamber and leave your responsibility in terms of representing your constituents. I think it is very shameful that they decided to walk out of the room.”
The small group of Montclair residents who were in attendance at Tuesday’s special meeting overwhelmingly agreed with Cummings and Russo.
Former Second Ward Councilor Jessica de Koninck, who served with Scantlebury when he was a council member, said the town council should have kept Scantlebury as acting manager.
“Brian is a class act,” de Koninck said. “He is so well regarded in the community. He’s the highest professional, excellent. It was a pleasure to serve with him. He did not get a Rice Notice. That looks bad. It looks unfair to somebody who served this town so diligently. It looks like if you’re a Black man, you’re not treated the same way. There’s a kind of tone deafness that’s bothering me.”
Mariana Campos Horta feared that Lapolla would fall into the same pitfalls as former town manager Tim Stafford.
“[I expect] the new manager will look like Mr. Stafford,” Campos Horta said. “The kind of guy who was bad at school and yet, he kept failing upwards because he knows how to talk to people. He’s maybe on a first name basis with some political bosses in New Jersey. A legitimate son of dirty Jersey.”
Joann Katzban lamented the unprecedented level of turnover in the town manager position.
“We are going to have an endless chain of interim managers like we had an endless chain of school superintendents,” Katzban said. “I consider it critical for the next town manager to have a true ability to lead the town in an incredibly crucial period. We’re so divided, and so adversarial. I just hate to see what has happened in this town.”
Mayor Sean Spiller, Yacobellis, Second Ward Councilor Robin Schalger, and Third Ward Councilor Lori Price Abrams, who all voted for Joseph Hartnett at the July 18 meeting, again voted together for Lapolla Tuesday.
At the end of the meeting, Hartnett confirmed that Obszarny worked for GSG, but described him as a freelancer, adding that Obszarny does freelance work for other entities as well. Obszarny has not replied to requests for comment about his being listed as a managing director for GSG.
“Peter’s comments about us not staying is absurd,” said Cummings after the meeting in a statement. “This is from someone who in the last Executive Session held discussions and when we came out they had a Resolution to appoint Hartnett. Why would anyone think they were really going to debate. At some point, residents are going to figure out who he is.”
The town council’s next meeting will be on Tuesday, Aug 15 at 7:00pm in the Montclair Municipal Building