BETH MASON

Hoboken City Councilwoman    

COUNCIL KEPT IN THE DARK BY ADMINISTRATION

Suggests State May Want To Intervene 

 HOBOKEN --- Councilwoman Beth Mason said today she is very disturbed that the findings of the special investigation into the city’s Police Department haves been leaked to the news media and that the council never received a copy of the report.  

“I am angry that the city council did not get a copy of this report and I am horrified by what I read of the findings of the investigation,” said Mason. 

“The report, she said, “shows that there was a cowboy mentality embedded in the management and operation of the police department that apparently led senior officers to act as if the police department was answerable to no one,” said Mason.  

The councilwoman said that she is demanding to know why the council never got a copy of the report – despite her repeated requests for a copy dating back to last fall -- and why changes to rectify the obvious defects in the command structure of the department have never been discussed with the city’s governing body.  

“Obviously, the go-it-alone, do-whatever-we-please mentality that infected the police department has infected the city administration as well,” said Mason. “Is the council not entitled to know what the facts of the report and what measures are being taken to make the police department more responsible?” 

“The fact that we have to read this report in the news media is not only disrespectful to the city council, it is further embarrassment for this city, which has suffered enough embarrassment already,” said the councilwoman.  

“Unfortunately, the only way the council ever finds out about what is happening in this city is to read it in the newspaper. The administration continually fails to share critical information,” she added. 

MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS  

Mason said what she has read and heard of the report in the media leave more questions than answers. “What was the scope of the investigation? Who made the decisions regarding what would be investigated and why”? And what has taken so long for the mayor to report its findings to the council?” 

Mason said she was told as recently as last week by the city corporation council that under state Attorney General guidelines, she was not entitled to a copy of the report  “If a sitting member of the city council can’t see a report on possible malfeasance in the police department, when it includes the chief of police, then I think, we need to change some laws in this state,” said Mason. 

“And if it is illegal for me to see the report, does that mean whoever leaked the report is guilty of a crime? Is the city going to investigate the leaker?”  

TROUBLING RETIREMENT PACKAGE 

Mason said she is also troubled by the fact that despite failings of Police Chief Carmen LaBruno, he is being allowed to retire with a full pension and payments for unused sick days. She said she has concerns that the real cost of the retirement package for LaBruno is not being revealed and could cost much more than is being reported. And she said the council should be concerned about the value of Lt. Angelo Andriani’s retirement package.  

“What’s the message that the city is sending when it allows a person to retire under a cloud of controversy:  that you can abuse your authority, waste taxpayer money, run around like a cowboy in Louisiana and you still get to collect a $145,000 annual pension and an almost $300,000 going away present? If that’s the message the city is sending it’s the wrong message.” 

Mason said that the governor’s office may want to investigate the police department and the retirement packages of LaBruno and Andriani, the way that Gov. Corzine has intervened in the case of a the Keansburg Superintendent of Schools Barbara Trzeszkowski, who is retiring from an Abbott District with a retirement package worth nearly three quarter of a million dollars. 

“The governor was right to respond to public outrage in the Keansburg case and he might very well use his authority to have the state investigate the Hoboken Police matter,” said Mason. “Citizens in Hoboken and throughout this state have grown sick and tired of seeing government officials and employees misuse their power and then get rewarded for it with taxpayer money,” said Mason.    201-656-7549