Members of the Sayreville Borough Council are defending their controversial decision to terminate Business Administrator Jeff Bertrand.
With a newly appointed Democratic majority, the council voted 5-1 to fire Bertrand on Jan. 9 after eight years of service. Several residents in attendance spoke out against the decision, but council members said letting go of business administrators is a common occurrence after an election.
Afew residents laid particular blame on Councilwoman Mary Novak, who was sworn in on Jan. 1 after being elected in November with fellow Democrat Lisa Eicher, now in her second term. Novak said she believes the complaints stemmed from dissatisfaction carried over from her previous stint on the council in the 1990s.
“If it hadn’t been me, but someone else who ran with Lisa, the same thing would have happened,” she said. “It wasn’t political; we are just looking for a fresh pair of eyes. You always have new ideas with a new council, and it’s the same thing with the professionals.”
Critics of the council’s decision have emphasized the manner in which the termination was carried out. Democratic council members Eicher and Bill Henry expressed their intentions to Bertrand a halfhour before the 6:30 p.m. meeting, and Republican Mayor Kennedy O’Brien learned of the situation minutes before the meeting’s start.
“I was stunned that I was not included in the discussion, and stunned the borough attorney [Michael DuPont] had a resolution prepared without telling me,” O’Brien said. “It’s sad that my colleagues are drawing a line in the sand on the second meeting of the year, saying, ‘You will be excluded.’”
O’Brien said rumors about the termination had been floating around for months, but he ignored them. Henry said the discussions date back to before he was elected in November 2010, but were taken seriously once the council had enough votes after last November’s election.
“We’ve been stagnant the last few years,” Henry said. “We were just getting things done as a Band-Aid. We need to make bolder moves.” Republican Councilman Frank Bella crossed party lines to vote for Bertrand’s termination, but regretted the situation’s management.
“The way it was handled was not the best,” Bella said. “I struggled so much with this because I feel bad for Jeff as a person, but it’s a little disingenuous for the mayor to make a big deal about removing Jeff.”
Bella said the situation mirrors the removal of Joseph D’Arco in 2000 and said the only difference was that O’Brien was “putting his people in” at that time. “[D’Arco] left, and we survived, and that’s the bottom line,” Bella said. “We’re going to do a search and get someone who will work with the council, because we have a gridlock situation.”
Bella said that at this point, he does not believe the borough can run smoothly without a business administrator, but other council members have said they will consider getting rid of the position permanently after meeting with the town’s department heads.
According to the DataUniverse website, Bertrand earned a salary of $121,632 in 2010. At the Jan. 9 meeting, Eicher said eliminating the position would be a cost-saving measure.
“Maybe someone within the borough can take on the responsibilities or we can delegate responsibility to those familiar with the issues, whether to his secretary or other department heads, but we might come to the conclusion that we do need somebody in that position,” Novak said.
In the interim, borough Chief Financial Officer Wayne Kronowski will serve as acting business administrator and receive approximately $20,000 in additional compensation, according to Novak. He has previously handled these responsibilities when the borough was between administrators for an 18-month stretch when D’Arco left.
Republican Councilman Nick Perrette, who provided the sole dissenting vote on Bertrand’s termination, rejected the other council members’ explanation for the move and believes the decision was strictly political.
“They came up with a standard answer of ‘going in a different direction,’ which was basically scripted for them to say,” Perrette said. “Did they even consult [Bertrand] and ask what direction he wanted to move in? Do they want to go down? Because we were going up.”
Perrette also disagrees with eliminating the business administrator position.
“Sure, we can do without, but who is going to make these decisions? Jeff was a funnel, and I don’t know if Wayne can keep up with everything Jeff was doing.”
O’Brien also thinks depending solely upon the town’s department chairs is inappropriate for a borough of Sayreville’s size.
“We have an ordinance that prohibits the council from being a part of day-to-day operations of the borough,” he said. “And with 237 full-time employees and a $54 million budget, eliminating the position is not in the best interest of the residents.”
By borough ordinance, business administrators are appointed by the mayor with the consent of the council for an indefinite term and can be removed with a two-thirds vote of the council.
O’Brien said a meeting would be held this week with officials and borough department heads to start discussing options, according to O’Brien.
Contact Deanna McLafferty at