By Mary Ellen Day, Special Writer
Borough Council proposed and then withdrew motions to change a hiring policy Monday night. If adopted, the changes could clear the way for the nephew of the police chief to be hired as a patrol officer.
Members of the public said residents should have heard the resolution first.
The resolution was to replace the borough’s nepotism policy. The recommendation would eliminate “niece, nephew, uncle and aunt” as people who would be eliminated from hiring consideration.
The council needed to amend the policy before a resolution to hire Thomas Hoppe Jr., who is the nephew of Chief Mark Peltack, could be approved.
Chief Peltack did not have anything to do with the suggested hiring of his nephew and recused himself from the hiring process. Capt. Mark Sniscak put together an interview team of himself, Lt. Tom Herbst and Detective Ron Gazaway to receive applications and conduct interviews. The captain said they interviewed six candidates for about a half-hour each on March 13 at police headquarters. Capt. Sniscak said Mr. Hoppe was the top scorer for the interview with a 98; the next was at 89.
When the mayor and council returned from 20-minute closed session, Councilman Richard Onderko moved to table both of the resolutions and send them back to committee.
Mayor Angelo Corradino did not acknowledge the fact that there was a motion made and continued with the proceedings. The action came from the safety committee of councilmen Ed Komoroski, Mark Gregor and Ron Skirkanish and not the policy committee.
As the public session for the resolutions was announced, resident Rudy Nowak asked if it would include these two resolutions.
”How do we know what they are?” Mr. Nowak said.
The mayor replied the two resolutions were on a table, although it hadn’t been announced to the public.
”This is outrageous, outrageous government,” said Mr. Nowak.
The mayor and council agreed to a recess of about 10 minutes so people could read the two papers.
Upon returning, Susan Star spoke.
”This is prime example of how you can cut the budget,” she said. “How many increases on homes can $48,000 be taken care of with that? What is the need to change the bylaws because this person is a relative?”
Chief Peltack said that this past year saw the last graduating class from the Somerset County Police Academy; there is no more recruit training in Somerset County. There are also limitations as to how many alternate route candidates (paying for themselves) could be in each class with (government-sponsored) paid candidates.
”We wanted to hire an alternate route candidate,” said the chief, who said he contacted the Morris and Union counties academies, and Mr. Hoppe’s name came up as a candidate. He said he recused himself and turned the task over the captain.
The policy was originally put in place for a reason in the early 2000s, according to Borough Administrator Gary Garwacke.
”We just feel going as far as nieces and nephews is really stretching it,” said Mayor Corradino.
Mr. Nowak said he believed it has been the policy in the borough to advertise the change in a policy. “You can’t take it two minutes before throw something at the people and say this it and you take it or leave it because I have the votes,” he said
After Borough Attorney Francis Linnus interpretation of the rules of order, Councilman Onderko made the motion again and the resolutions were tabled to be researched further in committee.

