CURLEY FRIED
Councilman and mayoral wannabe John P. Curley was booted from his post overseeing the borough’s finance department last night, according to Larry Higgs in today’s Asbury Park Press.
Mayor Ed McKenna initiated the ouster, repeating his claim that lax oversight of now-departed borough CFO Terence Whalen by Curley forced the council to raise property taxes.
The vote to kick Curley to the curb went along party lines, with the four Democrats, including mayoral contender Pat Menna, voting in favor. Curley and fellow Republican Kaye Ernst voted against it, the Press reports.
“Why don’t you just take me down to Broad Street and hang me?” Curley is reported have said.
He defended his role in monitoring the finance department, saying…
that until the 2005 audit, which was delivered this summer, other reports from the auditor revealed no problems in the finance department.
“I got the reports from the auditor, and the reports were everything was fine,” he said. “I am not the CFO or the auditor. I can only go by the reports.”
Curley also reminded McKenna that he has appointed him to consecutive terms as finance chairman.
McKenna, though, compared Curley’s handling of the assignment to that of his three predecessors, and found Curley’s actions wanting, to say the least. Unlike Curley, the previous overseers of the department met regularly with the CFO and provided updates to the council, McKenna said.
From the story:
“There is nothing personal or political about what I will propose here. This is strictly business,” McKenna told the council. “In any other business, if a department chairman or head had $400,000 in losses, they would be fired.”