KISSES ALL AROUND FOR NEW COUNCIL?
They said all the right things at Monday’s Borough Council reorganization.
Mayor Pat Menna praised Republican Councilman John Curley for having run a “good race” for mayor, and pledged to ‘work together’ with him and the other members of the council.
Democrat Michael DuPont, at far left above, taking his seat as the newest member of the governing body, declared that “the politics of personal destruction will end.”
Curley, seen below left with new Council President Sharon Lee and former Mayor Ed McKenna, said “we do have a new sense of cooperation.” Of Menna, Curley called him “my mayor, and I fall in behind him as the loyal opposition.”
Will it last? Is the post-McKenna era to be one of bipartisanship and occasional handholding? Or was it all for the sake of the children and clergy present?
Well, it wasn’t all cookies-and-milk. Curley, without explanation, abstained on a resolution naming Sharon Lee as Menna’s successor as council president. Lee and Curley have clashed in the past. (“I think he intends to keep me on guard,” Lee said afterward, with a laugh.)
Curley also cast the sole ‘no’ vote on a long list of appointments contained in a single resolution. “I campaigned on a postition of one job per person,” he said. “On that basis, I will have to vote no.”
Again, Curley did not elaborate. But he was vocal last year in his criticism of multiple jobholding by Stanley Sickels. Sickels was appointed Monday as borough administrator and fire marshal/fire official.