PBA Local 39 Presdient Mike Zadlock at Thursday night’s meeting. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank’s police union accused Chief Darren McConnell of actions “demeaning and counterproductive” to the department Thursday night.
The allegation was leveled as McConnell concluded his two-and-a-half-year “interim” role as the borough’s adminstrator/manager.
Chief Darren McConnell at the police station in 2020. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
During the council’s final scheduled session of 2023, Police Benevolent Local 39 President Mike Zadlock read a prepared statement saying the union had filed a grievance “concerning the lieutenant and captain promotional procedure.”
“I point this out because I find it pathetically coincidental that I, the PBA president, the most vocal opponent against Chief McConnell, was singled out as being ineligible for the promotion under the chief’s claim that he never received a letter of intent or a cover letter, in spite of the fact that I hand-delivered the resume and cover letter to his office personally,” Zadlock said. “Selective exclusion and exclusion based on retribution should never be tolerated.”
Zadlock requested a meeting with incoming borough Manager Jim Gant to discuss “ineffective leadership at the top” of the department so there can be a return to “harmony between the police union, the administration and the mayor and council.”
McConnell, who was out of town on vacation, participated in the meeting via Zoom. Afterward, via text to redbankgreen, he declined to respond to Zadlock’s allegation, adding, “I cannot comment on active grievance, nor should he.”
In August, the union’s executive committee accused McConnell of engaging in “numerous inappropriate and questionable sexual relationships with the significant others'” of department personnel, as well as alleged ethical lapses that led to “no confidence” vote by 85 percent of local members in July.
The union called for investigations by, among others, the New Jersey Attorney General.
At the time, McConnell said the allegations were “more about personal issues than professional ones,” and issued a detailed rebuttal.
Zadlock said Thursday that the PBA “has seen no progress” by the NJAG, and was unaware of any “investigation” by the Monmouth County Municipal Joint Insurance Fund or whether it has been “alerted to the potential of future litigation.”
McConnell told redbankgreen he has not heard anything from the NJAG, which has declined comment.
McConnell, 54, has been chief for a decade. He had been expected to retire as chief July 31. But under state pension rules, he cannot do so with an unresolved complaint before the NJAG, he has said.
Mayor Billy Portman noted during the meeting that McConnell “literally can’t retire” because of the union’s request for an investigation, which he called “a little bit of an odd situation. Darren would have been retired for several months already had not that investigation been instituted.”
Gant, who is Sea Girt’s borough administrator, was appointed by the council November 17 after a lengthy candidate search.
He is scheduled to begin working in Red Bank part-time Monday, and to step into the job full-time on January 1. He sat in the audience at Thursday’s meeting.
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