The fact of the matter is, Westfield has no shared services agreement with the city of Hoboken, nor has it ever had one which is required to be on file in Trenton if one did exist. This contradicts Councilman Frank Arena's claim that the town's emergency mobile command center was sent to Hoboken in 2014 under a "shared services agreement."
In a news article titled "Westfield Police Participate In Counterterrorism Training," Westfield Leader newspaper reporter Paul Peyton quoted Westfield Police Chief Dave Wayman as
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| Tamaques Park, January 1, 2015 CJRRC "5K Hangover Run" |
Is it because town officials would rather the taxpayer believe that the $300,000 mobile command center was a prudent purchase? Do town officials think that leading the taxpayer to believe our police department was rubbing elbows with Homeland Security, the FBI, New Jersey Office of Emergency Management, and other prestigious law enforcement agencies at the Super Bowl, would justify taking the command center away from Westfield?
We now know that Mayor Skibitsky and his Town Administrator Jim Gildea will divert and deflect from answering questions that will expose the truth. This was evident during the 8 months it took for Mayor Skibitsky to finally admit the truth after his town administrator, his police chief, and his "Acting Mayor" JoAnn Neylan, lied to the taxpayers.
Left with the embarrassment of wasting $300,000 on what Mayor Skibitsky calls a necessary purchase out of "redundancy," his police chief must now justify the purchase of the emergency mobile command center by hauling it around town to street fairs and road races. Mayor Skibitsky and his police chief would like everyone to believe that these events are safe from terrorism when the mobile command center is on the scene. The fact of the matter is that there has never been a perceived or credible threat to any of these events in the past. Perhaps Mayor Skibitsky will make an appearance with the emergency mobile command center at a block party, in Westfield, in 2015.
The final fact of this matter is that the emergency mobile command center was purchased as a demo model and never built to any original specifications, meaning Westfield tailored its specifications to meet what was already being hidden in Westfield, and what was the "apple of Chief Wayman's eye", long before the town council passed a bond ordinance authorizing its purchase. While not a crime in the eyes of the Union County Prosecutor's Office, which Mayor Skibitsky will hang his hat on, its definitely an ethical violation to be determined by a state authority.
Happy New Year Mayor!
Jim Gildea has lied throughout his entire career to cover his mistakes.
ReplyDeleteHow do you know when Gildea is lying?
ReplyDeleteWhen he opens his mouth to speak.
It's okay to disagree with whatever a politician does/says, and as you said, this wasn't an illegal act. However, one can't help but notice the bitterness in your blog and think it's more like a personal attack because you got caught sleeping on the job. This is such old news, don't have you have anything new to offer other than the same old stuff, and something from 2007? Thank you.
ReplyDeleteWhat this website has to offer, among other information, is evidence of hypocrisy in town government from the mayor's office down to his current and two former police chiefs. This website obtained former police "thief" John M. Parizeau's 2007 memo regarding theft by police supervisors in 2010 before this blog went online. As outlined in a previous TFoTM story, this blog was started after 2009 and 2010 private meetings with Mayor Skibitsky and his town attorney Robert Cochren. At those meetings, Skibitsky laughed at the notion that his police department had problems. I promised him I'd be back. Perhaps, he didn't expect it to be publicly. What has followed is an plethora of information that this site has obtained from sources willing to expose the wasteful spending, mismanagement, unfair labor practices, and an overall caste system that has existed under the administration of Town Admin. Jim Gildea and his ill-advised selections for the office of police chief. He struck out with Bernard Tracy and John Parizeau after warnings from town employees and is now struggling to keep his head above water with his current police chief David Wayman. Don't believe me, ask Mayor Skibitsky, even he has publicly second guessed his own approval of Gildea's police chief selection. I am not bitter at being accused of anything that couldn't be proven. What I am disgusted with, is a system that allowed my accusers in a departmental disciplinary process to stand as my judge, jury, and executioners while participating willingly in the cover-up of a theft by superior officers, among other criminal acts.......that is hypocrisy.
DeleteWhen a police chief is having illegal criminal history checks done on Westfield residents, including a sitting councilman at the time, during the parking deck debate in 2004, and I expose it to the town administrator, I shouldn't expect the same administrator to engage in a retaliatory manner, unless of course, he worked in concert with the police chief.
When a police chief audio tapes my internal affairs interview, and then proceeds to edit the tape down to 5 minutes and disposes of the other hour and 10 minutes, not knowing that I myself had audio-taped the interview, that's a cover-up and corruption. After I provided town attorney's with full copies of the interview, they began to set the wheels in motion to get rid of me. They couldn't terminate a police officer that had done his job his entire career with the honesty and integrity they now needed to dissemble. Instead, I was paid not to come to work until I was eligible for retirement. That's right, I was paid for 16 months to sit home until my December 1, 2007 retirement. Jim Gildea's response to the Westfield Leader when they asked the status of my employment after disciplinary hearings were over...."He still remains employed by the town."
I am happy in my retirement as it allows me to continue to expose the same issues that plague Gildea's administration that existed when I worked for the town because my line of communication remains open with many. The only difference now, Gildea, Skibitsky, and their puppet in a uniform can't threaten me with termination.
Thank you for your thought provoking questions.
You sound like you're pretty upset by the whole ordeal. I agree it's a lot to deal with. Do you find that creating this blog and going to council meetings has been cathartic for you? It sounds like you need to unload a lot of emotional baggage. I appreciate your response...but it still is old news. I would like to hear more news on illegal activities, not the rehashing of old information. I believe you posted this 2007 information in the past. And I've certainly heard about this truck...can you give us an idea of what you have in the pipeline other than this old news?
ReplyDeleteNot sure "cathartic" is the correct word but we can go with that for now. Creating this blog is a response to Mayor Skibitsky's refusal to address issues such as wasteful spending, mismanagement, and corruption within his administration.
ReplyDeleteMany of us appreciate the work you do at TFOTM. And thanks for your past work as a member of the WPD, the position from which you are now RETIRED.
ReplyDeleteI’ve lived in Westfield since 1972. Keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteToo bad there isn’t more reporting about the waste of “homeland defense” dollars at the county level. For example, at the last union county arts concert, I believe I saw 10 or 20 humongous police Suburban SVs / NJ plates – full of Vermont Ski bumper stickers.
What ever happened to that police chief BMW sedan or the BMW motorcycles?
The BMW bikes were given to the town.......as a grant.....the only thing the town bought was uniforms
ReplyDelete