Did Brigantine City Manager; Jennifer Blumenthal, diss our Mayor? Ms. Blumenthal recently hired Dan Howard as Interim Public Safety Director, but didn’t inform our Mayor until after the fact.
Mayor Phil Guenther recently discussed this action during a local radio interview. Guenther says Blumenthal didn’t consult him before the hire. The Mayor found out through a press release.
According to a report in the Beachcomber News, Guenther described the action of appointing Howard as “less than transparent – confused at best,” while acknowledging the city manager’s authority to “hire and fire.” Blumenthal responded by stating, “I made a decision that you didn’t like,” but said she felt that it was appropriate based on the circumstances. Blumenthal repeated that Howard’s appointment and title is “interim”.
The controversial hiring of someone outside the city ranks was due to, according to Blumenthal, the lack of “management thinkers” from within the ranks of current senior officers in the departments.
Also reported in the Beachcomber News, Blumenthal said that management candidates would benefit from working with Howard, utilizing his strengths and experience in administration and budgeting.
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Mayor treated with disrespect, like a rug to be walked over.
Maybe someone should re-think HER management thinking. Amazing if she would have promoted 2 captains to chief it would have saved the City money on salaries that were already budgeted.
Instead, she hires someone at 70k (non budgeted) and again costs the residents MORE money. She has to go. She destroyed Mt. Laurel, don’t let her destroy Brigantine. Pretty bad when your CFO leaves. I wonder why. She’s (bad) for Brigantine and has done everything to her liking and behind people’s backs.
Ask yourselves where was the ad that was to be published to see what was out there. No ad, but her buddy gets hired on top of his $90k pension.
Council didn’t even know she did this until the last minute. You don’t discuss with your council, a $70K position? One that city ordinance says should only be $40k?!
Wake up people. Yes, times are tough, but let’s not let the people who CLAIM to run the City, ruin it. She will just walk away. Just like she did to the employees in Mt. Laurel.
Just short and sweet..I am glad I left Brigantine when I did.I could see alot of this coming..Sad..Brigantine was once a great place to live..Jim Tynan, ret. police lt. Brig. P.d.. lived in Brig. from 1950 to 1992.now living in the fl. keys,fl.(long key)
I agree with “Disgusting”. Ms Blumenthal does not LIVE here, does she? So she pays no taxes here. She is owned by the political machine called Tony Pulella- who was instrumental in her hiring. She is not qualified (thinking-wise) to be a City Manager in these tough decision times. She is highly OVER PAID herself… and has an over-paid Asst. Manager. Brigantine politics remains SICKENING.
I tried not to comment… but the blatant disregard for reigning in the spending leaves me no choice. When does her contract expire?
OH and PS- If her new Public Administrator is on a PUBLIC pension AND is now being paid from a PUBLIC source, I think this is considered “double dipping” pension-wise and is no longer allowed in the State of New Jersey. So the question is IS he in the Public pension again? If he is, I believe this is illegal. ….. does anyone know this? ….. at least the weather is nice and the beaches are beautiful, folks.
Unless he is a hatchet man- Public Safety Director is an additional position. A Fire Chief and a Chief of Police are necessary to those operations. If he IS a hatchet man- chop, chop! Lots of extra employees in those departments…
70%’r, she is contract-less, she could be tossed out the door at anytime, there is nothing that binds her here.
She is going to cost the City more money, look at the lawsuits that are coming in, Brigantine should not have to pay lawsuits for HER mismanagement. Get her out NOW!
She has also lied to the public stating that her buddy Howard’s money was coming from the late Chief Holl his money was already paid out to his family, so there is another 70k that does not need to be spent!! Promote our Police & Fire Captains to Chiefs, their salary is already budgeted, they only have to be top paid employee in their department, there for no raise is needed. They also would SAVE the City money because in the Chiefs contracts they no longer get overtime.
Brigantine Residents please wake up, our City Manager is NO GOOD, demand her resignation in the next council meeting.
Brigantine is strong, and filled with wonderful people that will FIX & Heal it self!
If appropriate terming her shouldn’t be that tough…
“I don’t really believe in contracts for managers,” she said. “We work at the pleasure of the mayor and council.”
Anyway, why put someone in at a position that requires synergy among 3 departments risking obvious backlash/stalemate from the disgruntled?
In ref. to above comments(no comment on the comments)..why is there no name after the article??It is hard to respond to an unauthored item..I think it would be good to know who says what..thanks..jim tynan, fmr. brig res..long key,fl..