Dear Editor:
Mr. Mayor, what were you thinking when you agreed to pay former City Administrator Lorrie Cotter a $29,000 cash severance pay and an undisclosed health package upon her departure from Hoboken city government? Have you forgotten the reason many Hoboken residents joined a taxpayers lawsuit less than two years ago to block the previous administration from wasting our tax dollars? Have you forgotten that lawsuit and the political fallout from awarding longevity pay unfairly to select city employees that lead to your election as Mayor?
Lorrie Cotter, who recently left city government, has been given a “Golden Parachute.” A severance package the taxpayers of Hoboken cannot afford. You told the residents of Hoboken that Cotter was leaving to take a job with county government. If so, why the lavish severance package? The departure of Cotter and the subsequent granting of an unjustified cash payout from taxpayer’s dollars raise some important questions.
Mr. Mayor, did Lorrie Cotter leave voluntarily or was she asked to leave to make way for another Business Administrator? Is a severance package legal without a City Council resolution? Is such a cash and benefit gift to a departing employee legal under the Faulkner Act? Are severance packages appropriate for one city employee and not all others? Have you set a precedent, which places the taxpayers libel for similar Golden Parachutes for other city employees? Did you have the best interest of the taxpayers in mind or was it a typical political maneuver to get an unwanted employee to leave without a public relations hassle?
As a lifelong resident and concerned community leader I encourage the resident taxpayers of Hoboken to join with me in filing a taxpayers lawsuit to block this Golden Parachute. If the cash has already been paid to Cotter then the lawsuit should include recovering our tax dollars. More importantly, a taxpayers’s lawsuit will force Mayor Roberts to come clean. The taxpayers of Hoboken deserve a complete and truthful accounting of what exactly led to Cotter’s departure and the granting of this raiding of the city treasury.
Michael Schaffer