The New Jersey School Ethics Commission recommended last week that Board of Education Trustee Carmelo Garcia should be reprimanded for two violations of the School Ethics Act.
The recommendation came after a fellow school board member complained to the state a year and a half ago about two votes that Garcia made during an Aug. 30, 2005 board meeting.
The city’s nine Board of Education members are unpaid volunteers. Garcia, a young and rising political player in town, also has a high-ranking paid job in City Hall as the director of Human Services, and gets a $6,000 stipend as an aide to the Hudson County board of freeholders.
The commission decided that Garcia should not have voted on the appointment of his brother to a paid custodial position at the board, and should not have voted to approve a contract with the public relations firm FitzMedia, which is owned by County Freeholder Maurice Fitzgibbons.
At the time, FitzMedia got a $60,000 public relations contract to be spokespeople for the Hoboken Public Schools. That equates to more than $1,100 per week.
Garcia has been a low-level aide for Fitzgibbons since 1998 for approximately $6,000 per year.
The complaint was filed by fellow Hoboken Board Trustee Theresa Burns.
Voted for his employers
Garcia was on vacation last week and could not be reached for comment.
He is technically employed by the freeholder board, and is currently assigned to Maurice Fitzgibbons as a paid aide.
However, after the charges were filed, Garcia argued that he was advised by the board’s attorney that his status as a county employee did not preclude him from voting on a contract with a company that is owned by an elected county freeholder, because he was not directly employed by that freeholder or his company.
The Ethics Commission, in their ruling, disagreed.
“The commission concludes that, although [Garcia] was at all times an employee of Hudson County and not a direct employee of Freeholder Fitzgibbons, [Garcia] nonetheless has an indirect financial involvement with Freeholder Fitzgibbons, having worked as his aide since 1998,” the decision reads. “That involvement might reasonably be expected to impair his objectivity when voting for the board to contract the freeholder’s company.”
The board’s attorney signed an affidavit denying that he advised Garcia on the matter.
Brother less troublesome
On Aug. 30, 2005, Garcia also voted to appoint his brother to a paid position within the school district. His brother, Sammy Garcia, had been employed as custodian and had applied for a higher-level position in the maintenance department.
According to the “undisputed facts” as listed in the decision, Sammy Garica was interviewed by Director of Facilities Tim Calligy, who recommended to Superintendent of School Patrick Gagliardi that he be promoted. The superintendent then made the recommendation to the board.
Garcia argued before the ethics board that the hiring was a single item on a 55-item agenda, and that he did not realize at the time that his brother’s appointment was on the agenda.
Later, he realized that he had voted on his brother’s appointment he left a written request for the board secretary to change his vote to an abstention. At the next board meeting, Garcia was allowed to change his vote.
The Ethics Commission did not accept Garcia’s defense that he inadvertently voted on his brother’s appointment.
“It’s was his duty as a board member to know the items on the agenda and recuse himself from voting on an issue which he has a conflict at the time of the vote, or to immediately correct the mistake during the open public meeting,” reads the decision. “The difference is that if the vote is corrected immediately, the public is made aware of the conflict and the change of the vote, which the Open Public Meetings Act requires for accurate minutes.”
Reprimand, almost censured, recommended
“The commission notes that there are two separate violations of the [School Ethics Act] in the present case,” reads the ruling. “Clearly, by itself the vote on [Garcia’s] brother would warrant nothing more than a reprimand. However, when coupled with the vote on the Fitz Media contract, the Commission believes that a censure would be more appropriate.”
The board decided not to “censure” Garcia, which would have been a harsher notation on his public record.
They said there were two mitigating factors that persuaded Commission against recommending a censure. First, the votes occurred at the same time, leaving no additional time for reflection.
Secondly, the Commission could not determine if Garcia did or did not receive legal advice that he could vote on the Fitz Media contract.
Because of these two factors, the board recommended that the Commissioner of Education impose a sanction of “reprimand” instead. That’s the lowest form of penalty.
If the state education commissioner upholds the commission’s recommendation, Garcia will have the option of making an appeal to the State Board of Education.
The upshot
The FitzMedia contract came up before the board again last spring after the board elections, and Garcia did not vote on it that time.
“I’m glad that this is all over,” Burns said Thursday. “On one hand the charges were brought because I thought what was done was wrong, but on the on the other hand, I think that this has distracted our attention from what our main purpose should be.”
“That involvement might reasonably be expected to impair his objectivity when voting for the board.” – Ruling by the state Ethics Commission