Former Union City Deputy Police Chief Joseph Blaettler has stirred the political pot in Union City recently, aiming to expose what he says is government waste involving the mayor or other city officials. Mayor Brian Stack has said that Blaettler is disgruntled because he was never named chief before he left the local force in December of 2008. Blaettler admits that at the time, he would have liked to have been chief. But some of Blaettler’s findings have been taken seriously by news outlets in the last year, and exposed a possible scandal involving the recent police chief’s earnings for off-duty security work.
Since he retired from his position as deputy chief, Blaettler has taught as an adjunct criminal justice professor for the University of Phoenix online and at Caldwell College as he “regrouped and reprioritized.” After two years of relative silence, he started his own company, East Coast Private Investigations, in 2010.
Blaettler said that in July of the same year, he received a phone call from a “frustrated client” who expressed suspicions of alleged political patronage, waste, and mismanagement in the Union City municipal government. His work for that client – who remains anonymous – has led to some high-profile media exposes that brought several apparent scandals to light.
“Do I hate Brian Stack? No. I just don’t agree with what he’s doing.” –Joseph Blaettler
____________
“Much to my surprise, it has really grown, and I have more work than I know what to do with,” he said.
Old and new investigations
In July of 2010, Blaettler conducted an investigation on behalf of his client into Union City Mayor Brian Stack’s ex-wife Katia and her job running the city’s day care centers. He gave the information to Fox5, which ran a “Shame on You” segment in January of 2011 about Katia’s alleged use of a city work vehicle to do her private errands after the lease on her own vehicle expired. Ultimately Katia paid back around $750 in insurance and gas costs to the city. Mayor Stack distanced himself from the situation, saying he was “disgusted” by Katia’s actions.
Then, this past year, Blaettler’s client claimed that Police Chief Charles Everett allegedly was not showing up for certain off-duty jobs for which he had earned thousands of dollars.
Blaettler handed his findings over to News 12, which aired a report changing that Everett earned money for off-duty security details at the town’s Jose Marti athletic field and pools but allegedly was not there for all of the hours. In September of 2011, Mayor Stack launched a city investigation into the matter.
Investigator Walter Timpone filed a report with the city saying that top cops had manipulated the system so that they’d get the most lucrative off-duty jobs. He also recommended that charges be brought against Everett.
Everett retired around the time the report came out.
The state attorney general’s office also began investigating.
“What’s ironic,” Blaettler said last week, “is that I wrote that policy that was put in place to give patrolmen the first crack at off-duty details.”
Now Blaettler has a new goal. He is investigating what he suspects to be “suspicious activity” within Union City’s Community Development Agency (CDA). The agency handles allocations from the Federal Community Development Block Grant Program that fund street, sidewalk, and other public facility improvements, and include the rehabilitation of residential and commercial properties.
Blaettler has made Open Public Records Act requests, in compliance with state law, and the city informed him that he’d have to pay a $1,920 fee for the paperwork he wants.
Last week, Stack’s spokesman, Mark Albiez, said fees may be applied to requests that require “massive amounts of workforce time and effort” because Union City taxpayers “cannot shoulder the burden of paying for such requests.”
Charging a fee is standard. “There is a provision in OPRA for requests that require extraordinary time and effort to fulfill that will allow a public entity to recoup those charges,” said Newark-based media lawyer Tom Cafferty. “The service charge represents labor cost in accommodating the request.”
Blaettler said he will file a complaint with the Government Records Council by the end of the week, challenging the fee for the CDA documents.
The request that costs the most money is the CDA budgets from 2005 to 2010, and the CDA’s specific criteria as to who may receive such services as grants for sidewalks or for building façade improvements under the aforementioned CDA-run grant program. Blaettler says he’s only received half of the information he’s asked for.
He said that he is looking specifically into sidewalk and facade improvements paid for by a CDA grant for a local elected official’s small business and residence. He suspects the official may earn well over the income limit for those who qualify for improvements under this particular grant.
“I’m just a political junkie,” Blaettler said. “I believe that at the end of the day, if you eliminate the waste, mismanagement, and inefficiency, you can solve most of government’s major problems with budget and really begin to take care of people.”
Stack responds
In Feb. 2011, Stack sent a letter to a local newspaper stating, “It is entirely evident that [Blaettler] is a former disgruntled employee who is suffering from a severe case of sour grapes.” Stack also has a new letter in this week’s edition of the Union City Reporter.
Blaettler responded, “Why is it that I left in 2008, and nobody heard a word from me for two years?”
Yes, he admitted, he wanted to be chief, but in retrospect he believes it was best that never happened, because it led to his work as a private investigator.
Stack’s letter also says that Blaettler made $207,000 his last year as deputy chief and that he took advantage of many extra benefits on the taxpayers’ dime (see letters page).
Blaettler said his projects are nothing new.
“I’ve always spoken out in Union City about corruption,” Blaettler said.
In March of 1998, when Blaettler was a city police sergeant, he was quoted on the front page of a local paper speaking out against the sort of political patronage that could either make or break one’s career.
“At the time, I believed Brian Stack [then a city commissioner] was the man to clean all this up,” he said. “I was behind him 100 percent.”
Next on OPRA
Blaettler currently has another Union City investigative project: Looking at ex-Chief Everett’s salary contract for 2010-2012.
Last month Blaettler filed a complaint with the Government Records Council over a request for Everett’s last contract, which he says is still pending. Blaettler claims that when he filed an OPRA request with the city for the signed contract, he was allegedly told that it doesn’t exist, and that the corporation counsel and the former chief had their own written agreement to extend the previous contract.
Albiez responded to this allegation, saying that beginning in January 2010, Everett and the City of Union City operated under the terms of the old salary contract because it provided for a continuation of the terms of his agreement as long as the superior officers’ contract remained in effect.
“Do I hate Brian Stack? No,” said Blaettler, who does not live in Union City. “I just don’t agree with what he’s doing. If it makes people mad that I’m speaking out about it, so be it, but I don’t think it’s asking much to know how our money’s being spent.”
For more information on East Coast Private Investigations, visit www.ecpinj.com.
Gennarose Pope may be reached at gpope@hudsonreporter.com