In a move that many expected, the board of the Jersey City Economic Development Corporation voted to dismiss Chief Executive Officer Marialyce Fitzgerald at its meeting Thursday.
Eugene Nelson was named to replace Fitzgerald as the CEO of the JCEDC, which manages the city’s Special Improvement Districts (SIDs). The SIDs represent local businesses which pool funds toward the physical improvement and security of their business districts.
Prior to moving the resolution for Fitzgerald’s removal as CEO, Mayor Glenn Cunningham, who serves on the EDC board, put forward a resolution temporarily removing Board Chairman Councilman Mariano Vega for the special July 18 meeting only. With the reading of the resolution, Vega announced his resignation to the EDC board Thursday. Vega’s position was filled by Vice Chairman Edgar Martinez.
"I have been serving in the interest of the city," Vega told the board. "The board should be about economic development and not personalities."
Before walking out of the meeting, Vega said in the time he served on the EDC, he had hoped to increase communication between the board, the CEO and the mayor.
Stan Eason, press person for Mayor Cunningham, said Fitzgerald had been dismissed because she had not followed the board’s directive for the removal of recent hires Roger Jones and Melissa Holloway. Eason added that Fitzgerald was not acting in a timely matter on EDC projects and did not work to bring projects to completion.
Fitzgerald stated, in an interview Thursday, that the June 27 meeting at which she was ordered to dismiss Rogers and Halloway was illegal, claiming only two of the five members of the executive board were present.
Without a quorum, Fitzgerald argued, the directives were not valid and she could not be charged with insubordination for disregarding them.
Fitzgerald responded to remarks that she was slow with EDC projects by saying she had only received paperwork on the Thomas Jackson project, an affordable housing complex that will be built by the Martin Luther King Drive SID, on June 27, adding that she gotten information from Fleet Bank that funds were not available for the project.
The vote to remove Fitzgerald as CEO was in 11 in favor, along with a "no" vote from Board Trustee Michael Yun and two abstentions from Ocilean Hargrove Pitchford and Theodore J. Van Leer.
A point of contention at the meeting was the legality of three agendas which had been issued for the July 18 meeting. In a legal opinion, board attorney Roberta L. Tarkan said the first agenda was too vague about what would happen at the meeting, while the second agenda had not been noticed properly to some of the board members.
Earlier in the week, Vega said he would conduct the meeting with the agenda that had been issued earlier in the week.