In a new lawsuit against Mayor Dawn Zimmer, the city of Hoboken, the Hoboken Housing Authority (HHA), and members of its oversight board, state Assemblyman Carmelo Garcia (D-33) alleges that his firing as Executive Director of the HHA this past August was illegal and discriminatory. His lawsuit was filed Oct. 27.
Garcia was the paid director of Hoboken’s public housing agency until Aug. 4, when the HHA Board of Commissioners voted 5-2 to terminate his contract. The agency oversees the city’s federally subsidized housing projects. Garcia was earning a six-figure salary as the director, overseen by HUD and also by a seven-member volunteer Board of Commissioners, largely allied with Mayor Zimmer. The members were appointed by the mayor, governor, and City Council.
In a complaint filed in Hudson County Superior Court by North Bergen attorney Louis Zayas, Garcia alleges that his firing was orchestrated by Zimmer in retaliation for his unwillingness to appoint politically connected professionals at the Housing Authority. Garcia also alleges that Zimmer and her allies fired him because of his Hispanic ethnicity.
According to Garcia’s complaint, Zimmer and her co-defendants “form an association…for the common and continuing purpose of consolidating Mayor Zimmer’s political power.”
“I am not surprised that Mr. Garcia has taken this desperate step given his previous absurd actions.”—Dawn Zimmer
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Garcia is seeking compensatory damages, punitive damages, attorney’s fees, and reinstatement to his job as HHA director. Under some of his claims, said Zayas, Garcia will attempt to assess damages individually to Zimmer, HHA board chair Dana Wefer, and vice-chair David Mello in order to hold them personally accountable for their actions.
Long struggle
Garcia’s new filing is the latest salvo in a years-long political struggle between himself and Zimmer that has frequently boiled over into the courts. A 2013 lawsuit filed by Garcia accusing Zimmer, her husband Stan Grossbard, and then-HHA Board Chairman Jake Stuiver of illegally threatening his employment is still pending in Hudson County Superior Court, although it has been amended and several claims have been dismissed. Garcia had taped a lunch he had with Grossbard in order to prove his claims.
On Thursday, Zimmer wrote in an email, “I cannot comment on the specific filing by Mr. Garcia since it was never served upon me and I have not been able to read the accusations. However, I am not surprised that Mr. Garcia has taken this desperate step given his previous absurd actions, which included claiming in court filings that my husband and I moved to Hoboken in 2002 for the purpose of engaging in ‘ethnic cleansing.’ This is just another example of this individual’s politically motivated agenda, which is meant to intentionally harass the city’s administration and waste the financial resources of the taxpayers of City of Hoboken.”
Escalating tensions
Garcia’s termination in August was the culmination of six months of barbs and often rancorous HHA board meetings. In January, the City Council, which is controlled by a Zimmer-allied majority, appointed Wefer and James Sanford to the housing board, giving commissioners considered to be allies of Zimmer a 4-3 majority.
At the March reorganization meeting, outgoing chairman Rob Davis was replaced with Wefer. As chair, Wefer closely scrutinized Garcia’s business practices, alleging in May that Garcia had granted $3.5 million in no-bid contracts for work on HHA buildings without following the normal bidding process. Three of the companies granted no-bid contracts gave $3,600 to Garcia’s state Assembly election fund in March of this year.
Garcia had said the no-bid contracts were only given out in special circumstances, like for Hurricane Sandy related matters.
In May, the board appointed a special counsel to investigate the HHA’s procurement practices. Garcia and the board’s lawyer Charles Daglian objected, maintaining that Garcia’s contract made him the sole appointing authority for the HHA.
After the special counsel’s procurement was deemed unjustified by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, Wefer cancelled the contract. At a meeting on July 10, though, the board created a committee to review procurements and sought bids for a new special investigator.
Wefer said it was only after that meeting, when Garcia’s office produced a request for bids for the special counsel that did not reflect the board’s intentions, that she decided she had no choice but to seek his termination.
However, the resolution that executed his removal did not list any reasons for his termination, and Wefer’s prior allegations of improper procurement and campaign contributions were not discussed at his termination hearing.
Instead, the document relied on a clause in Garcia’s contract allegedly allowing him to be fired “for reasons other than for cause” with 120 days’ notice.
The board had to pay Garcia for 120 days of salary, or around $61,000.
Second time around
Last year, Garcia filed a suit accusing Zimmer and her alleged allies of pursuing an “ethnic cleansing initiative” at the Housing Authority. The events that preceded it were similar to those that took place earlier this year—a fight with a Zimmer-affiliated board chairman over lawyer appointments, culminating in a March 2013 motion to fire Garcia, which was ultimately tabled and never reconsidered after a change in board control.
In December 2013, Garcia’s initial complaint was dismissed for not adequately stating any claims, though the option of resubmitting an amended complaint was left open. In February of this year, his lawyer Zayas filed an amended complaint that dropped the “ethnic cleansing” language but alleged that Garcia had been discriminated against due to his race.
In a March ruling, Hudson County Superior Court Judge Lawrence Maron struck five claims from the amended complaint but allowed one alleging that Zimmer and others violated the New Jersey Civil Rights Act by threatening Garcia’s right to free speech to go forward.
The case history of Garcia’s 2013 lawsuit gives mixed indications about how successful his new lawsuit might be. On the one hand, Maron struck down Garcia’s amended claims under the Conscientious Employee Protection Act (CEPA) and the New Jersey Law against Discrimination because the terms and conditions of his employment were not materially altered.
By contrast, said Zayas, Garcia’s firing constitutes a clear and unquestionable adverse employment action, which could allow those claims to go forward in the new case.
However, Maron did not conclude that Zimmer could be considered a “joint employer” of Garcia for the purposes of CEPA, even while assuming that all of the facts presented by Garcia were true, as is done when considering a motion to amend.
Garcia’s new complaint realleges that Zimmer and Hoboken were in effect joint employers of Garcia due to her influence over political appointments at the Housing Authority.
Even fewer minorities in city leadership
Meanwhile, Garcia’s firing and the upcoming retirement of Interim Police Chief Edelmiro Garcia mean that there are soon to be no Latin Americans in major power positions in Hoboken, despite the fact that 15.2 percent of Hoboken residents are of Latino descent, according to the 2010 Census.
Also this year, Finance Director Solomon Steplight, the only African-American in a leadership position in Hoboken city government, resigned to become the COO/CFO of national non-profit association Girls Who Code.
When asked if this was a concern, Zimmer stated in an email that “the circumstances relating to the resignation of Mr. Steplight and the upcoming retirement of Chief Garcia are…a matter of public record.”
Carlo Davis may be reached at cdavis@hudsonreporter.com.