HOBOKEN – Hoboken’s former longtime construction code official Al Arezzo filed a lawsuit on Dec. 22, 2011 in Hudson County Court against the city of Hoboken and other local officials alleging improper termination. The suspension and termination of Arezzo occurred beginning on Jan. 5, 2011, according to the lawsuit.
Arezzo has been involved in a few city controversies over the years. According to past newspaper articles, he was investigated by the state Attorney General’s Office and Department of Community Affairs in 2007 because he was apparently a partner in a company that owns a building on Newark Street for which the police had been paying $3,000 per month to stable their horses. He was involved in other controversies as well (see links below).
All city employees in Hoboken were required to complete sexual harassment training during certain sessions around the time of January 2011. Arezzo’s attorney claims in the lawsuit that all of the scheduled training sessions were during the times that the state mandated that Arezzo and other construction officials were required to be in their office to deal with permits. The state Department of Community Affairs regulates the construction code office.
Arezzo, who has worked for the city for 39 years, says in the suit that he tried to attend an alternate sexual harassment training session, but he was told that the alternate training session was only for police officers. The lawsuit states that in order for Arezzo and his staff to have attended a regularly scheduled training session, they would have been “in violation of the express regulations governing both [Arezzo] and the construction official’s office.”
The suit alleges that one city official told Arezzo, “You’ll go [to a training session] when I tell you to go.”
Arezzo was eventually suspended and later terminated by the city.
Arezzo names the city of Hoboken, Mayor Dawn Zimmer, Business Administrator Arch Liston, and a city attorney in the suit as defendants, as well as “John Does 1-15”, who are described as other city officials.
The mayor’s office declined comment on the matter, as the lawsuit is part of ongoing litigation.
Arezzo is demanding compensatory damages, punitive damages, reinstatement of his job, benefits, and seniority rights, as well as payment of all costs and attorneys’ fees. – Ray Smith