By:Chris Munzing
The new members of the Civil Service Commission, Leary Wade, Susan Mackston-Solomon and Andrew Malekoff, will take over a commission that became a political battleground last month when the three holdover members -- Kenneth Jaffe, Maximo Alomonte and Herman Neuman -- were fired by the city manager after he said he found their original appointments to be invalid because they had never been approved by the council. Spiritis further alleged that they had received a poor rating from the New York State Civil Service Commission.
Councilmen Denis Kelly and Leonard Remo, members of the Democratic minority, abstained. Remo said that the city charter was confusing on the appointment of civil service commissioners, granting both the City Council and the city manager the power to appoint in two separate sections of the document.
"In theory, it was a legal appointment," Remo said of the previous commission. "It was a legal body working in good faith."
Kelly said he believed that the appointment of a new commission was rushed, and didn't provide the council with enough time to properly review the situation or new candidates. "What took place on April 7 would have been more appropriate to occur on May 18," he said. "I didn't get the resumes of the present candidates until 6 p.m. on Wednesday [April 7]. Were we serving the best interests of the city by firing the old commission and bringing in another without any discussion? I don't know."
Kelly said he felt that the members of the previous commission should have been brought in for a public hearing before their dismissal and questioned on the state commission's report. A decision on whether to dismiss Jaffe and Almonte after a public hearing would have looked better than dismissing them without hearing their explanation for the commission's current problems, Kelly said.
"Why not have that conversation?" he added. "I don't get what the big rush was."
Council President Jim Hennessy said one of the reasons the new commissioners were sworn in so quickly is because a number of civil service tests have been canceled and needed to be rescheduled, and some eligibility lists, which include employees of the Long Beach Police Department, are nearing expiration. The rescheduling of tests and the renewal of existing lists can only be done by the commissioners.
"The state [commission] stood by us on this," Hennessy said. "We did what we thought was the right thing."
The city's Board of Ethics was also being filled by improperly appointed people, according to Corporation Counsel Charles Theofan. Theofan said that only the City Council can install members of the ethics commission, and that the last evidence of a properly formed board was in 1981. Ever since, Theofan said, the board has been filled by appointees from the city manager.
Hennessy said the new ethics commission fulfills a promise made by the Republicans when they were campaigning for the council last year. "One of the things we promised were more checks and balances, more accountability," he said. "They make sure that we stay in line."
The members of the Board of Ethics are:
*Louis Newman, who is retired from more than 50 years in construction.
*Jane Navarro, a member of the Lindell School PTA.
*Raymond Ellmer, a Long Beach lifeguard and member of the New York, New Jersey, and District of Columbia Bar Associations.
*Asia Garcia, as a bookkeeper for the past 21 years for real estate companies.
*Thomas Evrard, a deacon at St. Ignatius since 2000.
*The Rev. Carlton Mobley, the pastor and CEO of the Christian Light Missionary Baptist Church since 2002.
*Theodore Hommel, a member of the New York State Bar Association.
*Hector Maldonado, an employee of the Youth and Family Services Department of the City of Long Beach.
