By JOSEPH KELLARD
Hennessy, who opted not to seek re-election to the council in November 2007 after being diagnosed with cancer, will finish the term of Michael Zummo, who earlier this month resigned from his commission seat, which will expire in May 2014.
City Manager Charles Theofan added the appointment to the agenda of the council’s Sept. 16 meeting in the hope of quickly replacing Zummo on the three-member commission. “Given the fact that we have many things that are going to be happening in the very near future, such as a lieutenant’s test, and an overall general police test on Nov. 15, we must move expeditiously to fill this vacancy,” Theofan said at the meeting.
Hennessy, who said he now has a clean bill of health, said he accepted the position in part because it is less taxing than being on the council, and that he was excited to have the opportunity to finish the work of helping to fix a broken commission that he began when he was first elected to the council in November 2003. “My goal when I got involved in Long Beach politics was to bring good government to the City of Long Beach, and we all know how it was prior to 2003,” Hennessy said. “It was a horror show.”
The Long Beach commission is an independent legal authority that oversees the merit hiring system for the city and its school district, from police and firefighters to sanitation workers and lifeguards. Civil service commissioners work to ensure that civil service law is followed, and enforce rules governing appointed positions, promotions, transfers and resignations as well as the administration of civil service exams.
A 2003 state report revealed that the Long Beach Civil Service Commission had the worst rating in New York, and “Hennessy was instrumental in working to bring that commission into conformity with the state civil service regulations,” City Council President Thomas Sofield said. “I don’t think we could have a better person to put on this board.”
Theofan said that when he was the city’s corporation counsel in 2004, he discovered that the three sitting civil service commissioners had never been properly appointed. “And we had to start all over again from scratch,” said Theofan. Hennessy, he explained, was integral in working with him to get a new commission up and running.
“He’s extremely familiar with the procedures and regulations and, most important, how the process works,” Theofan said, adding that Hennessy immediately came to mind when Zummo resigned.
Zummo was first appointed to the commission in May 2005 — also to finish another commissioner’s term — and was reappointed on July 15, 2008. He did not return a call inquiring about his resignation. Theofan declined to talk in detail, but said, “In the end, he resigned, and I know he was busy with a lot of other things that I think he wanted to devote more time to. I’d rather leave it at that.”
According to state and civil service law, civil service commissions are three-member bodies with at least one Democratic and Republican commissioner. Neither Leary Wade, the commission’s registered Democrat, nor Susan Solomon, its Republican member, returned calls for comment on the commission’s recent changes.
Democratic council members Lenny Remo and Denise Tangney voted against Hennessy’s appointment. Tangney expressed concern that it might create a conflict of interest. “[Hennessy] was the supervisor of our city manager, advising him — now we’re going to have the city manager being his supervisor, which I see as a possible conflict of interest,” Tangney said. “I don’t agree with having an active prior City Council member being part of the Civil Service Commission.”
Hennessy dismissed Tangney’s reasoning as “completely false.” “The commission is a completely independent organization,” he said, “and the city manger has zero authority over any member of the commission. Most boards are appointed by the city manager. This is one of only two boards in which the City Council confirms their appointment. Where’s the conflict of interest?”
Hennessy said that although the commission has come a long way in boosting its standards during the past few years, “It still has a long way to go.”
Comments about this story? JKellard@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 213.
