Brick Council Appoints Two To Housing Authority After Fozman, Lunetta-Radice Resign

The Brick Township Council on Tuesday unanimously approved the appointments of Stanley Schick and Richard Dyer to the township Housing Authority, in the wake of two resignations in recent days from the body.

Vera Fozman, wife of Council Vice President James Fozman, and Delores Lunetta-Radice resigned within the last week. Reasons fo the resignations were not clear, but both had served just a short time. Fozman was appointed to the Housing Authority in January at the township reorganization meeting but didn’t join the authority until March. Lunetta-Radice had only joined the panel this summer.

The appointment of Fozman in particular had been blasted by members of the Republican party in town. Domenick Brando, a former councilman who was defeated in last year’s election after serving one term, had been particularly vocal, accusing the council of resorting to the same political patronage that Democrats had criticized former Mayor Steven Acropolis of engaging in during his time in office.

John Catalano, a commissioner on the Housing Authority, was even more harsh. In a public post on the Brick Patch Facebook page, Catalano accused Fozman of ”a campaign of dismantling the Authority’s administrative structure to bring in her own cronies from Democrat strongholds as far away as the City of Passaic.”

Catalano further accused Fozman of causing nothing but turmoil on the authority in the six months she served.

“She created a vacancy in the Executive Director’s position and has left the Authority without any leadership structure whatsoever. The 266 residents of the Authority are left with no administrator for their housing project,” Catalano wrote.

However, a check of Housing Authority minutes available online shows the authority had not had a permanent executive director since January 2012, when then-Executive Director Dennis Salerno retired. The Authority had named Anthony Matthews as interim executive director, but minutes for the January 2013 meeting list Matthews as the assistant executive director, with no mention of an executive director. Minutes for the authority’s meetings from March 2012 through December 2012 were not immediately available.

At the June 23, 2014 meeting of the authority, where Fozman was elected chair, the minutes are signed by Nancy Nicholson, who according to her signature had been elevated from service director to acting executive director. Matthews is listed on the authority’s website as holding the dual posts of director of staff operations and supervisor of maintenance -- the posts to which he was hired in August 2011, amid charges of political patronage from the Democrats.

Schick previously served on the housing authority since sometime in 2012. Dyer is new to the authority.