UPDATE: In Split Vote, Brick MUA Commissioners Eliminate 2 Engineering Dept. Jobs

Two project managers were eliminated from the Brick Township Municipal Utilities Authority’s engineering department on Monday night, in a move that was blasted by several people within the MUA and labeled political by one person.

The positions of Project Manager I, held by Stacey Jacob, and Project Manager III, held by Napoleon Jose “Joe” K. Juanillo, both were eliminated as of Oct. 31 by 3-2 votes by the commissioners. No reason was given publicly for the cuts; Jacob said they were told simply that it was “a reduction in force.”

Commissioners Allan E. Cartine and Thomas C. Curtis voted against the job eliminations. George Cevasco, the MUA board chairman; James Fozman, the vice chairman of the board and Brick councilman, and James Bayard all voted in favor of the job eliminations. Stacy Olsen and Edward McBride, the alternates, both said they would have voted against the eliminations if they had been voting.

Cevasco cast the deciding vote on each of the positions, drawing murmurs from the audience of family members and employees who gathered to show their support for Jacob and Juanillo. Jacob’s base salary was $54,352 at the end of 2013, according the Asbury Park Press’s DataUniverse database. Juanillo’s base salary was $70,760, according to DataUniverse.

Cartine was sharply critical of the decision.

“I didn’t find out about this until last Wednesday,” Cartine said after the meeting. “I had no knowledge of it whatsoever. I was told the decision was made on Sept. 8. I don’t agree with it.

“The majority of the board has the right to do what they want,” Cartine said. “I think we’re going to miss these people and the agency is going to suffer.”

Stephen T. Specht, the deputy executive director of the MUA who oversees the engineering department, among others, was angry as he spoke during the meeting.

“When I was hired in 2000, I took steps to reduce the size of the engineering department staff,” Specht said, noting the staff was cut from 11 to seven people. “We run very efficiently.”

“Tonight I’m faced with the removal of half of my engineering staff. How am I going to transition what they do to other people?” he asked. The job cuts leave one project manager on the engineering staff, employees said.

Specht said he sent a memo on Sept. 14 to the commissioners seeking their feedback on how the engineering department should absorb the cuts, but received no reply.

“None?” Cartine asked Specht. “None,” Specht replied.

Specht told the commissioners that Jacob and Juanillo were critical parts of his staff.

“I have two new projects coming in, and I need someone to manage them,” Specht said. “Who is going to do that?”

Juanillo said he and Jacob managed capital improvement projects for the MUA, overseeing them from the design and bidding process all the way to completion. “These are all public contracts,” he said.

Jacob said both she and Juanillo not only manage the projects from the office, but they conduct on-site inspections to ensure work is done correctly, in addition to inspections done by code officials.

“Stacey just got us a $1.5 million Sandy grant,” Specht said. “Now I have to find someone to complete the process of getting the money in.”

“These are two hard-working, dedicated employees,” he said. “I’ve been in this industry for 35 years, and I’ve never seen anything like this.

“I had my conversation with you, Mr. Chairman,” Specht said to Cevasco. “Apparently it fell on deaf ears.”

Domenick Brando, former emergency management coordinator for the MUA and a former township councilman, criticized the board’s vote, calling it a political maneuver and saying it was designed to benefit the policital aspirations of “people in town hall.”

“You are pulling the same antics as you did in the 2000s,” he said, referring to the time period from 1998-2006, when former Brick Mayor Joseph C. Scarpelli later pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges for taking bribes from a developer to ensure the approval of a project.

Brando said if the commissioners were truly aiming to save money, they wouldn’t have bought out the contract of former director Frank Pannucci Jr. in May, then turned around and promoted Gary S. Vaccaro to director a short time later.

Brando, who was the emergency management coordinator for the MUA until his job was eliminated in February, said the move to eliminate the jobs of Juanillo and Jacob was politically motivated, to make room for a “patronage” job, as was done when Vaccaro was promoted, he said. Pannucci is the former Republican Party chairman in Brick; Vaccaro is the president of the Lacey Democratic Club. The Brick MUA currently is controlled by Democratic Party.

“You have people lined up every day who can’t pay their bills, and you’re buying out contracts,” Brando said.

At one point, Brando accused the commissioners of corruption, bringing a warning from Fozman.

“Be careful what you say,” he said, interrupting Brando. “You are being recorded.”

Vaccaro took exception to Brando’s claim that his promotion was a patronage position.

“I work damn hard,” Vaccaro said, responding to Brando’s claims. “I was recommended for the by (executive director Jim) Lacey, a Republican. I was approved 5-0 by a board with two Republicans on it,” he said, rejecting Brando’s claim that the promotion was a polictical favor.

“I don’t like to be accused of corruption,” said Fozman, who was particularly targeted by Brando, adding that because Brando’s job was eliminated, his claims “sound like sour grapes to me.”

“I’m losing two family members tonight,” Specht said. “I’m very hurt.” He declined further comment after the meeting.