Administrator Criticized Over Borough Car Use

Five Paramus residents criticized the governing body Tuesday over the administrator's use of his Borough Vehicle.

At their public meeting, the Mayor and Council heard from residents who felt that Administrator Joseph D'Arco should have been punished for during work hours.

Steven Mercer, the Wilson Avenue resident who first discovered D'Arco's use of the vehicle, said the Administrator should have been terminated.

"Anywhere else, I'm telling you, Mr. D'Arco, you wouldn't be sitting there, you'd be fired," the recently laid-off Borough code official said. "Because you would have fired anybody for doing the same thing."

Borough Attorney Brian Giblin and Council administrative liaisons Alan Brundage and Michael Rohdieck investigated D'Arco's use of his car and found there was nothing in D'Arco's contract or the Borough code that prohibited him from using the vehicle for personal errands. D'Arco's contract includes no language about the use of a Borough vehicle, though it doesn't preclude him from using one either.

On Tuesday, the Council unanimously approved a new contract for D'Arco that specifically bars him from using the vehicle for any non-Borough use, Brundage said. The governing body didn't ask D'Arco to reimburse the Borough for his use of the vehicle, but D'Arco paid back the E-ZPass charges he incurred while using the car personally.

D'Arco's new contract also adds dental coverage to his benefits, a provision that was mistakenly left off of his original work agreement. Brundage said D'Arco went without dental coverage last year though it was promised to him. 

The new contract provides for no increase to D'Arco's $140,000 salary.

In addition to being upset about the car use, residents at the meeting also complained about how the matter was investigated. Mercer questioned whether it was a conflict of interest for Brundage and Rohdieck, who voted to hire D'Arco last year, and Giblin, a fellow Borough professional, to investigate D'Arco.

Mercer and former Councilman Denis Niland questioned why the investigation didn't fall to the Borough ethics committee. The committee was created by ordinance in October 2010, and members were appointed earlier this year, but Mayor Richard LaBarbiera said he didn't know if they had met.

"Why wouldn't the ethics committee review this instead of another Borough employee?" Niland asked. [Full disclosure: Niland takes photos for Paramus Patch on a freelance basis.]

The ordinance establishing the Ethics Committee gives the six-member body the power to initiate ethics complaints.

"This might be something that they might look into," LaBarbiera said.