Updated: Council Members Weigh in on Recent Layoffs, Mayoral Hirings

The office of White Plains Mayor Thomas M. Roach announced the hiring of a new senior advisor to the mayor on Monday, but in a bit of what some might term bad timing, the announcement came just one day after eight city workers received layoff notices.

Eyebrows have also been raised this week because the Common Council defunded two mayoral aide positions last year, when most of them were calling for then-Mayor Adam Bradley to resign amid domestic violence charges.

Councilwoman Milagros Lecuona disputed the notion that the earlier defundings were politically motivated, though she pointed out that “when you are a political figure, everything you do has political repercussions.”

Instead, Lecuona said, she agreed to defund the positions because it was not at all clear to her that they were serving the interests of the city, because Bradley was distracted from his duties as mayor, and because the positions seemed to enable that distraction.

“His legal issues were so large and taking so much time from his everyday duties,” she said, “that somebody must have been doing his work while he was dealing with his personal issues.”

Councilwoman Beth Smayda noted that the new hires have different responsibilities than Bradley’s aides did, and that one of them, Kim DiTomasso, is a part-time worker without a benefits package.

“It’s less expensive overall than it was before,” Smayda said, adding that the new hires will be working to bring new revenue streams to the city.

“It’s bad timing, but on the other hand, that’s exactly why we have to do it,” Lecuona said, agreeing with Smayda. “In order to move the city in the right direction, we have to not only have efficiencies in services, we have to bring in revenues.”

The layoffs, which the Journal News reported will save the city $625,000, affect one part-timer from the mayor’s office, a Youth Bureau employee, and workers from the Budget, Information Services, Building, Public Works, and Recreation and Parks departments.

When asked about the defunding of Bradley’s aides, Councilman David Buchwald said, “I believe any new mayor is entitled to some benefit of the doubt in how they structure their administration. At the same time, though, a mayor’s office, like all departments, is accountable to the elected officials in White Plains, the members of the Common Council. When the council loses confidence in a mayor, we are entitled to stop giving that mayor deference.”

Expressing confidence in Roach, Buchwald added that “I think he chose good people to fill these two positions. He has also decided, with council authorization, to ask eight city employees to leave, including one position in the mayor’s office.”

Lecuona also expressed confidence in the new mayoral aides. "I am pretty sure they are highly qualified and professional people.” But she said she did have a problem with the process, specifically that she was never told about the hires. She read about Pasquale’s hiring in the press, and she recognized DiTomasso at City Hall but had to be told that DiTomasso was now working in the mayor’s office.

In the end, Buchwald admitted, only time will tell if the moves will benefit White Plains as a whole.

“It is our responsibility as a council to see what type of effect all of these decisions have on the city,” Buchwald said. “But I tend to think that they will be positive.”

During the citizens to be heard portion of Tuesday night’s Common Council meeting, Roach responded to a negative comment on the issue by noting that one of the layoffs was in his own office and stating that allocation of resources as it relates to hiring and retaining staff is one of his responsibilities.

Councilman Dennis Power said in an interview that he disagreed with the defundings under Bradley but voted with the rest of the Council as part of a budget decision in 2010.

But, Power said, “we did not eliminate the positions. The consensus at that time seemed to be that we would revisit the issue when appropriate.”

Power also noted that the CSEA (Civil Service Employees Association) “could have avoided a number of those [layoffs] had they accepted the city’s proposed new contract. It was a budgetary decision.”

Councilman John Martin, who was not a member of the Council when the positions were defunded, said he supports the new hires for Roach’s office “as his office was in need of support.”

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