CLIFTON ― An ongoing feud between two City Council members devolved into an impasse that lasted almost half an hour on Wednesday night when one demanded that the other’s seat be moved.
The 18-minute impasse around the rectangular table of the council chamber in City Hall lasted 13 minutes longer than the council spent discussing the ongoing police contract negotiations at the same meeting, members said.
The feud has been brewing for a while, but it came to a head in recent weeks when Councilwoman Rosemary Pino wrote a letter to Mayor Ray Grabowski saying she no longer felt comfortable sitting next to Councilwoman Mary Sadrakula.
Pino demanded that the mayor move Sadrakula’s seat.
At the beginning of Wednesday’s meeting, Pino asked the mayor what he planned to do about her request to have Sadrakula’s seat changed. The mayor said he spoke with Sadrakula several times about it, but the councilwoman said she would not move.
The mayor then asked Pino if she would change her seat, but she told him no, because Sadrakula is “the aggressor” in the situation and the one who should move.
So began the impasse…
A longtime observer of New Jersey’s local governments, Marc Pfeiffer, a researcher at Rutgers’ Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, said part of the problem can be attributed to the recent member turnover on the City Council, with the exit of James Anzaldi as mayor after more than 30 years and the deaths of members Peter Eagler and Lauren Murphy.
Demographic changes and new generations of residents mean that there are new interests and issues that council members champion. It can make it difficult to agree on priorities.
Also contributing to the problem, Pfeiffer said, is that the council is nonpartisan one. Party leadership and discipline can often keep elected officials in line.
“You also have to avoid putting people into corners,” he said, adding that it is better to keep open ways for people to save face and remember that they are there to do the people’s business.
NorthJersey.com, August 8, 2024
