May 1, 2009

Hon. Joseph N. DiVincenzo, Jr.

Essex County Executive

Hall of Records, Room 405

465 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd.

Newark, NJ, 07102

Re: OPRA Request

       Administration’s Emails

       Ceaseless Self-Serving Soirees

Dear Mr. DiVincenzo:

Attached, please find a copy of the Open Public Records Request (OPRA) form CWA Local 1081 has submitted this day to the County of Essex requesting the following documentation, where applicable:

1. Copies of all emails sent Department and Division directors of the County of Essex, and/or their designees, by your Administration encouraging they arrange for their respective titular subordinate employees of the County of Essex to attend an event on Thursday, January 15, 2009 with state legislators, officials from the Essex County Vocational-Technical Schools and you at a gathering at the school district's North 13th Street Campus in Newark calling for equitable funding for school construction and curriculum aid for vocational school districts that have a majority of students who reside in Abbott communities.
2. Copies of all emails sent Department and Division directors of the County of Essex, and/or their designees, by your Administration encouraging they arrange for their respective titular subordinate employees of the County of Essex to attend your Thursday, January 15, 2009 introduction of a $675
   million budget that would include the elimination of 219 county government
   positions, including 68 layoffs and a cut of 75 part-time employees.
3. Copies of all emails sent Department and Division directors of the County of Essex, and/or their designees, by your Administration encouraging they arrange for their respective titular subordinate employees of the County of Essex to attend with Mayor Cory A. Booker and members of the Newark Municipal Council who joined with representatives from non-profit organization Newark Now, the Newark Asset Building Coalition, TD Bank, the Internal Revenue Service, the New Jersey Treasury Department’s Division of Taxation, municipal, county, and state dignitaries, and Newark residents to kick-off the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program at 10 a.m. on Friday, January 16, 2009, in the City Hall Rotunda.
4. Copies of all emails sent Department and Division directors of the County of Essex, and/or their designees, by your Administration encouraging they arrange for their respective titular subordinate employees of the County of Essex to attend the Tuesday, January 20, 2009 event celebrating the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States within the Essex County College gymnasium.
5. Copies of all emails sent Department and Division directors of the County of Essex , and/or their designees, by your Administration encouraging they arrange for their respective titular subordinate employees of the County of Essex to attend the Monday, January 26, 2009 press conference wherein you offered a two-pronged economic stimulus package, saying you would quickly free up nearly $5 million in open-space grants and press ahead with tens of millions in dollars in park and infrastructure upgrades
6. Copies of all emails sent Department and Division directors of the County of Essex, and/or their designees, by your Administration encouraging they arrange for their respective titular subordinate employees of the County of Essex to attend a press conference on Tuesday, January 27, 2009 wherein a small-town North Jersey mayor joined you to declare war on binding arbitration -- the strongest bargaining chip available to New Jersey's public safety unions.
7. Copies of all emails sent Department and Division directors of the County of Essex, and/or their designees, by your Administration encouraging they arrange for their respective titular subordinate employees of the County of Essex to attend the event on Monday, February 2, 2009 at Turtle Back Zoo where you announced that Essex Ed, the resident ground hog at Essex County Turtle Back Zoo, did not see his shadow.
8. Copies of all emails sent Department and Division directors of the County of Essex, and/or their designees, by your Administration encouraging they arrange for their respective titular subordinate employees of the County of Essex to attend your Sixth Annual State of the County Address at the Essex County Hospital Center on Tuesday, February 3, 2009.
9. Copies of all emails sent Department and Division directors of the County of Essex, and/or their designees, by your Administration encouraging they arrange for their respective titular subordinate employees of the County of Essex to attend the event wherein you recognized the lifetime achievements of the late Lena Donaldson Griffith, a cultural arts and civil rights pioneer in Newark and Essex County, on Tuesday, February 10, 2009.
10. Copies of all emails sent Department and Division directors of the County of Essex, and/or their designees, by your Administration encouraging they arrange for their respective titular subordinate employees of the County of Essex to attend an event wherein you joined with Congressman Bill Pascrell on Thursday, February 21, 2009 to announce that almost $400,000 in federal grants from the Office of Housing and Urban Development was awarded to the Essex County Environmental Center and Turtle Back Zoo.
11. Copies of all emails sent Department and Division directors of the County of Essex, and/or their designees, by your Administration encouraging they arrange for their respective titular subordinate employees of the County of Essex to attend the February 25, 2009 event wherein you honored Newark Mayor Cory Booker as Essex County's "Black Man of the Year” at the Essex County Hall of Records.
12. Copies of all emails sent Department and Division directors of the County of Essex, and/or their designees, by your Administration encouraging they arrange for their respective titular subordinate employees of the County of Essex to attend the event wherein you welcomed 200 mental health care professionals and advocates to the second annual mental health symposium hosted Monday, March 2, 2009 at the Essex County Hospital Center in Cedar Grove.
13. Copies of all emails sent Department and Division directors of the County of Essex, and/or their designees, by your Administration encouraging they arrange for their respective titular subordinate employees of the County of Essex to attend a news conference you held on Monday, March 2, 2009 to tout the success of the culling of deer, with you saying professional hunters killed 138 animals this year in a 9-day hunt.
14. Copies of all emails sent Department and Division directors of the County of Essex, and/or their designees, by your Administration encouraging they arrange for their respective titular subordinate employees of the County of Essex to attend the event wherein you accepted the Public Service Award from the New Jersey Recreation and Parks Association (NJRPA) at its annual convention on Tuesday, March 3, 2009.
15. Copies of all emails sent Department and Division directors of the County of Essex, and/or their designees, by your Administration encouraging they arrange for their respective titular subordinate employees of the County of Essex to attend the event wherein you announced that $111,918 in 2009 Essex County Local Arts Program Awards were presented to 41 local community arts groups during an awards ceremony on Monday, March 9, 2009 at Essex County Environmental Center Garibaldi Hall in Roseland.
16. Copies of all emails sent Department and Division directors of the County of Essex, and/or their designees, by your Administration encouraging they arrange for their respective titular subordinate employees of the County of Essex to attend the event wherein you announced on Thursday, March 12, 2009 that the TD Charitable Foundation had awarded Essex County with a $50,000 grant to support programming offered by the Essex County Department of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs.
17. Copies of all emails sent Department and Division directors of the County of Essex, and/or their designees, by your Administration encouraging they arrange for their respective titular subordinate employees of the County of Essex to attend the event wherein on Friday, March 13, 2009 you outlined a $3 million project to renovate the bridge in Essex County Weequahic Park.
18. Copies of all emails sent Department and Division directors of the County of Essex, and/or their designees, by your Administration encouraging they arrange for their respective titular subordinate employees of the County of Essex to attend the event as you unveiled artistic renderings for a monument in the Essex County Veterans Memorial Park in Newark on Monday, March 16, 2009.
19. Copies of all emails sent Department and Division directors of the County of Essex, and/or their designees, by your Administration encouraging they arrange for their respective titular subordinate employees of the County of Essex to attend the first-ever Essex County Natural Resource Inventory, NRI, a 334-page study about the county’s environmental characteristics and features, that was released on Thursday, March 19, 2009 by members of the Essex County Environmental Commission and you.
20. Copies of all emails sent Department and Division directors of the County of Essex, and/or their designees, by your Administration encouraging they arrange for their respective titular subordinate employees of the County of Essex to attend the press conference which included Newark Mayor Cory A. Booker and you at a City Hall Rotunda press conference on Wednesday, March 25, 2009 to announce the annual Susan G. Komen North Jersey “Race for the Cure”.
21. Copies of all emails sent Department and Division directors of the County of Essex, and/or their designees, by your Administration encouraging they arrange for their respective titular subordinate employees of the County of Essex to attend the Thursday, March 26, 2009 Essex County Bar Foundation First Annual Memorial Service held at the Historic Courthouse, Newark.
22. Copies of all emails sent Department and Division directors of the County of Essex, and/or their designees, by your Administration encouraging they arrange for their respective titular subordinate employees of the County of Essex to attend a press conference wherein Mayor Cory A. Booker, Deputy Mayor of Economic Development and Housing Stefan Pryor, Director of Community Development Toni L. Griffin, Riverfront Planner Damon Rich, Trust for Public Land Newark Program Director Scott Dvorak and you announced a partnership to design and build Newark’s first riverfront park along the Passaic River.
23. Copies of all emails sent Department and Division directors of the County of Essex, and/or their designees, by your Administration encouraging they arrange for their respective titular subordinate employees of the County of Essex to attend the press conference wherein you announced plans to name a new synthetic grass football/soccer field being constructed in the Essex County Branch Brook Park Middle Division Recreation Complex as the "Essex County Andre Tippett Field" on Monday, April 6, 2009.
24. Copies of all emails sent Department and Division directors of the County of Essex, and/or their designees, by your Administration encouraging they arrange for their respective titular subordinate employees of the County of Essex to attend the Essex County YAM festivities held at the Essex County Hall of Records in Newark, NJ on April 8, 2009.
25. Copies of all emails sent Department and Division directors of the County of Essex, and/or their designees, by your Administration encouraging they arrange for their respective titular subordinate employees of the County of Essex to attend a press conference wherein you unveiled plans to develop a new natural habitat exhibit featuring Gibbons Apes at Essex County Turtle Back Zoo on Monday, April 13, 2009.
26. Copies of all emails sent Department and Division directors of the County of Essex, and/or their designees, by your Administration encouraging they arrange for their respective titular subordinate employees of the County of Essex to attend the event wherein NJ TRANSIT Executive Director Richard Sarles joined Bloomfield Mayor Raymond McCarthy and you on Monday, April 20, 2009 to break ground on the installation of new bus shelters and traffic technology that will support enhanced bus service along the busy Bloomfield Avenue corridor in the Township of Bloomfield and the City of Newark. 
27. Copies of all emails sent Department and Division directors of the County of Essex, and/or their designees, by your Administration encouraging they arrange for their respective titular subordinate employees of the County of Essex to attend the Wednesday, April 29, 2009 press conference wherein the Essex County Department of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs and you invited the public to participate in Essex County’s 2009 Fishing Derby.
28. Copies of all emails sent Department and Division directors of the County of Essex, and/or their designees, by your Administration encouraging they arrange for their respective titular subordinate employees of the County of Essex to attend the Thursday, April 30, 2009 press conference regarding the circa 1904 arched bridge that carries Bloomfield Avenue traffic over a slice of Newark's Branch Brook Park which was rededicated after a $3 million renovation true to its historic design.

As you will please recall, the February 22, 2009 article below published by the Star Ledger reported CWA Local 1081 having filed a grievance “charging that its staffers have been ‘obliged’ to participate in ‘self- serving soirees’ to make it appear that the (your) press conferences and other events command wide interest”. Your quoted response within the article was “’It's just so silly. I do all of my press conferences at twelve noon. It's all voluntary,’ DiVincenzo said. ‘They're not being forced to be here. It's during their lunch time.’”

However, and our Union avows this with all due respect, the fact is that not one of your abovementioned events consumed less than one hour. Inasmuch as the members of CWA Local 1081 have only a one-half hour contractually stipulated lunch break, as is the case with many of our other Brother and Sister County employees, those employees attending your celebratory confabs were afforded time off from their jobs not afforded their counterparts. In the case of such County agencies as the Division of Welfare, the Hospital Center, the Youth House and the County Jail the length of time spent by those employee attendees assigned to those County facilities at your events may be readily confirmed by reviewing their respective time clock records. Unfortunately, the time clock records of your staff assigned to the Hall of Records and of those of numerous other County employees assigned to the County-owned 50 South Clinton Street, East Orange building (other than our Union’s members assigned there) may not be so confirmed due to the fact your administration has elected inequitably to either not install, or not activate, time clocks at those sites.

CWA Local 1081’s goal, therefore, is to convince your administration to cease your use of County employees as background for your frequent festivities held during work hours. After all, inasmuch as you elected to renege upon our Union’s contract and now threaten to eliminate four paid holidays for all County employees without having negotiated either edict, and inasmuch as the caseloads of our members as employees of the Division of Welfare have been exponentially expanding in great part due to the present economic recession and in parallel part due to your administration’s lethargic staff hiring practices, our members’ time and that of all other County employees is much too significant to squander upon your "self- serving soirees".

Sincerely,

David H. Weiner, President

CWA Local 1081

C: Al Fusco

    Philip B. Alagia

    Hetty Rosenstein

    Stephen Weissman, Esq.

Unions reproach county executive

Numerous meetings among grievances

Sunday, February 22, 2009

BY PHILIP READ

Star-Ledger Staff

By his office's own count, Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo Jr. last year had 140 news conferences.

Time and again, rows of chairs were set up in his office or in the lobby of the Hall of Records and staffers, from confidential aides to deputy chiefs of staff to the rank and file, poured in.

As a result, the Communications Workers of America Local 1081 has filed a grievance, charging that its staffers have been "obliged" to participate in "self- serving soirees" to make it appear that the press conferences and other events command wide interest.

The rank and file, said CWA Local 1081 chief David Weiner is being distracted from an "onerous" caseload of administering food stamps and other services to welfare recipients in the midst of a recession.

"I've always found it disconcerting that the administration would utilize staff, any staff actually, as a background to press conferences ... that they be used as extras in the passion play of politics," Weiner said.

The filing drew a sharp retort from DiVincenzo.

"It's just so silly. I do all of my press conferences at twelve noon. It's all voluntary," DiVincenzo said. "They're not being forced to be here. It's during their lunch time."

The events, he said, are in tended to increase awareness among staff who then go home and tell their friends and families about the workings of county government, part of the whole idea of his slogan "Putting Essex County First."

"It is to let the people know what we're doing at the county level," he said. "It can't be just me."

The CWA contractual grievance, filed with Bruce Nigro, director of the county's Division of Welfare, is just one of many that have landed amid negotiations with the county's 26 unions representing some 3,300 employees.

Three weeks ago, the CWA, which represents about 600 welfare workers, filed one asserting that Essex County is not adequately funding the administration of Newark's welfare cases, a task it took over only last summer.

Weiner, though, wouldn't comment on how many he filed or whether they were motivated by ongoing contract negotiations.

"I don't count them," said Weiner, asserting that he is simply policing his members' contract.

On Dec. 24, the CWA filed an unfair labor practices charge asserting that the county engaged in "bad faith" and reneged on a memorandum of agreement that would have given Weiner's membership a 9.5 percent wage increase over three years.

Instead of a pay increase, the deepening recession led DiVincenzo to unveil 219 job cuts, some 68 via layoffs, and to ask unionized employees to accept a 3 percent raise in the first year of contracts that expired Dec. 31, 2007, and zero percent in each of the remaining two years.

Joseph Calabro, the business manager for the county's biggest union, the IBEW Local 1158, said talks with the county have stalled. As for the press conferences, he said, he has not heard any complaints from his membership.

"Now that you've said it, I'm going to poke around," Calabro said.

In the meantime, PBA Local 382's president has fired a salvo, asserting that county corrections officers are being barred from transporting inmates in newer vehicles and forced instead to use four vehicles with expired inspection stickers and mechanical defects.

"These new vehicles basically sit parked for hours, if not days on end," said Joe Amato, "while regular custody transport officers are left with what amounts to broken down 'garbage.'"

The PBA Local has requested a state arbitrator in its contract talks, a practice that DiVincenzo has publicly challenged. "We are left powerless when contract negotiations with public-safety unions go to arbitration," DiVincenzo said during a press conference last month.

DiVincenzo took the CWA's Weiner to task.

"David Weiner doesn't live in Essex County ... David pays his taxes in Monmouth County. Mine is 24/7... Enough is enough. We are in a financial crisis. As a county executive, I have to find a way to save dollars."

DiVincenzo also was unapologetic about the county news events.

"We're still going to encourage people to come here, to be cheerleaders for the county," he said. "This is the county where I live, and I'm going to continue to promote it."

Philip Read may be reached at pread@starledger.com or (973) 392-1851

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