VIDEO: Scotch Plains mayor squirms under questioning over strange pay raise decision

Did YOU get a raise this year, Save Jerseyans?

Union County Democrat Freeholder Al Mirabella did.

Well, at his DAY JOB at least.

What does the esteemed Freeholder do when he’s not mismanaging the county, you ask? He’s the Town Manager for Scotch Plains, of course! No conflict of interest THERE, right?

Earlier this year, Mirabella’s best bud, Scotch Plains Mayor Kevin Glover, hiked up the pension-padding Town Manager’s salary. The raise was perfectly reasonable; I mean, he was only making $145,000 already. That’s like, minimum wage, isn’t it?

The weird thing about the raise, though, is that it was allegedly done by the mayor without consulting the full council according to Republican Councilman Llewellyn Jones.

That’s no bueno when it comes to transparency.

Thankfully, Republican Councilman Jones recently asked some tough questions in an attempt to shine some much needed light on the situation; you can watch the exchange below:

For only 3-minutes-and-change of a video, there was an AWFUL lot of squirming from both the Mayor and the Town Manager/Freeholder, claiming that there was past precedent for such a move, but failing to cite specific instances.

“I don’t recall when that occurred,” the Mayor shrugged before proceeding to change his story.

At one point, the Mayor erroneously exclaimed that it “wasn’t true” that this was the first time under his tenure that a town manager got a raise, a claim from which he quickly backtracked after Councilman Jones corrected him.

We are still waiting to hear from the town’s attorneys on the legal/ethical implications of Mayor Glover’s unilateral decision to raise Mr. Mirabella’s salary without consulting with the full Town Council.

Either way, all in all, it was another example of the messy, incestuous nature of democrat politics here in Union County- and further proof that we need to change the leadership in Scotch Plains.

I urge you all to LIKE Al Smith & Ted Spera for Scotch Plains Mayor & Council on Facebook and Twitter, and to consider learning how to engage their campaign at smithandspera2016.com! We need real change more now than ever.

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JD Bryden
About JD Bryden 1 Article
J.D. BRYDEN is chairman of the Union County NJ Young Republicans and the NJYRF’s 2016 ‘Man of the Year.’