Dems Blame Mayor for Departing Staff in Peekskill
The four Democrats on the Peekskill Common Council alleged Mayor Frank Catalina’s “abuse of power” has led to the departure of several key staff at City Hall.
At the end of a two-hour work session last week, Deputy Mayor Drew Claxton and council members Vivian McKenzie, Darren Rigger and Kathy Talbot ganged up on Catalina over his previous remarks that the council was “fractured” and a permanent city manager should not be hired until after the November election when the mayoral seat and three council positions are up for grabs.
On Monday, during a morning meeting at Peekskill High School, the council appointed Richard Leins as interim acting city manager, starting May 2 and ending on December 31, at an annual salary of $163,000. Leins just retired as village manager in the Village of Ossining after a six-year run. He will replace City Manager Anthony Ruggiero, who resigned to take a job with the City of Beacon.
Besides Ruggiero, Director of Planning and Development Mike Welti recently resigned from Peekskill to take a job in the private sector at almost double the salary he was earning with the city, according to Catalina. A corporation counsel and a deputy city attorney have also left since Catalina was elected mayor in November 2013.
“We are having managerial flight in this city and it’s directly related to your abuse of power,” Claxton charged.
McKenzie maintained the city manager should not have any political ties or be tied to election results and implored Catalina to send a “positive message” about Peekskill during his April 27 State of the City Address.
“In the past year we have lost a lot of good staff,” McKenzie said. “That has to be attributed to a lot of the nonsense that goes on here.”
Catalina insisted it was the Democratic majority that has consistently played politics by accusing him of bullying and being “power hungry.” He mentioned in a recent closed door session how the Democrats balked at an opportunity where former city manager Joseph Seymour, a Republican who served in the 1990s, was willing to return in an interim basis at no cost to the city.
“The fact that they cannot believe the results of the last election and simply cannot get over it should be no surprise,” Catalina said. “It is becoming clear that the Democrats cannot attack the overwhelmingly positive record I have achieved in the first year in office and which will be outlined in my State of the City speech on April 27 so their plan of attack when 1) they have no achievements they are proud enough to broadcast and 2) most if not all of my proposals have passed, just because they are good for Peekskill and they could not vote against them, will be to resort to the politics of personal destruction and they do that with the most disgusting false rumors and unsubstantiated personal attacks.”
Talbot said she felt Seymour’s offer to work for a token $1 wouldn’t make him accountable to the council or the city. “How can you hold someone accountable if they’re not working for you?” she said.
Since Catalina became mayor, he and Republican councilmen Joe Torres and Vincent Vesce have criticized the previous Common Council for hiring Ruggiero for $163,000 as city manager and violating the City Charter, which states a city manager must have at least three years’ experience as a city manager and reside in the city. Ruggiero lives in Fishkill and never served before as a city manager. Ruggiero worked for the city in planning for 13 years before being named city manager after he left six months earlier to become Putnam County’s commissioner of planning,
Last November, Catalina and his GOP colleagues insisted a written opinion from the city’s corporation counsel stating the Common Council violated the City Charter and New York Statutory and Common Law when they hired Ruggiero left the office technically vacant. However, a resolution appointing Ruggiero as acting city manager that Catalina maintained had been agreed upon by the entire council in closed door discussions failed when the four Democrats abstained, thus keeping Ruggiero in the position.
“His departure is, really, no loss for Peekskill,” Catalina said of Ruggiero, who he claimed was in sync with him on most matters. “He was a nice guy and an ‘ok’ city manager but he presided over two budgets with over $4 million in operating deficits. Clearly, he was not the Derek Jeter of city managers.”
Rick has more than 40 years’ experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, running the gamut from politics and crime to sports and human interest. He has been an editor at Examiner Media since 2012. Read more from Rick’s editor-author bio here. Read Rick’s work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/pezzullo_rick-writer/
