Move to mowing contract leads to layoffs

Two DPW employees to lose jobs in switch to outside firm, By Gretchen van Nuys Wantage — In a money-saving move, the Wantage Township Committee has hired an outside contractor for the mowing and maintenance of its municipal parks and municipal building grounds. This means two township employees will lose their jobs. At the March 25 township committee meeting, Township Administrator Jim Doherty recommended the committee choose Greenleaf Landscaping, of Eatontown, which had bid $885 per visit to mow, based on an anticipated 30 annual mows. The cost is expected to come in under $30,000 a year, Doherty said. “The actual annual cost will depend on weather conditions throughout the year, as there may be some weeks in late July and August when we do not need mowing,” Doherty said, “while in other weeks, more than one mowing per week may be needed if the weather is very rainy.” Balancing act The mowing costs will increase the township’s budget by $30,000, but the township will then no longer need the services of two Department of Public Works (DPW) employees, Doherty said. Wantage will file a layoff plan for the two DPW employees with the least senority, whom Doherty anticipates will be laid off in mid-May. As the township committee members were voting to approve the layoffs, they expressed their unhappiness about having to make this decision. “This is the last thing I would want to do. To let someone go is a terrible thing...but I don’t feel we have a choice,” said Deputy Mayor Bill DeBoer. The two employees’ 2009 salaries were $33,822 and $32,677, Doherty said. After adjusting the 2010 costs for these employees from a 12-month budget to a 5-month budget, the anticipated budget reduction comes to $61,170. The mowing contract increases the budget by $30,000, which provides a net savings in the budget in 2010 of $31,170, he said. Currently, Wantage Township has 13 DPW employees, including one supervisor, one assistant supervisor, one custodian and one mechanic, with the remaining nine non-management employees assigned to roads division duties, Doherty said. The layoff of two employees will reduce the roads division employees to seven, leaving a total department of 11 employees. In other business: During the March 25 township committee meeting, Mayor Clara Nuss gave her personal response to a letter the committee had received from Wantage resident William H. Gettler, which accused Nuss and other past and current mayors and committee members of abusing the township’s maintenance ordinance. Gettler has been involved in a long-running dispute with the town, with much of the debate centering upon the town’s decision to inspect, without Gettler’s permission, one of his tenanted rental properties. “This case is in the public records; anyone interested can go to court and read about it,” Nuss said. “The letter writer claims criminal activity but I don’t see it; there was no forced entry into a home under the maintenance code,” she said, adding, “We try to ensure the law is followed. I have always felt that people can agree to disagree.” Gettler continued to discuss his complaints against the township during the meeting’s open session, which turned into a heated exchange between him, the three committee members and Township Administrator Jim Doherty after Gettler claimed Township Attorney Michael Garofalo had been withholding information about the ordinance and ongoing legal battle from the committee. After the meeting, Gettler said that he and his wife feel Wantage Township treats tenants unfairly. “The township doesn’t go into owner-occupied buildings, only tenant-occupied buildings,” he said. “We have a class system in Wantage, and tenants are second-class citizens. This has cost us almost $50,000 to defend our tenants, and we can’t afford it.”