Police Plan Rally Outside Tuesday's Board of Commissioners Meeting

Nutley Police officers are expected to show up in force for the Tuesday Board of Commissioners meeting.

Officials and PBA members have clashed over promotions in the police department. Nutley Police Union President Gerard Tusa has accused Mayor Alphonse Petracco of blocking the promotion of Capt. Thomas Strumolo to chief. Petracco says he is trying to hire more officers and contain taxpayer cost by exploring all options.

Tusa told Patch that PBA members would hold a rally outside town hall at the July 16 meeting.

Current Nutley police Chief John Holland is expected to retire in the fall.

Strumolo has brought legal action against the township for being passed over for the role. In April, he filed a notice of a Tort Claim against Nutley, seeking $2.5 million in damages. In the Tort, Strumolo claims Mayor Petracco has unlawfully retaliated against because Strumulo brought information about the Mayor’s alleged union-busting attention of the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office.

Attorney Kara MacKenzie said Strumolo believes the mayor is also biased against Strumolo because the captain does not patronize the mayor’s delicatessen business.

In an editorial published in the Nutley Sun, Mayor Petracco framed the issue in terms of containing costs and preventing tax increases. 

“I am not looking to take anything away from Nutley police officers, as far as their pay,” Petracco said in the statement. “However, at this point, with the unsettling economics in Nutley, I am not ready to add, via promotions, more cost to the taxpayers.”

In the statement, Petracco noted that Nutley’s bylaws stipulate that a police chief receives $175,000, and that the cost of a retiring chief can spike to $100,000 as personal days and sick days are accumulated. He added that the Deputy chief is allotted $155,000 and also accumulates unused personal and sick days. 

Petracco added that while is considering promoting someone in the department to chief, he is looking at alternatives such as hiring a civilian police director and scrutinizing the department’s command structure.

Other police officers in the department, represented by Pat Toscano, have also recently filed court documents accusing Petracco of retaliation and cronyism.

Tensions were evident last month when Nutley Mayor Alphonse Petracco twice cut off Tusa during when the representative of PBA Local No. 33 addressed the Township Commissioners at their June 19 meeting.

Tusa was trying to read into the record news stories concerning relationships between elected officials and police in Fair Lawn and Edison. Petracco said the information about the two New Jersey towns was not relevant to Nutley. 

Petracco said Tusa’s comments at the meeting were not relevant because the municipalities in question have a different form of government than Nutley. With Nutley’s Commission form of government, Petracco is solely responsible for the public safety department.