For those of you who were not at Wednesday’s council meeting or haven’t read the Molly Mulshine piece about it on The Coast Star website, Mayor Matt Doherty has announced that he intends to replace Robbin Kirk as business administrator and Karl Kemm as borough attorney. Ms. Kirk will continue her work as Belmar’s CFO.
I asked at the meeting what was the reason for this action and was told only that the mayor wanted “change”.
I’ve since been told that the mayor didn’t even consult with the counsel on this matter. If this is true it is totally unacceptable. There has to be a reason to fire Ms. Kirk and Mr. Kemm and Matt should have discussed it with the counsel and then disclosed it to the public at the time of his announcement. I can understand him not wanting to go into great detail, but we have a right to know something about what this is all about.
Eventually we will know. Ms. Mulshine will be writing more about it in the Nov 17 edition of the Star. I hope she can get more out the mayor than I was able to get Wednesday evening. I expect Molly will also speak to Ms. Kirk and Mr. Kemm too so we can hear their side of it. And I really want to hear what the counsel members have to say about this. Did they consent to this? Were they even informed?
What I am hearing so far is the same compaints I heard about our previous mayor, that being that he likes to do things his own way and isn’t particularly interested in the opinions of those around him, even those we have elected to have a say in these matters. If he did indeed undertake this action entirely on his own that would be evidence supporting these claims. Perhaps this has something to do with the firings.
What I am not hearing is that it had anything to do with Kirk’s or Kemm’s job performance, but if it did, we have a right to know.
And by the way, those of you that voted for Connie Gutierrez on Tuesday: According to the rules of the counsel, if the four other members agree to it, the mayor can appoint whoever he wishes to important posts in the borough without even advertising the job openings and reviewing the candidates for the position. Since we have a Republican on the counsel, and will next year too thanks to Jim Bean’s win this week, the mayor has to at least pretend to consider other choices.
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