City council member calls on board prez to resign
TRENTON » Kathy McBride was called on to step down as council president a day after she was exposed for allegedly claiming during a Sept. 5 executive session that a city attorney was “able to wait her out and Jew her down” to settle a personal injury lawsuit for a lower amount.
At-large councilman Jerell Blakeley, who has often clashed with the leader of the legislative body throughout their first year in office, said he was “very disappointed” in McBride’s antiSemitic remarks and demanded she apologize and “immediately tender your resignation.”
“This is absolutely outrageous,” he wrote in an email to McBride, which copied Mayor Reed Gusciora, council members, city officials and the New York/ New Jersey regional office of the Anti-Defamation League. “Your reported comment stems from an insidiously bigoted and anti-Semitic perspective of Jews as parsimonious and cheap. It is the height of irresponsibility for an elected leader to unfairly racially disparage a staff member and not even apologize.”
Blakeley, when reached by phone Saturday afternoon, said “at a minimum” he was asking McBride to step down as council president.
He called on colleagues to join him in moving to censure McBride at the next meeting, something none of his colleagues who have spoken publicly appear to support.
Two council members vigorously defended the embattled McBride and went so far as to accuse Blakeley of being behind the leak of privileged executive session discussions.
They even suggested Blakeley — not McBride — may face “hardcore charges” with the legislative body if he’s proven to be the alleged leaker.
“All this sh*t going out in the paper, they better watch their ass,” South Ward councilman George Muschal said. “Because it’s not going to be good.”
Blakeley wrote in his email he was disappointed McBride hadn’t heeded Mayor Gusciora’s request for her to apologize over the reported slur.
Gusciora recounted McBride’s alleged remark in an email Friday, marked in all-capital letters as “personal and confidential communication.”
“As the mayor of this city that encompasses diverse communities of racial, ethnic and religious backgrounds, I find this to be offensive,” Gusciora wrote. “This anti-Semitic remark, particularly about an attorney in our law department that happens to be Jewish, should have no place in our public discourse. I hope that after some reflection you would apologize for these remarks.”
Word of McBride’s alleged slur spread a little more than a week after a city insider told The Trentonian the mayor, tiring of what he perceived as the indecent belittling of his cabinet members, was “finally going to take the gloves off.”
Gusciora, through a spokesman, declined to comment on Blakeley’s call for McBride to step down.
But at-large councilman Santiago Rodriguez said he was convinced the administration was using Blakeley as a flunky for their attacks on the council president.
“Who is he to do that? He thinks he’s a Trenton dictator,” Rodriguez said of Blakeley. “He’s the one who should go. To me, that is a joke. I was there and I didn’t hear any of that. Mr. Blakeley wasn’t even there. He insults us and then leaves. He’s in cahoots with the [mayor]. Mr. Blakeley sold his soul to the devil and now he’s paying for it. He’s not trustworthy at all.”
Meeting In Question
The council met in executive session Sept. 5 to discuss settling Vivian Soto’s lawsuit.
Soto filed suit against the city in 2017, alleging she was seriously injured when she tripped over a downed tree on a city sidewalk in October 2016.
The law department recommended settling the complaint for $22,500, according to a resolution, and the council agreed to approve the settlement.
The Trentonian on Saturday requested a copy of the recording of the executive session at which McBride allegedly made the slur. The city has seven business days under the state Open Public Records Act to respond to the newspaper’s request.
For her part, McBride hasn’t responded to The Trentonian’s repeated phone calls seeking comment, but she told the New Jersey Globe on Friday that she wouldn’t discuss remarks made during a closed-door executive session.
“I am not at privilege to speak about anything at executive session per the law that governs executive sessions,” McBride said. “It was an executive session and by the law I am not privy to speak on that per the law.”
Blakeley alleged in an interview with The Trentonian he heard McBride utter the anti-Semitic slur “months ago and privately admonished her about the hurt that this term causes to members of the Jewish community.”
McBride is the third New Jersey public official to come under fire for allegedly making anti-Semitic remarks.
Former state worker and Passaic NAACP president Jeffrey died was fired after his anti-Semitic and anti-Latino posts came to light.
Paterson councilman Michael Jackson claimed a developer was trying to “Jew us down” while discussing a land deal, the Paterson Press reported.
Blakeley encouraged the government body to take action against McBride.
“This city cannot tolerate a leader trafficking in dangerous stereotypes that demean our hardworking staff members,” Blakeley said. “Could you imagine the outcry if someone had used a racial slur in a public meeting about an African American or Hispanic staff member?
“All racial slurs are demeaning. As elected officials in a majority minority city, we must take a stand against all forms of bigotry against all people. Silence means consent.”
‘Totally Illegal’
Muschal, who has remained one of McBride’s staunchest allies in the socalled “gang of four,” vowed the council will go after whoever “put out” the mayor’s email of the council president’s alleged remarks.
He remained steadfast he didn’t hear McBride make any slur during the closeddoor session.
Muschal added that he spoke to all council members who were present at the executive session and they each told him they didn’t hear McBride make the offending comment.
Blakeley left the meeting earlier and did not attend the executive session.
“Whoever put it out, wherever that information came from is totally illegal,” he said. “Whoever put this out is in trouble . ... Until I hear something [definitive], it’s all B.S. I want to hear the tape.”
Muschal, who has had his skirmishes with the administration, said the McBride flap threatens to further divide the two sides.
“This kid is a loaded bomb,” Muschal said of Blakeley. “This kid is out of control.
“You want peace between the president and the mayor and you cause all this sh*t,” he said. “You want peace with Kathy, and then you put this sh*t in.”
The Open Public Meetings Act allows council to discuss litigation and matters covered by attorney-client privilege in executive session.
The city records executive sessions and is required by law to keep minutes.
Unredacted minutes must be provided under OPRA “once the need to keep certain information ceases (such as once the litigation ends),” according to the New Jersey OPRA blog run by the law firm Pashman Stein Walden Hayden. (C.J. Griffin, who represents The Trentonian in public records cases, works for the Pashman firm.)
Rodriguez agreed he didn’t hear anything offensive during the discussion and called Blakeley “very immature” and a “hypocrite” for calling on the council president to step down without proof while regularly lambasting colleagues.
“He don’t care about Trenton,” he said. “He cares about Jerell Blakeley.”
Vice president Marge Caldwell-Wilson and West Ward councilwoman Robin Vaughn haven’t responded to phone calls seeking comment on the controversy.
This isn’t the first time executive session conversations have been publicly leaked in Trenton.
In 2017, city clerk Dwayne Harris wrote a letter admonishing council members after The Trentonian obtained a recording of an executive session in which then-city police director Ernest Parrey Jr. appeared before the panel to discuss his use of the racially charged “hood rats” slur he made about Trenton residents.
Harris suggested the release of the tape violated Robert’s Rules of Order and was a “violation of trust given by your fellow council members.”
Blakeley denied being the leaker and said he doesn’t believe anybody “should be able to hide behind any cloaks” when making slurs.
He accused colleagues of “idly standing by and allowing city employees to be recklessly stereotyped” saying he wouldn’t “cosign their madness.”
“I wear their hatred of me as a badge of honor. I can understand them hating my guts. But I’m never going to stop speaking up for righteousness,” Blakeley said. “George is going to have to live with that . ... If somebody had slurred a Hispanic staff member, councilman Rodriguez would be the first person demanding their resignation. The people of Trenton have to decide for himself why he thinks there are differences in racial slurs.”