NEW ROCHELLE, NY — On January 31, 2013, the NR CSC held a “special” meeting at which it approved the job specs for the library position of Public Relations Assistant (formerly titled Library Assistant). It also approved the January 1, 2013 provisional appointments of three individuals: Frank Gallello as Manager of Buildings and Maintenence with DPW, Pakema Jones as Dispatch Clerk, and Victoria Trifari as Accounts Payable Specialist. The CSC further noted that 2 open-competeitive civil service exams will be held on Saturday, February 16, 2013. Those exams are for Director of Security with the Board of Education and for the the position of Data Manager. Only 2 individuals applied to take each of the exams.
Additionally, Civil Service Adiministrator Y. Jeanett Medina stated the the January 31, 2013 meeting was being held to “reinforce” the CSC’s previous meeting that was held a week earlier. This is a bit misleading.
The January meeting of the New Rochelle CSC was originally scheduled for January 16th, 2013. The meeting was switched to January 23, 2012 without proper public notice. Since the meeting held on January 23rd was not publicly noticed as required by the New York State Open Meetings Law, Robert Cox contacted City Manager Chuck Strome to voice his concerns. Mr. Strome decided to schedule a do-over of the meeting which was then rescheduled for January 31, 2013.
Medina asserts that the reason for the special meeting was due to a glitch in the web site which resulted in the meeting not being properly noticed. This is not accurate. The reason the meeting was held on January 31st is that the meeting the week before was not legally noticed at all and therefore was not a legal meeting. As a result no actions taken by the Commissioners were valid. To make them legal required holding a properly noticed meeting. It had nothing to do with the web site. The paper of record for the City is the Journal News. There be others. Had the meeting the week before been noticed in the Journal News (or any other paper of record) it would not have mattered that the meeting did not appear on the web site in the days prior to that meeting.
The agenda for the meeting on January 31st indicates there are several related documents that were not made available on the web site per New York State Open Meeting Law.
Civil Service Exams scheduled for February 9th were re-scheduled due to weather. Exams for Director of Security for the Board of Education and City Data Manager will take place on Saturday, February 16th.
JobSpec-Public Relations Assistant