- At Issue is Tabernacle Twp.’s Tom Boyd, Who Was Providing Shared Services to Pemberton and Has Been at Center of Tabernacle Town Hall Controversy
- Terminated Employee Alleges He Was Accused of Having Used ‘Racial Slur,’ Which He Adamantly Denies, and Let Go Without Any Sort of Investigation
- In Light of Also Reportedly Being Told He ‘Stirs the Pot,’ Suggests Retaliation Is at Play for His Having Questioned Lack of Inspection, Permit for Items
Tabernacle Township’s Tom Boyd (center), who claims to have been terminated from a role he was filling in Pemberton Township. Photo By Tom Valentino
PEMBERTON—Yet another Pemberton Township Council-ordered investigation has been authorized, this one over the circumstances surrounding the purported firing of Pemberton Township’s plumbing and electrical subcode official, Tom Boyd, who held the position through a shared services agreement with Tabernacle Township, where he is employed full-time.
Boyd, already facing controversy in Tabernacle Township over his conclusion earlier this year that Tabernacle Town Hall poses an imminent danger of collapse (though there is no indication that is in anyway related to his termination in Pemberton), maintained at a July 10 Pemberton Township Council meeting that he has been “accused of using a racial slur and not doing inspections as the reason” for Pemberton Township “ending the contract.”
“I take a lot of stuff,” Boyd told the council during public comment. “I take a lot of personal attacks. But when I was told it was a ‘racial slur,’ it absolutely infuriated me.”
The now-former Pemberton subcode official went on to explain that his daughter is a “foster mom” and that her first child, at some point, told him, “‘I don’t like you because you are white.’”
“The last time I met him, playing on the streets, he ran up to me and said, ‘There is my pop-pop,’” contended Boyd in suggesting he is not a racist.
Boyd described that when he learned his contract was in jeopardy, he approached Pemberton Township Community Development Director Rosemary Flaherty and advised her he plans to “fight’ the allegations.
Boyd contended that he soon learned that Flaherty purportedly took what he said directly to Pemberton Business Administrator Daniel Hornickel.
“I went to inspect people’s houses, only to learn someone had already been there,” said Boyd of how he had learned he was fired from the Pemberton job. “I didn’t even get the courtesy of being told my services were no longer requested.”
Boyd suggested, however, that Hornickel was directed to take the action that he did, describing that “the reason the administrator was told my services were no longer requested was because I was ‘stirring the pot’ and that I attended a Planning Board meeting, and employees are not permitted to attend a Planning Board meeting.”
(Hornickel reports to Republican Mayor Jack Tompkins in Pemberton’s form of government.)
“The pot sometimes needs to be stirred so that the stew doesn’t get burned on the bottom, or boils over,” Boyd declared.
While the now-former Pemberton subcode official maintained he doesn’t know what exactly was meant by the allegation that he “stirred the pot,” his suspicion is that it has to do with a “restaurant that opened up in this town” that “did not have the proper inspections” and “did not have the proper signoffs.”
“At the time, there was no fire subcode official,” Boyd alleged. “So, it could not have the proper signoffs.”
Boyd attested that the restaurant’s “fire suppression system in the kitchen was not inspected, yet the store was open.”
“I did what I felt was proper and advised the construction official of that,” Boyd said. “When he did not respond, I went to the community development director because I felt it was my position, and my responsibility to advise her of such.”
Boyd maintained he was also asked to serve as an acting “fire subcode official.”
Boyd contended that the construction official responded that she would raise the issue with Hornickel, and then “that is when everything came down.”
The now-former Pemberton subcode official pointed to the “legally-binding” contract being valid for three months, before asserting of Hornickel, “he is trying to end it at a month-and-a-half because of these allegations.”
Under state law, those who work to enforce the Uniform Construction Code (UCC) fall under the purview of the state Department of Community Affairs (DCA). But Boyd charged that he has “documentation in an email of him trying to tell me what to do.”
“‘Roe (a nickname for Flaherty) – we do not have a demo,’” said Boyd of what is allegedly written in one of those emails. “Can you please ask Tom to review and reconsider. We have been doing our own demolition work, training employees successfully for years, even though there is the code that says you can’t do it.’”
Other alleged violations of state law, Boyd contended, involve the acting fire subcode official position he was first tasked with in April, contending that at the behest of GOP Mayor Jack Tompkins, he was sent a letter on June 17 asking him to remain in that position on an acting basis, even though state code prohibits more than a 60-day acting appointment.
Boyd claimed that when he brought the specific code outlining the acting term limitations to the attention of Flaherty, the community development director responded on June 26, ‘“Daniel said to please continue with the fire review and inspections under the temporary appointment in the letter the mayor (Jack Tompkins) issued to you.’”
After reading that alleged email aloud, Boyd accused Hornickel of “trying to run the Construction Office.”
“I understand it was a three-month appointment and you can get out of it,” Boyd acknowledged. “But the way it was done (the termination) and just the absolute lunacy of saying ‘racial slurs’ made me come here.”
Also drawing the ire of Boyd was an allegation that Hornickel told “the administrator of Tabernacle,” who is Maryalice Brown, “I ‘couldn’t go to a meeting.’”
“First of all, I was not a (Pemberton) employee, I was an employee of Tabernacle Township under a shared service agreement,” Boyd said. “But second of all, … members of the audience who proceeded me and members of this council have served in the U.S. military and were willing to shed their blood, so citizens of this country can come here and participate in this meeting, and to say you can’t do so is absolutely disgraceful.”
Boyd, despite facing heavy public criticisms over the separate Town Hall issue in Tabernacle, received thunderous applause from the audience in Pemberton, several of whom were already downright incensed at the Pemberton administration’s decision on July 10 to place a series of warehouse/redevelopment-related items on the meeting agenda for council approval, despite longstanding, fierce public protest against anymore warehousing, with Hornickel facing multiple public calls that evening to be fired for a whole host of reasons.
Carol Boyd, Tom Boyd’s “other half,” immediately went up to the dais following her husband’s remarks and asserted, “I am not happy!”
“When my husband is accused of racial slurs, I take it personally!” she declared. “When my husband is not given an investigation, I take it criminally!”
Carol Boyd pointed to a past incident in Woodland Township (where her husband also holds posts) from several years ago when Boyd deemed a home unsafe, with the owner of the structure having alleged it was a racially motivated decision.
“There was an investigation, it went to court, and not only was he found to be proper in what he did in Chatsworth, but the homeowner had to, in court, apologize, because it was totally untrue that (he made) a racial slur,” Carol Boyd charged.
She then turned to Hornickel, who is also an attorney, and snapped, “It is so easy to sit there with your law school (degree) and knowing words, and knowing the words ‘racial slur’ will get people in trouble and then making them (those charges) and not investigating them!”
Carol Boyd further contended that her husband has not been told “when” or “where” the alleged use of the racial slur had happened.
“He was not told anything and that is because it didn’t happen!” Carol Boyd charged. “He did not make a racial slur! It was picked out of somebody’s brain as a way to get rid of him because somebody else was thwarting the law by trying to intimidate him and trying to get him to do things against statutes!”
The spouse of Boyd called it “disgusting” that the township can fire someone without first conducting an investigation, and contended it is “repulsive” that “somebody in the administration in this town” can “tell someone they can’t attend a public meeting in this town.”
“Is this Russia?” she asked. “Is this Communist China? Is this North Korea where only some people can come to meetings?”
Such a directive, she added, is “criminal” and “against every principal of our government.”
All of this comes after a council-ordered investigation (one initiated in December) found that there have been numerous instances of harassment, including sexual harassment, and retaliation in the township, with council referring specific allegations of Tompkins’ involvement in those alleged activities to the local police department and/or county prosecutor’s office.
So far, as of press time, no charges have been announced in the matter.
Local 8th District Assemblywoman Andrea Katz recently wrote a letter to Attorney General Matthew Platkin, however, asking for his office to open up their own investigation into the report’s findings, calling the mayor’s alleged conduct “disturbing.” And Governor Phil Murphy has said he believes Tompkins should resign.
Hornickel, during the July 10 session, did not address the Boyd allegations, and Tompkins, facing continued calls for his resignation and a recall effort, was absent from the July 10 session.
A bid by GOP Councilman Dan Dewey to have a much broader probe into administration, to include the mayor, which would not have just included looking into the Boyd allegations, but also other allegations involving the Construction Office (including a dispute over a former restaurant and whether some councilmembers were misled about the intention of a redeveloper) and the nature of how some of the redevelopment negotiations came about, and the extent of administration’s involvement, failed to secure enough council support, but an investigation specifically looking into the Boyd matter was unanimously approved, 5-0, despite the 3-2 Democratic majority.
Hornickel was later asked by this newspaper if he could confirm the reason for Boyd’s firing, and he responded, “as township council ordered an investigation, I cannot speak to the matter.” As for who is leading any probe, when the question was put to him, the business administrator answered, “I don’t know who council intends to assign to conduct the investigation. I will cooperate completely with whomever that may be.”
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