The Spiller Administration graft doesn’t begin with the Montclair Fire Department (MFD) promotional exam, but it is as good a starting point as any. The promotional exam was revised in 2021 to penalize exam takers for decades-old minor disciplinary incidents and absences that largely discriminated against the black firefighters. Another change was the removal of credit for seniority. Per the complaint “The Montclair Defendants constructed a job performance history evaluation process to include arbitrary, subjective and fundamentally corrupted criteria with the intent to discriminate against Black MFD promotion candidates by lowering their total scores on the exams” (Docket ESX-L-2643-23). The exam was administered over five days in September 2021, the first promotional exam to be administered in over a decade.
In connection with the complaint, Bruce Morgan, the Township’s Affirmative Action Officer (“AAO”) performed an investigation and concluded that the promotional exam was discriminatory. For more detailed information about the complaint, there is extensive reporting by both North Jersey news and NJ.com.
In response to the AAO findings, Spiller took it upon himself to hire the O’Toole Scrivo law firm without following State mandated procurement laws requiring a fair and open procurement process, council resolution, CFO certification of funds, and stipulation of maximum contract amount. When the township was presented with an invoice for payment, it was found that O’Toole Scrivo’s political contributions exceeded the limit to engage the firm through a “non-fair and open” procurement process. The lengthy details of the ensuing cover-up by the township attorney and council sycophants is described in the Chief Financial Officer’s complaint, also known as the Rao case, filed in October 2022 (ESX-L-6129-22). By December 2021, only a year and a half after the May 2020 election, the Spiller administration has managed to flip Montclair from a “progressive” “respected” community to a “racist” community and the center of corruption in the State of New Jersey.
This MFD issue transpired during former Chief Herrmann’s tenure. He was forced to retire in March 2024.
Montclair Progressive or Corrupt 