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CITY
HALL
Hoboken411.com
HOBOKEN. NEW JERSEY
Friday, August 6, 2010 Dear Colleagues,
First and foremost, I am writing to apologize. I have worked hard to try and keep employees informed, and prevent you from having to learn about information that impacts you in the newspaper, rather than hearing it from me, your directors or union leaders.
Therefore I am very sorry that you had to read in the newspaper about specific positions proposed for the layoffs, rather than receiving a direct communication from my office. We received approval for our layoff plan on Wednesday afternoon, and were in the process of doing a final review and preparing individual notifications to employees . In the midst of this process, I truly regret that the State released our City's layoff plan approval with the titles to the press without informing my Administration. Unfortunately this meant that we could not inform each of you directly in advance of the article published online yesterday.
This morning we are doing a final review of the layoff plan, and individual notifications to employees will be delivered from the Business Administrator, as required by State law.
Most importantly I want to thank each and every one of you for the work that you do each day for the City of Hoboken. All of you are victims of tough economic times that forced me to make this most difficult decision in the best interest of all Hoboken residents.
With the news about Peter Cammarano once again placing our City in the spotlight I want to let you know that I truly appreciate the honest, dedicated, hard work of every city employee. This layoff is not a reflection of your work performance, but a reflection of the difficult times that we face .
Together over the last year, our City Hall employees, our Police and our Fire Departments have accomplished so much for the City of Hoboken. As I review our list of accomplishments (http://www.hobokennj.org/news/), I know that behind each brief description countless hours of hard work were necessary by each of you to protect our City, and provide essential services. The list of accomplishments however only provides a semblance of all of the work that has been done by each of you to help Hoboken residents whether it be during a crisis or in responding to their concerns and questions.
Going forward, I want to try and make myself more available to employees. lfyou are interested in meeting with me directly, then please reach out to Joanne to schedule a time (x2013). I am starting weekly office hours for employees on Monday from 4 to 6. Next week I am al so starting a weekly lunch with the mayor, where employees from each dept. will be invited to have lunch with me in my conference room on Fridays. I hope that we can use this as an opportunity to share ideas and continue to bring positive change to our community. ptj-k you again.
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