Nutley Police Accuse Mayor of 'Retaliation, Discrimination'

Current Nutley police Chief John Holland is expected to retire in the fall.

Strumolo has brought legal action against the township for being passed over for the role. In April, he filed a notice of a Tort Claim against Nutley, seeking $2.5 million in damages. In the Tort, Strumolo claims Mayor Petracco has unlawfully retaliated against because Strumulo brought information about the Mayor’s alleged union-busting attention of the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office.

Attorney Kara MacKenzie said Strumolo believes the mayor is also biased against Strumolo because the captain does not patronize the mayor’s delicatessen business.

“This retaliation and discrimination has taken the form of the mayor’s resolute refusal to promote Captain Strumolo into the vacant Deputy Chief position and multiple attempts to manipulate the Department’s table of organization to eliminate the Deputy Chief position altogether to stymie his promotion to Deputy Chief and ultimately to the rank of Chief of Police,” MacKenzie said in an email.

Other police officers in the department, represented by Pat Toscano, have also recently filed court documents accusing Petracco of retaliation and cronyism.

Petracco said Tusa’s comments at the meeting were not relevant because the municipalities in question have a different form of government than Nutley. With Nutley’s Commission form of government, Petracco is solely responsible for the public safety department.

Tensions were evident last month when Nutley Mayor Alphonse Petracco twice cut off Tusa during when the representative of PBA Local No. 33 addressed the Township Commissioners at their June 19 meeting.

Tusa was trying to read into the record news stories concerning relationships between elected officials and police in Fair Lawn and Edison. Petracco said the information about the two New Jersey towns was not relevant to Nutley.

After being prevented from speaking, Tusa said “I'll see you in two weeks."