![]() ![]() Residents were thankful that their houses were spared. Witnesses said that the bus came careening down a hill and was close to hitting homes and an electrical pole. ![]() “When I went out earlier, the roads were slippery, extremely slippery.” That probably turned out to be a good thing for the driver,” Michael Posterino with the Paterson Fire Department said. “I would venture to guess that they probably lost control based on the fact that the bus went in backwards. The bus had just finished its route when it slid backwards down a hill because of the icy conditions, officials said. 26th Street when the bus plowed into the side of a carpet and fabric store, according to the transit agency. (CBSNewYork) – A bus operator was injured when a NJ TRANSIT bus lost control and crashed into a building in Paterson Friday morning. PATERSON - City Council members are demanding information about an investigation into allegations that a city mechanic did repairs on a pickup truck owned by Paterson Fire Chief Brian McDermott's father at a municipal garage.PATERSON, N.J. In a public discussion at Tuesday night’s weekly meeting, council members said they should be given a copy of the investigative report compiled by a private law firm that did the work for the city. Several asserted that the allegations should have been referred to law enforcement agencies. One councilman, Michael Jackson, urged his colleagues to conduct their own probe. Mayor Andre Sayegh last week issued a statement to Paterson Press saying an outside law firm investigated the situation and found no wrongdoing. But the mayor and his law director, Aymen Aboushi, have not provided any details of the probe’s findings. McDermott last week declined to discuss the situation, referring a reporter to the mayor’s statement. “I can’t just accept, ‘Oh, there was nothing wrong.’ It’s not acceptable.” “I need to know what happened,” Councilman Flavio Rivera said during Tuesday night’s meeting. Real estate: After 2020 ‘beach party,’ Paterson is still waiting for $40M redevelopment project Schools: Paterson will invest $4.5 million in emergency repairs at 12 school buildings “This was a criminal act, and this criminal act deserves a criminal investigation,” Jackson said at Tuesday’s meeting. ![]() He argued that the outside law firm, which Aboushi has identified as Florio, Kenny, Raval LLP, did not do a thorough investigation. Jackson said the firm only interviewed people directly involved in working on the vehicle and not other employees at the garage. He compared the situation to questioning only the suspect in a robbery and not witnesses. “You have to interview all the parties involved,” Jackson asserted. Jackson has said the mayor’s statement leaves many questions unanswered, including why a private vehicle owned by the father of Paterson’s highest-paid official was being repaired at a city facility. Jackson said the council ought to convene a “committee of the whole” under the governing body’s investigatory powers, which would allow the council to conduct a public hearing, call witnesses and question them.īut Council President Maritza Davila said she thinks the council first ought to have closed-door committee meetings about the probe and a closed-session discussion among all council members before it launches its own investigation. “I want this to go through channels,” she said.ĭavila, who is running for reelection this year, told Aboushi on Tuesday night that she wants the law department to have a closed session about the situation at an unspecified time in the future.Ĭouncilman Luis Velez and Alex Mendez, both of whom are running for mayor in May, also were among those who criticized the way the Sayegh administration is handling the allegations. Joe Malinconico is editor of Paterson Press.Įmail: article originally appeared on NorthJersey.Officials said they do not know how much the Florio investigation cost because the firm has not yet submitted any bills. Jackson wants the council to invoke its “committee of the whole” powers, which allow the council to operate as an investigative panel, subpoenaing documents and calling witnesses in public proceedings. The last time the council convened a committee of the whole was more than decade ago in response to the Jeffery Jones administration overtime scandal.Ĭity Council President Maritza Davila said she plans to poll her colleagues in public at next week’s regular meeting to see if most of them want to proceed with such a probe. Paterson Press sent the council members who attended Tuesday’s closed session a text message asking whether they wanted to do their own investigation. Councilman Al Abdelaziz was the only member besides Jackson and Davila to weigh in.
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