Controversy brewing over Westampton Township's new fire chief

A firefighter with close ties to political officials in both parties - and who had little supervisory experience in the last decade - has been named the new fire chief and EMS director in Westampton Township, Burlington County. His salary is $90,000.

The appointment of Jason Carty at a hastily scheduled special meeting last month has raised concerns from local residents about how he got the job.

Acting Chief Craig Farnsworth, who had been a lieutenant and who has a master's degree in emergency and disaster management, was passed over for the position, which attracted 18 candidates locally and from states as far away as Missouri and North Carolina.

The hiring, some say, sheds light on the weight that politics and cronyism may carry in selecting such candidates. Despite a series of bumps in the hiring process, Carty, a longtime Republican and self-described political operative, was selected by the all-Democrat township committee with a 3-2 vote. One "yes" vote was challenged as a potential conflict of interest.

He was sworn in last week and will oversee a staff of 10 paid firefighters/EMTs and 25 volunteers.

Several residents have objected to the hiring, saying Farnsworth was the more qualified candidate. Besides his education and management experience, they said, Farnsworth has been with the Westampton department for 11 years while Carty was a firefighter during the last 10 years in neighboring Willingboro Township. Carty has earned 60 credits at Burlington County College and has no college degree.

Farnsworth also has credits from prestigious national fire academies and is the chief of the Medford Lakes volunteer fire department, according to his resume.

"How dare you vote for a firefighter outside of our fire company? This is embarrassing for the town," Janet Curran told the Westampton Committee after the vote was cast Dec. 12, on a chilly Friday night. The lifelong resident and retired school bus driver has regularly attended the meetings for 33 years. She said Farnsworth has "done a good job."

In an interview last week, Carty said: "I was the best person for the position. It was a rigorous interview process and I was selected. . . . I had experience as a career firefighter in a busy department that responded to 1,200 incidents a year."

Farnsworth declined comment. He now holds his old position of lieutenant.

State law requires municipalities to promote an officer from within the ranks, another wrinkle, which led the township to get a second legal opinion before selecting Carty. Mayor Carolyn Chang said that township solicitor George Saponaro and labor counsel Brown & Connery examined the issue and found the law was "not applicable" to Westampton.

Saponaro said that the title of the job EMS director/fire chief - a dual position - was not mentioned in the law and therefore was not covered by it.

Committeeman Andre Daniels, who voted against hiring Carty, said the labor counsel had said the hiring could be "potentially problematic" due to the state law. He also said hiring Farnsworth would have been better for the department's morale and described Farnsworth as "someone who was forward-thinking and more experienced."

The Burlington County Prosecutor's Office is investigating the speed with which the appointment was made - the vote was taken the same day the public notice of the meeting was published. The notice said that the special meeting was "closed to the public," that it involved personnel, and that "action may be taken." No other details were provided in the published notice.

Gil Gehin-Scott, another resident who attends meetings, filed a complaint with the prosecutor suggesting there was a violation because 48 hours notice was required. "Clearly, this township committee wanted to ram this vote through, without public input," he said.

Gehin-Scott, who twice ran for committee as a Republican, said the notice failed to mention the hiring was the subject of the discussion that night.

Chang said the committee had discussed the appointment three days earlier and was concerned that the department had been without a permanent leader for a full year after the former chief resigned. "We did not want the decision to be carried into 2015," she said.

Questions also arose as to whether Committeeman Robert Maybury's "yes" vote was a conflict. Carty was a member of the board that had recently appointed Maybury as the paid interim director of the Mount Holly Municipal Utilities Authority.

Saponaro, the solicitor, said the conflict was eliminated when Carty resigned from the board two days before he was hired.

Saponaro, a Democratic fund-raiser for candidates throughout New Jersey, said that he and Carty had worked together on the contentious mayoral campaigns in Trenton and Mount Holly in recent years and on last year's mayoral race in Paterson in North Jersey.

Carty, 38, a longtime Mount Holly resident, was a firefighters' union official who had worked to get out the labor vote for candidates of both major parties.

He was vice president of the Burlington County Professional Firefighters IAFF Local 3091.

Three years ago Carty and Saponaro cohosted a $300-a-plate fund-raiser for Rich DiFolco, a Republican who is now Mount Holly's mayor. Saponaro, who is also Mount Holly's solicitor, called DiFolco a friend, explaining his support for a GOP politician.

While Carty said he did not work on Mayor Chang's campaign, Saponaro said that he himself had made contributions to her and Democratic candidates in Westampton, Mount Holly, and other towns.

Saponaro said he was friends with Carty but that he played no role in the hiring. "That's not my purview. The committee obviously studied the resumés in great detail and took great time in reviewing them, then determined to interview several candidates . . . before coming to a decision," he said.

Chang said Carty was selected because "the majority of members of the governing body felt it would benefit the entire EMS and fire department and help grow the department into the best it could be." In December, she had said the department needed a "culture change" and that someone from the outside would "bring cohesion" to the body.

In an interview last week Chang said, "It was not a political decision," and said Carty "has good leadership skills."

None of the other committee members returned calls for comment.

Carty's resumé shows that the highest rank he attained was as assistant chief with the Mount Holly emergency squad, a volunteer group, in the '90s. He also was a chairman with his town's fire commission.

PolitikerNJ.com, a website that analyzes political news throughout the state named Carty one of the top dozen "political operatives" in New Jersey and a "GOTV (get out the vote) animal" in its year-end report on movers and shakers in 2014.

Carty said he plans to end his political activities and concentrate on his fire career. More than 50 fire and police officers attended his swearing-in to show their support, he said. "Feel free to call my references," he said.

Among the four he listed were Democratic Assemblyman Troy Singleton and officials at the Burlington County Jail, where he had been a correctional officer, and in the Coast Guard, where he was a port security specialist.