45°
However, McKee says he completed a two-month rehab program in Florida and was clean and sober for a year when he was suspended for 30 days following a run-in with his boss.
Ever since his return in April 2010, McKee alleges, he has consistently been refused overtime. His boss, Department of Public Works Superintendent Anthony Saitta, also advised managers that “under no circumstances were they to assign [McKee] overime,” contends the lawsuit filed in state Superior Court in Hackensack.
After he complained, McKee said, someone hung a flyer on the community bulletin board at the DPW garage calling him a “Changed Person Same A——.”
McKee, of Ridgefield Park, said he asked his representatives at a union meeting whether they knew who was responsible. Immediately afterward, he said, Saitta distributed a memo about the meeting and urged anyone who felt they were addressed in a “threatening manner” by McKee to report it.
It all came to a head on April 13, when, McKee said, he went to ask Saitta for a change in his furlough days to the following pay cycle because he was “a little short on funds.”
Saitta had granted changes for his co-workers, McKee said. But during a confrontation on the stairs at the DPW garage, he said, Saitta told him: “You’re taking the f—— furlough day.”
He said he asked Saitta to reconsider, but he refused.
What happened next depends on who’s telling the story.
According to McKee’s lawsuit, Saitta shoved him by the shoulder. He said he then told Saitta he would ask Borough Administrator Jack Terhune for the change.
He said Saitta wanted to go with him, then said, ‘Let’s go, hurry the f— up” and pushed him, sending him stumbling down several steps.
“Get in the f—— truck,” Saitta barked at him, McKee said. He said he took his own vehicle and called police instead.
Next thing he knew, he was being suspended for 30 days.
According to a police report obtained by CLIFFVIEW PILOT, McKee said he was walking down the stairs of the DPW garage after requesting the change when Saitta “pushed him on his upper back telling him to ‘hurr the f— up,’ which in turn forced him to fall down a few steps.”
McKee said he injured his left thigh in the incident, which he said was witnessed by a co-worker, Anthony Salerno.
Leonia Police Officer Eduardo Millan, who took the report, said he accompanied McKee to Terhune’s office to report the incident.
Terhune — a former Bergen County sheriff and state corrections chief — said he would look into the matter and suggested McKee go to Holy Name Hospital for an examination, Millan reported. But McKee “said that he would drive himself down to the hospital and refused an ambulance,” the officer said.
As both he and McKee left Borough Hall, Millan added, they were met by Saitta, who “proceeded to yell at [McKee] in my presence” while calling him a “clown.”
“I instructed Mr. Saitta to discontinue the harassment,” Millan wrote in his report.
Leonia Police Sgt. Chris Jones followed up, interviewing Saitta in the Delicia Deli using a video camera. He said Saitta told him that he and McKee argued over a furlough day and that “it was his feeling that McKee was being insubordinate to him.”
“Mr. Saitta said that he didn’t push Mr. McKee down the stairs and that if he had pushed him ‘he’d be full of blood’,” the sergeant wrote in his report.
“He then went on to say that he called Mr. McKee ‘a wise ass and a punk,’ and said he only put his hand on the employee’s shoulder,” Jones added.
The sergeant said he also used a video camera while interviewing Salerno, who, he said, told him he saw Saitta with his hand on McKee’s shoulder but “could not see if Mr. McKee was pushed.”
In a memo later filed with the mayor and Council — a copy of which was obtained by CLIFFVIEW PILOT — Saitta said he was headed to his office when McKee came up from behind and “persisted” in demanding a change in his furlough day.
He said McKee reached out and tried to keep him from moving when “I stopped and turned and did get into his face verbally.” The “demanding conversation was so pointedly intolerable that although I tried to walk away I could not,” Saitta added.
When McKee said he would “take it up with Terhune,” Saitta said, he suggested they go together but that McKee blocked his path down the stairs. They were two or three steps from the bottom, he wrote, when McKee “skip-jumped” to the landing, “saying I pushed him, which I did not.”
In the end, Saitta recommended “at the very least a three (3) day suspension.”
Terhune, however, sought a 30-day penalty, saying he did some investigating of his own.
“When I asked Mr. Salerno if he witnessed you being pushed, he said no but did see Mr. Saitta with his hand on your shoulder,” the borough administrator said in a suspension letter to McKee.
Two days later, Terhune said, DPW Foreman Mark Wells signed an affidavit that he “observed” McKee “refuse to take the Furlough Day.”
Wells affirmed that he saw Saitta “nudge” McKee, but “in his opinion, you were not pushed,” Terhune wrote to him. “When [Wells] got up from his seat, both you and Mr. Saitta were at the bottom of the stairs and he never saw you fall or be pushed down the stairs.”
For good measure, the borough administrator said, he “interviewed” Wells and got the same story. He said Wells also told him that Salerno “was at the water cooler to the side of the stairway door and, in his opinion, could not have witnessed you being pushed or fall.”
The borough Personnel and Finance Committee conducted an inquiry, counseled by Borough Attorney Brian Giblin. Committee members reviewed copies of the police report, along with Wells’s affidavit and Saitta’s memo, Terhune said. Saitta also addressed the panel, saying that McKee was “argumentative and disrespectful,” he said.
According to Terhune, Saitta told the committee that compactor truck employees were given furlough days on Thursdays because that’s a non-collection day every other week, and that requests such as McKee’s have been granted when made in advance.
Saitta admitted putting his hand on McKee’s shoulder, Terhune said, “but at no time pushed you but rather, was in an effort to get down the stairs and go to Borough Hall.”
The committee, in turn, recommended an undetermined suspension, concluding the McKee should have gone through his union representatives “rather than getting into a confrontation with Mr. Saitta.”
Terhune went on to list 17 incidents involving reprimands or suspensions for McKee since 1992.
More than half occurred before 2000, and none was recorded after March 2010, according to a copy of Terhune’s memo, obtained by CLIFFVIEW PILOT.
Terhune nonetheless said he was recommending a 30-day suspension.
He noted that McKee is entitled to a hearing by the borough council and suggested McKee contact the borough clerk’s office to arrange for one.
McKee said Saitta, Terhune and others conspired to cover up the alleged assault, retaliating against him despite his handicap. His lawsuit alleges, among other charges, “discrimination and a hostile work environment,” along with “intentional infliction of emotional distress.”
Rehab changed his life, said McKee, adding that he has “reported to work each day and has performed the essential functions of his job without incident — a statement that he could not always say prior to undergoing treatment for his handicap.”
Yet despite a clean personnel record for 13 months, he remains out of work and “has suffered and continues to suffer substantial loss of income; diminishment of career opportunity; loss of self-esteem; physical manifestations of pain and suffering; and other irreparable harm,” the suit says.
McKee is seeking an unspecified amount for loss of income and benefits, as well as punitive, compensatory and other damages and costs.
Click here to follow Daily Voice Hackensack and receive free news updates.
