Pleasantville council votes to file complaints against police chief, detective

Pleasantville City Council voted to file formal complaints against the city’s acting police chief and a detective after they allegedly failed to do their duties during a recent meeting.

“We’re just following the proper process just to make sure the integrity of our employees is intact,” City Council President Carla Thomas told BreakingAC after the 5-2 vote at a special meeting Wednesday afternoon.

Police union attorney Christopher Gray called it an attempt to “suppress union speech and representation.”

The move was sparked by the Nov. 18 regular City Council meeting, when acting Police Chief Stacey Schlachter did not step in to stop Gray after he refused to yield the podium when his three minutes expired during public comment.

Gray was addressing issues the Police and Fire departments were having with the Public Safety Committee. 

“Acting chief,” Thomas said when Gray continued speaking.

"He has the right to be here,” Schlachter responded.

 “I know he has the right to be here,” Thomas said. “But you have a job to do while you’re here.”

“I’m here attending the meeting,” she replied.

Detective Remon Soliman was the officer assigned to that meeting. He also did not act.

Gray was at Wednesday’s special meeting on behalf of Schlachter and Soliman, who were given notice that their employment would be discussed. They asked that it be done in public, which is their right under the RICE Act.

But, as council voted to go into closed session, Thomas and solicitor Edward Hill insisted that employment would not be the topic. 

Instead, they were discussing their next move, after labor attorney Steve Glickman — who was on speaker phone at the meeting — told them what would happen if a resident or city employee were to file a complaint against the detective or acting chief.

The complaint could go to the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office, which likely would look to see if there was anything criminal before handing it back to Internal Affairs. 

After the closed session, council voted 5-2 to file formal complaints against the acting chief and detective.

“No, I don’t want my name put in there as part of City Council,” Councilwoman Joanne Famularo said in the vote to file a complaint against Soliman. “I would like to make it a separate name that I dissent on this opinion.”

She went against the majority in the vote to file a formal complaint against the acting chief as well.

“No, and I would like my name removed as not part of City Council, and noted that I am dissenting on this opinion,” Famularo said.

Councilman Bert Correa also voted no on both.

After the vote, resident Dale Archie addressed the issue during public comment.

“What took place in that council meeting left me burdened,” he said of the Nov. 18 meeting. “I was upset for three days.”

He said it made him believe that the acting chief would not “have my back” if he were to have an issue with an officer.

Schlachter and Soliman “will be quickly exonerated by the Prosecutor’s Office and the Internal Affairs Department,” Gray later told BreakingAC.

“It’s unfortunate that we’re going through this,” Mayor Judy Ward said after the meeting. “It’s just something that we have to get resolved before everyone can move forward in a comfortable and understanding way as to who  expects what from who, and the respect that we deserve from each other.”

She said she felt she had a good working relationship with the Police Department, “and the sooner we can resolve this and get it behind us, the better.”

The police union’s issues began with the Public Safety Committee, which is headed by Councilman  Charles Oglesby Sr., who once was an officer himself.

He suspended from his job in 2008, after he was indicted for official misconduct on allegations that he stole from a suspect during an investigation and then falsified reports to cover it up.

Oglesby never admitted wrongdoing, but agreed to give up his job under a plea deal in 2010.

“It’s ironic that he’s the person in charge making these decisions given his history and clear conflict with lawful and just policing,” Gray told BreakingAC.

“There’s an inherent conflict with a former police officer who is charged with second-degree official misconduct for stealing from the residents of Pleasantville, who entered into a diversionary program on the condition that he would never run or be employed by a police department,” he said.

Oglesby declined to comment on the meeting, saying anything would have to come from the council president.

When asked about Oglesby, Thomas said she would decline comment on that.

As for the formal complaints, there is no timeline, Thomas said.

The next step will be for attorneys Hill and Glickman to decide.

Thomas said the special meeting was already planned when they added the two police employees to the agenda.