In a letter last week, Joe Poor said, without mentioning names, that the borough manager candidate who is not Brad Ryan “has been deemed unqualified.” Your statement is not accurate. I don’t know what happened at Julie Cozzi’s level, since Debra Schnabel is definitely highly qualified.
Correct me if I’m missing something: she has the preferred professional degree, she has worked for our borough in three capacities, and she has managerial experience at other locations in our fair town. I’ve been in email contact with Margaret Friedenauer who’s told me that there was a mistake. A mistake in language, AND instead of OR, which was the source of the confusion.
Here’s a quote from Margaret: “I think I cleared this up a few weeks ago in an email to the clerks and Mayor and I’ve talked to Ron and Mike about it. We didn’t make a big huff about it at the time because I figured it was cleared up at the meetings in which the assembly unanimously forwarded both Brad and Debra as qualified candidates and as finalists.”
So there you have it straight from the horse’s mouth: two absolutely legitimate, qualified candidate finalists. One last comment from your letter: Debra is not the type of person who would give her family the green light to run roughshod over your neighborhood. She’s an all-around champion of this town, its people and their myriad sensibilities and activities. I believe she’d be a great manager. Lucky us that she wants to juggle all this.
Evelyna Vignola