City Employee Files Racial Discrimination Lawsuit
Posted: Thursday, September 18th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
A city employee has filed a lawsuit accusing the Hoboken Mayor Dave Roberts and Public Safety Director Bill Bergin of racial discrimination. The lawsuit was filed earlier this week. The deputy director of the Office of Emergency Management, Joel Mestre, claims that he has been discriminated against in a number of ways.
According to Mestre, who is Hispanic, he has been called derogatory names and has had his duties given to other Caucasian workers. He claims that he was once called a racist name by Bergin, and claims that Bergin said: “Just because I don’t eat rice and beans and don’t agree that they should be sold at every store, that doesn’t make me a racist.”
However, Bergin said that the allegations were lies, stating: “Anyone who knows me knows that theses allegations are lies and like all lies in time they will be exposed for what they are. This is nothing more than a repugnant attempt to get money from the taxpayers of Hoboken.”
He added: “I have proudly served the people of the city of Hoboken first as a firefighter for over thirty years and now as Public Safety Director. During that entire time I have worked hand-in-hand with and for people of many different races and ethnicities and have never been accused of anything so offensive and outrageous as the charges contained in this lawsuit.”
Bookmark This Article:
| del.icio.us: 
|
Digg: |
Technorati:
|
Newsvine: 
|
Reddit: 
|
Furl: 
|
|
| Stumble Upon: 
|
Yahoo!: |
Google:
|