{"id":5290,"date":"2015-06-26T14:06:47","date_gmt":"2015-06-26T18:06:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=5290"},"modified":"2015-06-26T15:04:34","modified_gmt":"2015-06-26T19:04:34","slug":"sangiovanni-my-firing-was-retaliation-for-speaking-with-prosecutor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2015\/06\/sangiovanni-my-firing-was-retaliation-for-speaking-with-prosecutor\/","title":{"rendered":"Sangiovanni: My Firing Was ‘Retaliation’ For Speaking With Prosecutor"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Joseph<\/a>

Joseph Sangiovanni and Sharon Cantillo<\/p><\/div>\n

Joseph Sangiovanni, whose contract as transportation manager for the Brick school district will not be renewed<\/a>, said he is being let go by the Board of Education as retaliation for cooperating with the Ocean County Prosecutor\u2019s Office over \u201cillegal activities in the work place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Specifically, Sangiovanni told Shorebeat, he spoke with the prosecutor over the matter of former superintendent Walter Uszenski\u2019s arrest<\/a> and what he alleges as \u201cimproper dealings with vendors\u201d by Board of Education President Sharon Cantillo.<\/p>\n

\u201cSharon knows I\u2019ve been talking to the prosecutor, and she knows I\u2019ve been talking about her,\u201d said Sangiovanni, who would not expound on the nature of the alleged \u201cimproper dealings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cantillo said Friday morning that she \u201chas no idea what [Sangiovanni] is talking about,\u201d and has no interaction with district vendors.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t even know that he went to the prosecutor\u2019s office,\u201d Cantillo said, and thus was not out to exact revenge. \u201cI don\u2019t even talk to vendors, I\u2019m not on the committee where you have dealings with vendors, and I never had any dealings whatsoever with Joe Sangiovanni.\u201d<\/p>\n

Al Della Fave, spokesman for the prosecutor\u2019s office, said the office had no comment when asked about the matter.<\/p>\n

Cantillo said the board\u2019s facilities committee, on which she does not serve, handles contracts and district vendors.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Mr. Sangiovanni is very, very disgruntled about losing his job, and I think the department, and all the problems it has, speaks for itself,\u201d Cantillo said, referring to bus drivers who have publicly described a chaotic and poorly-managed transportation department at recent board meetings.<\/p>\n

Sangiovanni also said that potential ethics charges against board member Michael Conti may be filed out of revenge as well. George Scott, the resident who is filing the ethics charge over mortgage deals struck by Conti<\/a> for at least 16 district employees, is angry that John Talty was not reappointed his seat because Talty helped get his nephew a job as a mechanic\u2019s helper in the transportation department, Sangiovanni alleges. Sangiovanni said he was also pushed to promote Scott\u2019s nephew when a new position opened up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was forced to choose Mr. Scott\u2019s nephew [for the job], so now he has become a servant to the board president. And, as you know, the board president wants John Talty back and Mike Conti is one of the board members that [doesn\u2019t] want him back,\u201d Sangiovanni explained in an e-mail to Shorebeat prior to a phone interview Friday morning.<\/p>\n

Conti, a Republican, is running on a ticket that includes fellow board member Frank Pannucci, Jr. for township council. Sangiovanni is a former Republican council member and mayoral candidate in Brick.<\/p>\n

Sangiovanni said he has been on sick leave due to job-related stress for several months. The stress level, he said, dates back to November, when he alleges Talty told him his contract would not be renewed unless he \u201cworked harder.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was already working 10 to 12 hours a day,\u201d said Sangiovanni. \u201cI said, \u2018I can\u2019t work any harder than that.'\u201d<\/p>\n

Sangiovanni said he is planning on filing ethics complaints with the state School Ethics Commission against Cantillo and Talty \u2013 against Cantillo for the alleged improprieties with vendors and against Talty for interfering in district business by speaking to him directly about his contract.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe can file whatever he wants,\u201d said Cantillo. \u201cI hope that he has information to back up the claims that he\u2019s making against me, because I have nothing to do with vendors. I think everyone is throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what sticks.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joseph Sangiovanni, whose contract as transportation manager for the Brick school district will not be renewed, said he is being let go by the Board of Education as retaliation for cooperating with the Ocean County Prosecutor\u2019s Office over \u201cillegal activities in the work place.\u201d Specifically, Sangiovanni told Shorebeat, he spoke with the prosecutor over the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5291,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13],"tags":[41,24,1451,43],"class_list":["post-5290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brick-schools","tag-board-of-education","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-joseph-sangiovanni","tag-sharon-cantillo"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/sangio_cantillo.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-1nk","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}