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NEW JERSEY COPS ■ AUGUST 2014
YOUR FIRST CONTINUED FROM PAGE 39
Attorney Robert Fagella congratulates newly-sworn-in State PBA
President Pat Colligan as his wife, Lynette, and daughter, Brenna share
in the moment.
Attorney Paul Kleinbaum swears in Executive Vice-President Marc
Kovar as wife, Nicole, and daughter, Rachel, look on.
vailing feeling among the delegates, presidents and other members who attended could best be summed up as: “#holyspit.”
The tweets going back and forth after the July meeting, however, took on a significantly different color.
“If the circumstances had to happen this way, we could not
have asked for a better team to lead this organization,” commented Kelly Polack, the State Delegate for Middlesex County
Prosecutor’s Office Local 214 and the co-chair of the Somerset/Middlesex County Conference. “I think everybody here
today can see that Pat is one of the most down-to-earth people you will ever meet, but he can also put on a suit and speak
to the politicians.”
Polack added that in the many years she has known Colligan,
she has never seen him get flustered. This meeting was no
exception.
“I think Pat seems to steer the ship very well, very straight,”
Chester added. “I think he’s going to make a very good president. And Marc Kovar will make a good vice president.”
Colligan steered a smooth two-hour agenda, and in his first
official act he swore in new Executive Board Members Ed Carattini Jr (Verona Local 72), Michael Freeman (Summit Local 55)
and Bryan Flammia (Dover Local 107). And that message that
he delivered clearly and succinctly went something like this:
“We’re letting our members know that we will be expecting
stuff from them. When the governor gets up and says it’s not the
union he’s upset with, it’s the union leadership, well, we’re all the
union. I’ve said it before and you will hear me say it again and
again. Every single member is the union.”
Clearly, this was a meeting nobody will soon forget. d