Here’s Why Atlantic City Mayor was Replaced as Police/Fire Director [Opinion]

There is still some confusion as to why the state of New Jersey has replaced Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small as Public Safety Director.

It’s not complicated.

Marty Small currently faces the following criminal indictments:

• 2nd degree Endangering the Welfare of a Child.
• 3rd degree Terroristic Threats.
• 3rd Degree Aggravated Assault.
• 3rd degree Witness Tampering.

Smalls’ wife La' Quetta Small, Atlantic City Superintendent of Public Schools has been indicted for:

• 2nd degree Endangering the Welfare of Child.

Here are Marty and La’Quetta Small below, and, Marty Small … pictured with his attorney, who is the highly respected criminal defense attorney Edwin Jacobs.

Jacobs has twice defeated the state of New Jersey on behalf of his client, Marty Small. Jacobs is the all time GOAT in Atlantic County as a criminal defense attorney.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy used an elegant, velvet touch approach regarding Marty Small. Governor Murphy kindly suggested that Small should leave office in light of the myriad of criminal allegations.

Small has previously faced allegations … where he has twice (in the past) won jury verdicts to save his political career.

It remains to be seen if Marty Small can score the trifecta here.

However, regardless of any of this … it simply became untenable for a criminally indicted Mayor to remain as the Director of Public Safety.

The state had to move in and decided to hire retired Pleasantville Police Chief Sean Riggin as Atlantic City’s director of public safety to remove Small from the direct chain of command.

The state of New Jersey was wrong about the appointment of Riggin at two levels.

First, The position of director of public safety in Atlantic City was eliminated a decade ago when Don Guardian became mayor.

Guardian very competently served as both mayor and director of public safety and did a great job.

City Council needs to create this position before Riggin can legally fill it. That explains mistake number one.

Mistake, number 2 is that the state should have offered the position of public safety director to Vincent “Skip” Granese, a very talented, retired Deputy Fire Chief.

Granese would have been a much better fit instead of Riggin. It’s not even a close call.

A state of New Jersey source recently told me that Riggin will make approximately $200,000 a year. If true, that’s outrageous and unacceptable, particularly when the position is not even needed in the first place.

It was supposed to be a $ 110,000 per-year job.

The position of director of public safety in Atlantic City has a 100% track record of failure each and every time that it has been employed, which has been many.

In closing, the position of director of public safety is only needed at this time because Marty Small currently stands criminally indicted.

Below are great photos of both the Atlantic City professional firefighters and the Atlantic City Police Department on the job.