A city councilmember in New Jersey agreed to resign, according to the mayor, amid accusations he used a racial slur to describe the town’s African-American soccer coach.
The alleged racial slur from Hackensack City Councilmember Leo Battaglia took place as Hackensack soccer coach Shaun Holder was on the field. Holder said he learned about the alleged racial slur from a Spanish-speaking parent who told him she heard Battaglia make prejudiced remarks in Spanish from the sidelines of the match.
“The councilman, to keep it PG, said that the color of my skin contributed to me not being good enough to coach soccer,” Holder said.
The allegations of racism brought angry members of the public to the most recent city council meeting, calling for Battaglia to step down.
“I would never intentionally make any kind of negative statements about any person,” Battaglia said at the meeting.
Though Battaglia has called the allegations against him “lies,” Hackensack Mayor John Labrosse Jr. said the councilmember agreed to resign after Battaglia was dropped from the mayor’s political ticket.
Despite that, the Bergen County NAACP called a news conference where some accused the mayor and his allies of racial insensitivity after they dropped another lawmaker — Gerard Carroll — from their ticket. Carroll is the only African-American person on the city council.
“That action in and of itself, in our opinion, smacks of racism,” said Rev. Carolyn Davis of the Cornerstone Baptist Church.
In response, Mayor Labrosse wrote in a statement, “We made the decision to replace Councilman Carroll on our ticket prior to this entire incident because he has been meeting with our political opponents for months. I have made it clear how disappointed we are about an inappropriate comment councilman Battaglia made.”
At the last city council meeting, the deputy mayor suggested the rift with the only Black member of the council was because they feared he was blaming the entire group for the conduct of one lawmaker.
Carroll said that he didn’t “want it swept under the rug. I wanted it to be out in the open…I think it looks bad. I think it looks bad for them and for the community.”
NBC New York reached out to Labrosse and other council members, but they did not immediately respond. In other public statements, they have denounced Battaglia’s reference to the coach’s skin color.
