Over the past several months the City of Newark and the unions that represent the city’s firefighters and police officers have been at odds over the implementation of a plan to transition the provision of health care benefits to the State Health Benefits Plan. While the sides have gone back and forth in private, in council meetings and now in the press, one fact that appears perfectly clear is that huge failures occurred with the negotiations by a Business Administrator with a long history of attacks on public safety unions and his botched roll out of the plan. Jack Kelly was also complicit in a DCA plan to layoff all of Harrison FMBA Local 22’s firefighters in retaliation for their refusal to accept an unsafe work schedule.