McKenna says he was kept in the dark on Alvarez

Former Schools Development Authority Chief Executive Charles McKenna told the Special Committee on Oversight that Gov. Phil Murphy’s Chief Counsel Matt Platkin instructed him to tell Al Alvarez to look for a job outside of state government.

McKenna, who was the second witness to testify before the Committee during its hearing on Tuesday, said that he was not told about Alvarez’s alleged assault of Katie Brennan, who is now State Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency chief of staff.

Platkin, McKenna said, did not tell him about the alleged assault, instead referring to an unspecified campaign issue that could be embarrassing for Murphy and should it become public. McKenna did not ask, assuming he was being kept in the dark because he was a holdover from Gov. Chris Christie’s administration.

“Mr. Platkin made it clear that he wasn’t going to go into that and it was a personnel issue,” McKenna said.

McKenna told Alvarez, who was appointed to be the SDA chief of staff, informed Alvarez of the new administration’s desire and for the latter to find a different job in June, and Alvarez discussed the matter with Platkin shortly thereafter.

The content of that conversation is not clear, nor was Alvarez told that the order for him to step back from state government came from Platkin.

No timeline was given for Alvarez’s departure, and he would remain at the SDA for close to four months — roughly two months after McKenna was replaced as SDA chief by Lizette Delgado-Polanco, who is also New Jersey’s Democratic vice chair.

Platkin and Alvarez each informed McKenna that they had spoken with one another, and McKenna and Platkin did not speak of the matter again.

McKenna said he believed Alvarez was searching for a different job and did not bring the matter up when he spoke with Delgado-Polanco before ahead of her replacing him.

Several times during his testimony on Tuesday, McKenna called Alvarez’s hire unique, but he indicated that designation had more to do with Alvarez being a political appointee than anything else. He said his hiring by the SDA under Christie was similarly unique.

Alvarez did eventually resign, but he did so on Oct. 2, after a reporter for the Wall Street Journal reached out to him with a request for comment on Brennan’s allegations.