A resident has drawn sharp criticism for suggesting that Councilwoman Lauren Murphy disqualify herself from official action concerning a new mosque because she was photographed at an event wearing “the garment of a Muslim.”
Resident Mary Fran Fallucca complained to the City Council about a massive spillover of cars onto the streets surrounding the Islamic Center of Passaic County on Pershing Road. She said that Murphy could not be impartial because of her apparent devotion to the Muslim faith.
“In my opinion, you should step down from this council because you are in conflict of interest,” Fallucca said, flashing a photo of the councilwoman wearing a gray headscarf. “You clearly aren’t working for all taxpayers.”
A leader of the Clifton mosque cried foul, followed by several council members, including Murphy herself, a Catholic who said she was merely respecting Islamic custom by covering her head at the mosque’s open house last month.
“The reason I had my head covered was out of respect for the people in the mosque and that religion,” Murphy said at the council meeting on Tuesday night.
Mayor James Anzaldi took pains to explain different religious customs. Councilman Joe Kolodziej said Fallucca had “contradicted herself” by interjecting religion in a discussion she had said had only to do with quality of life, not disagreement with any faith.
Salaheddin Mustafa, outreach coordinator for the mosque, said the comments were troubling to him.
“To call that anything other than just a nice gesture, to intimate that had anything to do with a bad intention, tells me a lot about the people we’re dealing with,” Mustafa said. “I wish I wouldn’t have heard that today.”
Fallucca on Wednesday said her comments had been twisted to seem as though she were anti-Muslim. “They’re trying to nail me, ‘I’m not liking these people,’” she said. “That has nothing to do with it.”
She also maintained that Murphy should not be involved in any future meetings between mosque leaders and the city or in any decisions that would affect the house of worship.
“She has way too much loyalty to the mosque,” Fallucca said. “You also have to have a loyalty to the taxpayers, and I’m not seeing it.”
Murphy on Wednesday responded that she was “loyal to every single resident in Clifton.”
“I have ties to every community - the Jewish, Latino, African-American, Arabic, Indian and the Slavic communities,” she said. “And I don’t have any favorites. I participate in everything they invite and include me in.”
While no clear solution emerged on Tuesday to the parking problem around the mosque, officials said they expected to see a good deal of relief with the end of the holy month of Ramadan, which concluded on Tuesday.
Even so, Councilman Peter Eagler suggested a meeting between the neighborhood and the mosque - a recommendation first advanced by the Rev. Mike Weber of the United Reformed Church, who stayed for the meeting after delivering its invocation.
Mustafa, the mosque leader, sharply criticized members of his own congregation who have reportedly blocked driveways with their cars and in one case parked in front of a fire hydrant.
“I’m sorry - that’s an idiot who should be ticketed and towed,” he said about the person who parked by the hydrant.
He and the mosque’s president, Omar Awad, pledged community cooperation. Though they did not detail any plans to expand the mosque’s 100-spot parking lot, they have said they would encourage worshipers to park on the main drag, Clifton Avenue, rather than flood side streets with their vehicles.
“This is a small issue,” Mustafa said. “I hope we can overcome it.”