TOMS RIVER – Comments published in an Oct. 19 APP.com story rankled the former Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office spokesman.
Al Della Fave, who for five years served as the mouthpiece of Joseph D. Coronato, the Republican-appointed prosecutor replaced Oct. 8 by Democrat-appointed Bradley Billhimer, blasted comments made by the new prosecutor in that article.
The article, “Ocean County Prosecutor gets office, but not its 22,000 Facebook followers,” quoted Billhimer as doubting Della Fave managed the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office Facebook page on his own time.
“It defies common sense to believe that a full time, law enforcement media relations officer handled the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office’s social media on his own time,” the APP.com article quotes Billhimer saying. “That being said, I can assure the people of Ocean County that we have moved beyond this, restored social media contact by way of Facebook (www.Facebook.com/OCPONJ) and Twitter at (www.Twitter.com/OCPONJ) and continue to work on the important law enforcement issues of Ocean County.”
“This may be the view of someone who is not committed to go the extra mile for their community. Talk to those in the media I served. They will tell you clearly what I did 24/7 off the county’s dime serving my fellow county taxpayers,” Della Fave wrote on his Facebook page in response. He was also interviewed for the APP.com article, explaining how it took some doing to get his former boss to even agree to a social media presence. The social media accounts were set up using Della Fave’s and Coronato’s personal emails, and any expenses related to them were paid for out of their pockets. The 22,000 likes gained during Coronato’s tenure—the APP.com article quotes Della Fave as saying some of which at the page’s beginning were paid for out of his pocket and was a bad idea they quickly learned—were his property and his to not share with Billhimer.
The Facebook page created by Della Fave went dark at noon Oct. 5, and was archived to the OCPO website.
Billhimer was quoted earlier in the APP.com article as well about the Prosecutor’s website: “The truth is that the prior administration took down the Facebook page and decimated the web page (of the prosecutor’s office) to the point where there’s no content. I have members of my staff looking to rebuild those social media platforms because I feel it’s important for us to connect with the community.”
Again, Della Fave took to his personal Facebook account Friday morning to address the article.
“This man has a lot to learn if he’s ever going to fill Coronato’s shoes. To state that the OCPO web page was decimated and that he was left with no social media presence is an absolute lie. There was no change whatsoever to the web site upon our departure. OCPO was left with a fully active website which is the envy of other agencies. With regard to Facebook, I personally left OCPO a fully functional Facebook page utilizing the OCProsecutor domain name,” Della Fave wrote. “The username and password were left with his administrative secretary and IT person not only for Facebook, but Twitter as well. I even posted content for them on my last day that would remain active into their administration. I made it so they could hit the ground running. They chose to not take the first step. Instead they wanted to ride Coronato’s coat tails.”
When asked to offer comment on Della Fave’s Facebook post, William Scharfenberg, the interim spokesman for Billhimer’s office, told Jersey Shore Online the new prosecutor “has declined to offer any more comments on this topic.”
At this printing, the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Facebook page has 735 likes and 747 followers.
