This MyCentralJersey.com story from last week has plenty of  details of the lawsuit and settlement, first reported last month by Law.com, but neither report explained the potential impact on property taxes the multimillion-dollar settlement of a complaint brought by city employee Denise Rolong against former Mayor Samson Steinman.

City Attorney Lou Rainone, managing partner of Iselin-based Rainone Coughlin Minchello confirmed in a telephone interview this week that the settlement would be covered entirely by the city’s insurance carrier.

Steinman served on City Council as the 6th Ward representative until being tapped as interim mayor following the resignation of Rick Proctor in September 2013. He won a full four-year term as mayor the next year.  The current mayor, Ray Giacobbe, Jr., was appointed to fill Steinman’s 6th Ward seat at the time. He also was elevated to interim mayor after Steinman’s resignation in late 2017.

Steinman stepped down on Christmas Eve 2017. Earlier that year, he took a medical leave shortly after his second car crash in a city vehicle. The first occurred in August 2016 on Central Avenue and another occurred in March 2017 on Kline Place. The city initially denied a public records request for body camera footage of the incidents but eventually released it in July 2017 after a court challenge by RahwayRising.com.

Ultimately, it would appear the sexual harassment lawsuit was the final straw for Steinman’s mayoral tenure. According to the lawsuit, Rolong spoke to a city councilwoman about the sexual harassment and on the day Steinman resigned (Dec. 24, 2017), the councilwoman met with then-City Administrator Cherron Rountree and the council president (in 2017, that was Giacobbe) to discuss the complaint. Rolong filed her sexual harassment lawsuit the next spring, May 2018.