and attorney all request
reports to be investigated
Marlboro council, mayor,
and attorney all request
reports to be investigated
By jeanette M. eng
Staff Writer
MARLBORO — It is a sad thing to see a town’s government "bleeding very badly politically," as resident Joy Thorpe put it to Township Council members during the public comment portion of the council’s Feb. 13 meeting.
It was a meeting that drew more residents than the pews in Town Hall could accommodate; a meeting during which residents cheered an announcement that the council will continue litigation against the Freehold Regional High School District to block action against redistricting, and then sobered up to the news that municipal representatives will ask law enforcement authorities to investigate revelations made about some elected and appointed officials in a series of newspaper articles.
Residents and council members alike expressed unease and anxiety in addressing a series of articles that were recently published in the Asbury Park Press and concerned the relationships among Mayor Matthew V. Scannapieco, township attorney state Sen. John O. Bennett, other municipal representatives and local developer Anthony Spalliero.
A subsequent article also questioned the relationship of Marlboro Township Municipal Utilities Authority Commissioner Richard Vuola and Spalliero.
Those whose ties to Spalliero were reported in the articles are Republicans and Democrats.
Resident Jay Thorpe was emphatic when he said, "I want to know tonight what each one of you is going to do to take control of this out of control situation. You cannot be concerned with your future political aspirations now; … you need to be fully concerned with your present position on the council."
Council Vice President James Mione agreed that an "investigation is necessary in order to continue to govern at the highest level."
After hearing the comments of four council members and a handful of citizens, Bennett said he had written to Monmouth County Prosecutor John Kaye to request that an independent counsel thoroughly review his tenure as township attorney.
Bennett has been Marlboro’s attorney since 1992.
"I don’t care who you have investigate me, I have done nothing wrong," Bennett said. "While I am confident that the prosecutor’s office will find that I have done nothing wrong — as did a 1999 special counsel appointed by the governing body — there is still a perception that I have acted improperly."
Scannapieco informed residents that he, too, had written to Kaye to request that a "formal review of my actions as mayor" be performed.
Scannapieco has been Marlboro’s mayor since 1992.
The mayor, however, maintained that many of the decisions he was targeted and scrutinized for in the newspaper’s stories about Marlboro were joint decisions of the council and himself.
"The council decides salaries; it is the council who gave advice and consented to appointments. Our government has a system of checks and balances. The Planning Board plans, the zoning board grants variances and the council can rezone," Scannapieco said.
The mayor apologized for the situation at hand.
"I ask for your indulgence and patience. I will be responding to all of these issues," he said. "Every homeowner deserves a response."
The mayor said he would pay for personal letters of explanation to be sent to each home in the hope that residents would "feel different upon reviewing the facts."
The mayor closed with a request that perhaps a broader investigation of the municipality’s government is needed.
"I have no fear of and would support an investigation to take into account the other boards and other agencies; to examine the entire government," Scannapieco said.
After hearing the mayor speak, council President Ellen Karcher, struggling to maintain calm in her voice, commented on the effect of the newspaper stories on her and her family.
"I’m the one on the receiving end of [an offer for a free grave at a cemetery operated by Spalliero’s son]. I’m the one whose children’s fish pond has been filled to the brim with rocks. I’m the one who has been talked to about finding my dead body in a car trunk," Karcher said. "I got involved in this council because I care about the community, not to live this type of life."
Karcher demanded an apology from the mayor and the Planning Board in regard to a series of recommendations concerning the community’s master plan.
"You’ve belittled the way we have gone about this. You questioned us and cast aspersions on … the good and rigorous work we are trying to accomplish," she said, referring to the council’s requests for a traffic study, a build-out study and an environmental analysis on the Marlboro Airport property.
Scannapieco said it was not his intention to cast aspersions, but more so a concern to not spend taxpayers’ money on evaluating property that council members were unhappy with.
In light of the situation, Councilman Paul Kovalski Jr. proposed a resolution that the information contained in the newspaper stories be reviewed by the U.S. attorney and that "until such a review and investigation is concluded, to the extent allowed by law, the Township Council requests that there be a moratorium on approvals of all subdivision and/or construction applications for developments containing in excess of three residential/single-family homes."
"We have to find out where the decay is," Kovalski said.
Bennett, however, was concerned about the legality and feasibility of having a moratorium on land approvals, informing council members that "municipal law doesn’t allow for a moratorium except for health reasons."
Council members agreed to discuss the language and parameters of the resolution further in closed session before taking any action.
Council members also voted to send master plan recommendations concerning the Marlboro Airport property on Route 79 and adjacent properties back to the Planning Board for reconsideration. The board has recommended rezoning those properties for age-restricted housing.
The News Transcript had previously reported that Spalliero has a financial interest in some of the properties targeted for rezoning.
"The whole process has been tainted," Karcher said of the master plan recommendations.
"I’d like to add on to that resolution that certain Planning Board members recuse themselves," Councilman Barry Denkensohn said. "Stanley Young, Mario Guidice and Mayor Matthew Scannapieco."
The Asbury Park Press stories about Spalliero reported that the developer has a personal relationship with those three men.
Council members believed that by sending the master plan recommendations back to the board, the board should, "at a minimum, hold a public hearing with public comment," Denkensohn said.
"This is a chance for them to resurrect themselves, to conduct their business in the proper setting with the proper tools," Karcher said. "I don’t think we’re out of place by sending it back."
Following a closed session, formal action was taken to continue Marlboro’s litigation against the FRHSD in the redistricting case and to ask for a formal investigation of the mayor and township attorney by the U.S. attorney, but without the proposed moratorium on land approvals that had earlier been discussed.