official subpoenaed
Official in Old Bridge
resigns under scrutiny
Records of four employees, construction
official subpoenaed
BY SUE M. MORGAN
Staff Writer
OLD BRIDGE — A longtime township construction official whose employment records were among those recently subpoenaed by the state Attorney General’s office resigned from his job on Monday.
In his Feb. 23 resignation letter to Mayor Jim Phillips, Construction Official Ronald Concannon indicated that he would retire from his $93,000-a-year post effective March 1 after 21 years of service.
Concannon, 68, only listed "health and personal" issues as the reasons for his sudden retirement, according to Phillips.
"I regret not giving you more notice; however, due to health and personal concerns, I feel it is in my best interests to effect my resignation and retirement," Concannon wrote in the letter.
Concannon did not mention the subpoena received by the Township Clerk’s office on Jan. 28, part of an apparent state investigation into the activities of the township’s engineering and building departments.
Records for Concannon and four other employees were demanded in the subpoena dated Jan. 28 and signed by Deputy Attorney General Andrew L. Rossner.
The subpoena orders the township clerk’s office to submit five years’ worth of assorted paperwork from the two targeted departments, including correspondence, canceled payroll checks, and records of any gifts or in-kind donations given to any township employee. Those records are due before a state grand jury in Trenton by March 23.
Besides Concannon, the subpoena also demanded all records dating back to Jan. 1, 1999, for Township Engineer John Vincente, building sub-code officials John D. Amabile and Barry C. Bowers, and engineering department secretary Mary Chin.
In 1999, the state Department of Community Affairs fined Concannon $1,800 after he issued building permits to construction firms owned by his son and brother, according to E.J. Miranda, a department spokesman.
Concannon initially appealed the DCA penalty, but later paid the fines for the 18 conflict-of-interest violations after they were upheld by an administrative law judge, Miranda added.
Phillips, who has only been in office since Jan. 1, has pledged to fully cooperate with the state’s investigation.
To date, spokespersons for both the state attorney general’s Division of Criminal Justice and DCA have refused to disclose the reasons for any investigation.
A spokesman for the state attorney general’s Division of Criminal Justice has also declined to confirm or deny the existence of any investigation in Old Bridge.
Specifically, the subpoena requests records "relating in any way to contracts or agreements for construction, including but not limited to bidders lists, bid tabulation or summary sheets, change order requests, change orders and advertisements or solicitations for bids."
The document shows that the state attorney general is also requesting the five employees’ records of any communication, contacts, meetings and correspondence with any construction contractor or subcontractor.