Court date postponed
on junkyard cleanup
BY KATHY BARATTA
Staff Writer
HOWELL — The township’s ongoing battle to clean up an illegal Maxim-Southard Road junkyard was postponed due to a vacation conflict involving an attorney who is working on the case.
According to an announcement from Township Attorney Thomas Gannon at the Township Council’s May 11 meeting, the court date had to be rescheduled because one attorney could not be present.
The hearing before state Superior Court Judge Joseph P. Quinn that had been scheduled for May 14 was petitioned by the township in order to effect the completion of the court-ordered cleanup of the 8-acre Maxim-Southard Road property owned by William Lackey.
Coincidentally, Lackey, a member of the township’s Office of Emergency Management, was in attendance at the May 11 council meeting with other OEM personnel who were all being honored for their volunteer service to the community.Under the terms of the court order issued by Quinn more than a year ago, Howell will be allowed to complete the cleanup of the property if Lackey does not work diligently to complete the task himself. The town will be permitted to place a lien on Lackey’s property to recoup the money it will need to spend to finish the job. Howell would recoup the money when the property is sold.
The court order was not going to be enforced unless Lackey demonstrated that he was not going to complete the cleanup in the six-month period that started last fall. Contending that Lackey was almost halfway through the four-phase court-ordered cleanup that started almost six months ago but has since stalled, municipal officials moved to enforce Quinn’s order.
Lackey’s conflict with Howell was the end result of his having spent more than a decade turning the once agriculturally used property, which is in an agricultural-residential zone, into an industrial salvage yard.
A neighboring family, worried about the potential contamination of their well water, campaigned relentlessly for years for the township to shut down Lackey’s operation.
Howell has been in and out of municipal court and Superior Court over the matter since the summer of 2001.
Superior Court Judge Lawrence Lawson ruled in 2002 that the township had the right to enforce the zoning in the area.
Lackey has contended all along that his use of the Maxim-Southard Road property was consistent with the prior use of the property, a claim that was denied by the former property owner’s daughter.