BY LAUREN MATTHEW
Staff Writer
OLD BRIDGE — Several years of inactivity came to an end last week when the township’s Ethics Board reconvened and chose a chairman.
John Muir, a resident and previous board member, was selected by the board to serve as chairman during the April 13 meeting. John Scalamonte was tapped as vice chairman.
Muir has lived in Old Bridge for 45 years and has done a significant amount of volunteer work in the township.
Scalamonte has been a township resident for 18 years, and was a former Township Council member in Aberdeen.
The board also reappointed longtime Old Bridge Ethics Board Attorney James Cooney to serve as counsel. Cooney was first appointed in 1995.
“The town’s ethics code is really patterned after the state code,” Cooney said.
“Towns have to have a code that’s at least as tough as the state code,” he noted.
According to Old Bridge’s ethics ordinance, six people must make up the board. The board became dormant several years ago when two former members moved out of the township.
An additional factor that made filling the board seats difficult is the requirement that three seats be filled by clergy members. Also, no more than three members can be affiliated with the same political party.
Those requirements, Mayor Jim Phillips noted in the past, are stricter than state ethics board requirements.
Board members, in addition to Muir and Scalamonte, are the Rev. Joseph Szulwach of St. Lawrence Church, Laurence Parkway; the Rev. John M. Rozembajgier of St. Thomas the Apostle Church, Route 18; Rabbi Eugene M. Wernick of the Congregation Beth Ohr, Route 516; and Andrew Strus, a local church deacon.
The three pending complaints before the board include accusations against both current and former township officials.
Cooney said the board intends to contact all complainants to make sure they still wish to follow through, as some of the complaints were submitted years ago.
Complaints, Cooney said, must allege violations of the township’s ethics ordinance.
“It has to fall within our ordinance. That’s the only way we have jurisdiction,” he said.
Board members will look at those complaints, and community members with complaints filed against them will be given two weeks notice that they will be under review by the board.
“Assuming those persons want to pursue the complaints, [the board] will be meeting here in three weeks to more carefully review those items,” Cooney said.
New complaints, the board members said, should be referred to the township clerk and filed in writing. Board members will have to rule on the complaint, Cooney said, and should remain impartial and as uninvolved as possible. “We have to be more ethical than the people we’re judging,” Muir said.
Strus said he is looking forward to getting the board up and running.
“I’d like to see our township as clean as can be, and without any problems,” he said. “I think we have our work cut out for us.”
The Ethics Board will hold its second meeting May 4 at 7 p.m. in the Civic Center. Board members said information regarding current agendas and meeting minutes will soon be found on the township Web site.