BY KATHY BARATTA
Staff Writer
HOWELL — Fallout from the Planning Board’s recent decision to reverse municipal approval of an adult community hit the voting board members in the form of litigation in which they and township officials are personally named as defendants.
Crawford Holdings, LLC, of Holmdel, issued summonses last week to Mayor Joseph M. DiBella, Councilman Peter Tobasco, Councilman Wayne Lucey, Township Attorney Thomas Gannon and Planning Board members Warren Curry, Thomas Frese, Paul Schneider, Curtis Vislocky, Marlene West, James Burgess and Mark Corzine. Also named are a John Doe and Richard Roe, both acknowledged as fictitious names for persons who have yet to be identified.
The summonses followed actions taken by the named individuals that resulted in the rezoning of land and the reversal of a project approval for a 497-unit age-restricted community Crawford Holdings plans to build on 334 acres on Route 33 on the site of the Flame motel.
A special investigative commission comprised of DiBella, Lucey and Tobasco held hearings several months ago to look into the almost $200,000 that was received by Howell Democratic incumbents who ran for re-election in the same year a zoning change and approval for Colts Neck Crossing were granted to Crawford Holdings.
Municipal officials have said the zoning reversal and cancellation of project approval were in order due to the fact the former Democratic-majority Township Council’s vote was deemed corrupt.
Despite the fact that sitting Councilwoman Cynthia Schomaker, who sat on the previous council as its only Republican, voted in favor of adopting a Planned Retirement Community (PRC) zone along with the rest of the Democratic-majority governing body, municipal officials now contend the vote had been bought through the campaign contributions made by Crawford Holdings’ principals to the Monmouth County Democratic Party, which then made contributions to the Howell Democrats.
Attorney Michael Schottland of Freehold Borough is representing Crawford Holdings in the present litigation. Schottland said the conclusions drawn by the special investigative commission were “interesting, but not the law.”
Schottland said the legal action being brought by his client asserts that the right of Crawford Holdings’ principals to make political contributions to whatever party they choose was usurped by the decision of both the mayor and council members when they voted to rescind the PRC zoning and by the Planning Board members named when they voted to rescind their project approval for Colts Neck Crossing.
Those decisions, according to Schottland, violated his clients’ first, fifth and 14th amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution which protect an individual’s right to contribute to the political party of his choice, as well as protecting his property rights.
Schottland said the votes were a taking of property without due process. He said with the approvals that had been granted according to the merits of the application, the subsequent actions of Howell officials amounted to “retaliation for exercising a protected activity.”
Seven counts are offered in the lawsuit that is requesting damages and attorney’s costs and fees.
Schottland said damages are being sought because he believes “there is a conspiracy among Republicans to punish Democrats.”
Among the allegations contained in the lawsuit are that the rezoning of the PRC back to highway development and agricultural/residential use was done without the proper notification to neighboring property owners and is therefore null and void according to the Municipal Land Use Law (MLUL).
The action also asserts that the MLUL does not provide the Planning Board with the power to rescind any approval already granted.
The summons states that the actions taken by the Planning Board members who voted in May to rescind the project approval were “invalid due to fraud, mistake or misrepresentation” and were not supported by the record of the application before the board.
Schottland said the council members also acted outside their legal parameters when they acted as a quasi-judicial body in rescinding the zoning approval in April.
He said that as zoning is a legislative action taken by a governing body, it cannot be overridden by a quasi-judicial decision made after the fact.
The summons also revisits an old allegation that appeared to have been rendered moot by Crawford Holdings principal Anthony Spalliero.
Spalliero had alleged during the week of the original Planning Board approval that he had been the victim of a “shakedown” at the hands of DiBella, Councilman Juan Malave and James Stanberry, who was at the time the president of the Howell United Republican Club.
Spalliero, speaking to Greater Media Newspapers at the meeting where he made his public allegations of the alleged shakedown, said he had been specifically asked by DiBella to provide $2.5 million for a municipal recreation center and various township equipment.
Spalliero insisted that DiBella and Malave were lying when they denied his charges from the council dais.
Spalliero later recanted the allegations in an open letter in which he stated, “At no time to my recollection did any member of the Township Council ask for anything for the township or personally and my comments should never have been interpreted in that fashion.”
However, the summons issued last week on behalf of Crawford Holdings states that days before the October 2003 Planning Board approval for Colts Neck Crossing, and at a time when the council had stated its intent to rescind the PRC zoning on Route 33, Spalliero and his partner Terry Sherman “were summoned” to meet with DiBella, Malave and Stanberry.
According to Schottland, Spalliero and Sherman were then told by those officials that the 2003 Republican-majority council would not rescind the PRC zoning if the number of homes at Colts Neck Crossing was reduced from 497 to approximately 300, and if a donation of money for a municipal recreation center, along with a donation of a fire truck and an ambulance was received.
When asked this week by a reporter why the same charges relative to the alleged shakedown were re-emerging after Spalliero had recanted them in writing, Schottland, who said he had just received the case and was working from what had been presented to him, said he did not have an immediate answer and that Spalliero, who is a diabetic, was unavailable to answer any questions at this time due to a medical condition.
DiBella told a reporter that Howell will be providing an attorney to represent the individuals who have been named in the Crawford Holdings litigation.