BY LAYLI WHYTE
Staff Writer
RED BANK — A Borough Council committee has been formed to work on an ordinance that would require developers with applications before the Planning or Zoning boards to disclose political contributions.
The Pay-to-Play Committee has been reconstituted and charged with drafting the ordinance. Councilwoman Jennifer Beck, along with councilmen Arthur Murphy and Robert J. Bifani, agreed to discuss the specifics of a developers disclosure ordinance. Beck brought the idea for the ordinance to the council last month.
Beck, Bifani and Murphy worked together to develop an ordinance banning pay-to-play, the practice of making political contributions to obtain municipal contracts. The ordinance was passed by the council last March.
At the previous council meeting, Beck distributed an ordinance adopted by Jackson Township that requires developers with applications pending before the Zoning Board, as well as professionals who testify on behalf of those developers, to submit a Contribution Disclosure Statement at the time that the original application is submitted.
According to that ordinance, only contributions made to the local municipality must be disclosed. Beck has said her preference is to have the ordinance apply to other municipalities as well as political action groups.
Although the ordinance includes definitions for “professional,” “contribution” and “contribution disclosure statement,” there is no definition for “developer,” which Beck believes should be defined in the borough ordinance.
Beck said this week the ordinance should be limited to developers and not affect individual homeowners.
“It should not affect residents to the degree that they are just making improvements on their own home,” she said at this week’s council meeting.
Beck is recommending that a developer be defined as a person or entity that makes a living building or rehabilitating homes.
“Suppose someone is a multimillionaire,” said Mayor Edward J. McKenna Jr., “and less than 5 percent of their income comes from their work building homes. Would they be a developer? It’s not how they make their living.”
Beck replied she would look to the borough attorney to guide her in the language and definitions of the ordinance.
“My first thought,” said Thomas Hall, assistant borough attorney, “when I saw this, was, why not use the definition of developers used in the pay-to-play ordinance?”
Beck said she was fine with that, as long as the definition did not include residents making improvements to their own homes.
Hall said there have been examples in the borough of applicants making contributions to other county organizations, which then make donations of the same amount to the borough political groups, and then the application is passed days later.
“There’s nothing illegal about that,” Beck said, “but it certainly is suspicious. I think the public should have all of that information, and sit in the audience at Planning and Zoning Board meetings knowing that.”
The Jackson Township ordinance only requires that contributions made within the past year be disclosed, but Beck wants that extended to two or three years.
“One year doesn’t give the full picture of the political activity the developer is involved in,” she said.