Panel eyes new ethics standards

Mayor Pucci’s appointed board looks at conflicts of interest

By: Stephanie Brown
   MONROE — An ethics panel appointed by Mayor Richard Pucci earlier this year to remedy potential conflicts of interest involving members of township land-use boards released its recommendation that the township expand its disclosure rules.
   The panel at a meeting on Tuesday proposed broader disclosure rules for board members and applicants and tightening rules governing when board members should recuse themselves from hearing applications. The panel’s recommendations, as well as recommendations from Township Business Manager Wayne Hamilton on how to strengthen the township’s pay-to-play ordinance, will be presented to the Township Council and Mayor Pucci for possible adoption in January.
   The 40 people who attended the public hearing each received a handout outlining the panel’s recommendations and were invited to comment.
   The public’s reactions to the recommendations were mixed, with some saying they were too invasive and others said they did not go far enough.
   A copy of the panel’s recommendations have been posted to the township’s Web site, at www.monroetwp.com/ethics.html.
   The panel will also accept written public comments for up to 10 days.
   The panel’s recommendations focused on three areas of potential conflicts — business and employment relationships; family and social relationships; and political monetary contributions. Under each category, the panel addressed direct and indirect conflicts.
   For example, if a board member or board member’s spouse has a direct employment relationship with an applicant or applicant’s professional (attorney, engineer, etc.), the panel recommended disclosure and recusal.
   If a board member owns more than $10,000 stock of a corporation with an application before the board, the panel recommended disclosure and recusal. If the stock has a value of less than $10,000, only disclosure would be required.
   The panel also listed several general recommendations and comments. For example, when a board member recuses himself from an application, the panel suggests that the member explain why as part of the public record.
   Some members of the public said the panel’s recommendations asked board members to disclose too much information.
   "It seems to me we’re giving up a lot of our privacy," said Doris Entmacher, a member of the township’s zoning board.
   Gerald Tamburro, the council president, said the panel’s recommendation to disclose sources of income exceeding $2,000 annually for all adults living in a board member’s household should be reconsidered.
   Mr. Tamburro said he was speaking specifically of adult children that may be handicapped or going through a difficult time, like a divorce.
   "You’re disclosing something that might have an impact on their life," rather than the board member’s life, Mr. Tamburro said.
   Panel member Guy Baehr, who is an associate director of the Journalism Resources Institute at Rutgers and a founding board member of the New Jersey Foundation for Open Government, said the panel considered the fine line between transparency and privacy.
   "It’s incumbent in these times to have greater transparency, which may cause some people to not want to be on the board, but that’s just the price we pay for the level of distrust we have" surrounding politics, Mr. Baehr said.
   Other members of the public said the panel should have expanded its research to pay-to-play regulations, because they said the panel was created in response to such a conflict.
   Mayor Pucci created the panel in July about six weeks after his connections to a political action committee that had taken contributions from a developer proposing projects in Monroe became public. The PAC, New Directions Through Responsible Leadership, was founded by former state Senate President John Lynch, who has since pleaded guilty to tax evasion and mail fraud charges in an unrelated corruption case.
   Mayor Pucci had been a paid consultant for New Directions when it received contributions from developer Jack Morris. Mr. Morris is the developer of Applegarth Professional Center on Applegarth Road, and is working with Steve Kalafer, owner of the Somerset Patriots, on a proposal to build a mixed-use development that would include an independent league baseball team on Route 33.
   "Personally for me, that obviously gives an appearance of conflict and, let’s face it, in this day and age, that’s exactly what we don’t want to convey to the public," said Tom Nothstein, president of the township Republican Club. "Even though it was ruled that it met the letter of the law, I’m not quite sure it met the spirit of the law and I think that’s important to address."
   Ken Chiarella, who has run for Township Council as a Republican in the past, said the panel should be looking into campaign contributions coming from PACs.
   Panel member Dennis Galvin, who is a land use attorney for several other municipalities and a member of the legal task force for the Center for Civic Responsibility, said the influence of campaign contributions was something the panel had discussed at length.
   "But it’s kind of like nibble, nibble, nibble, we’ve got to keep coming at it," Mr. Galvin said.
   The panel recommended that all political contributions to state, county and local political campaign or action committees that meet the minimum reporting requirements of the state Election Law Enforcement Commission be listed by the applicant as part of its application.
   In addition, the panel recommended that failure by an applicant or applicant’s professional to do so would result in a $2,000 fine and/or remanding of the application to the board for consideration.
   Mr. Hamilton said he is reviewing several model pay-to-play ordinances with the Citizens’ Campaign, a group that works for more openness in government, and will make a recommendation to the council and mayor along with the panel.
   Chairman Joseph Sadofski, a retired Superior Court judge who lives in Monroe, said the panel would consider each recommendation made by the public before submitting a final recommendation.
   He said there was much debate among the panel members themselves, and the recommendations presented to the public were very much a compromise.
   "We felt comfortable with the recommendations, but other people (in the public) did not feel conformable," Mr. Sadofski said.