BY KAREN E. BOWES
Staff Writer
Although it hasn’t happened in over a decade, Holmdel Township Committee members are no longer allowed to hold a second elected office.
On July 19, the committee banned future members from simultaneously holding elected positions in the county, state or federal government. Contained in the same ordinance is a second ban on township employees running for local office.
“The objective was to attack jobs,” Committeeman Terence Wall said on Monday. “But the interesting part is that it would eliminate elected county committee positions.”
Wall said he along with Committeemen Rocco Pascucci and Alan Bateman and Mayor Serena DiMaso all serve on elected county committees, as well as Republican candidate for committee Jerry Allocco. County committee members act as delegates to conventions that select candidates for countywide office, choose who will appear on the party line in primaries, nominate candidates for vacated elected offices and other duties.
“We all already hold dual-elected offices,” Wall said. “So, riddle me this.”
“You are literally on the ballot every two years the voters go in and vote for you,” Wall added.
Committeeman Larry Fink explained that there are 20 county committee members from 10 voting districts in Holmdel. Each voting district has two elected officials, a man and a woman, who represent the district.
“I’ve heard it called the county committee, but I’ve also heard it called the municipal county committee,” Fink explained. “It’s not so much a county committee. It’s made of up local residents.”
Nevertheless, Fink said he understood Wall’s point.
“I guess what Terence is saying is that it [the ban] could possibly include elected positions of these county committees, and he’s questioning if that is really the intention or not,” Fink said. “He raises an interesting point.”
Township Attorney Duane Davison has worked for the township since 1994 and does not recall a time when a committee member was also holding another elected office.
“Not that I can remember,” Davison said Monday. “We’ve never had a freeholder or a clerk, an Assembly person or a senator.”
Wall agreed and called the measure redundant, saying the state is already in the process of banning dual positions. As far as township employees running for office, it has “never been a problem in Holmdel,” Wall said.
Wall was absent for the July 19 vote due to illness. Fink was also away on vacation. The measure passed with all three of the committee’s remaining votes from DiMaso, Bateman and Pascucci.
Proposed by Bateman in May, the ordinance has undergone so many changes it is hardly
recognizable from its original form. Initially, the ordinance aimed to prohibit committee members from working for the government, a ban that would apply to Fink and Wall, adversaries of Bateman whom both hold government-related jobs. Fink is employed by the state’s Green Acres program, working to secure open space grants in Warren and Sussex counties. Wall is employed by neighboring Keansburg as the borough administrator.
In June, Bateman said both Fink and Wall “were in conflict” because their loyalties were divided between their job and their duties to Holmdel. Bateman could not be reached for comment on Monday.
Along the same lines, one committeeman is looking to make the current ban on dual office and/or job holding even stronger, disallowing committee members from working for a firm that does business with the town.
“Dr. Pascucci had requested an ordinance, which would provide that a Township Committee member not accept a job from anyone that does business with the township, with one exception,” Davison reported on Monday. “Unless the position is gained through competitive testing.”
What difference would a test make? According to the attorney, a position that requires a competitive test could be viewed differently than a job awarded otherwise, or “as opposed to just getting an appointment.”
Davison said the government often requires such tests, but that the ban would apply to all entities that do business with the town.
“It would be any entity, but I don’t know where else you would find competitive testing other than the government,” Davison said.
Davison noted he is still drafting and researching the possible legislation.