ROBBINSVILLE: Mayor, councilmen trade jabs at ‘town hall’ meeting

By Joanne Degnan, Staff Writer
   ROBBINSVILLE — Mayor Dave Fried’s lunchtime “town hall” meeting at the Senior Center turned testy last week when a few elderly residents of Mercer Mobile Homes criticized the township’s handling of the pending sale of the trailer park, and two councilmen running for re-election joined in to heckle the mayor.
   Sally Harrison, the president of the Mercer Mobile Homes homeowners association, was the first to raise her hand when the mayor opened the floor to questions from the audience, which included about 75 senior citizens there on May 4 for the lunch program. A couple of dozen other residents, including the five Township Council members, also were on hand for the event.
   Ms. Harrison said Mercer Mobile Homes residents were upset to learn from newspapers, instead of township officials directly, that Robbinsville had negotiated the sale of the trailer park to an affordable housing nonprofit agency. Ms. Harrison was referring to the mayor’s April 18 news release announcing Allies Inc. had signed a contract to buy the park for $5.5 million in a transaction made possible by a planned $2.1 million contribution from the town’s affordable housing fund.
   ”You should have notified the homeowners association in the park before it hit the newspapers,” Ms. Harrison told the mayor.
   ”And the council!” called out Councilman Rich Levesque from the back of the room where he was standing with Councilman David Boyne.
   Mayor Fried ignored the interruption and told Ms. Harrison that the deal was announced publicly to the newspapers because it involved taxpayers’ money.
   ”You have to announce it to everybody because it’s the township’s money we’re using,” Mayor Fried said. “Everybody has the right to know what’s going on because it’s everybody’s money.”
   The pending Mercer Mobile Homes sale became a political hot potato two days prior to the town hall meeting with the seniors. Mayor Fried put the deal on hold May 2, saying he had been unaware that Councilman Boyne was a member of the nonprofit’s board of directors. Mr. Boyne said last week the contract was signed before he joined Allies board of directors on March 30 and that he had been unaware of it until the April 18 announcement by the administration.
   The deal to help Allies buy Mercer Mobile Homes has not yet been formally presented to the Township Council, nor has the council voted on it. Mr. Boyne maintained he had done nothing wrong, but resigned from Allies’ board on May 3 anyway, saying he wanted to spare the nonprofit organization negative publicity.
   Mr. Levesque and Mr. Boyne are part of the three-person slate running for re-election in the May 10 Township Council race. The mayor endorsed Planning Board member Ron Witt for Mr. Boyne’s seat on May 2, prompting Mr. Boyne and Mr. Levesque to accuse the mayor of playing politics with the Mercer Mobile Homes issue to help Mr. Witt’s candidacy.
   Mr. Fried denied the accusation. Both he and Township Attorney Mark Roselli argue that Mr. Boyne’s failure to notify the administration and township attorney about his relationship with Allies creates the appearance of impropriety surrounding the sale since township funds are involved. Despite Mr. Boyne’s resignation from Allies on May 3, the mayor said he would not allow the deal to move forward until the state Department of Community Affairs, which oversees the expenditure of affordable housing funds, says it is OK to proceed.
   During the May 4 town-hall event, Mercer Mobile Homes resident Beatrice Suzch asked the mayor about Mr. Boyne’s involvement with Allies.
   ”Is it a fact that there is a gentleman that is running for office who is associated with Allies?” Ms. Suzch asked.
   ”Yes, but he’s resigned,” the mayor responded.
   This prompted Mr. Levesque in the back of the room to interject that it was time to “lay out the facts for the people.”
   ”It’s not Allies purchasing the park, correct mayor?” Mr. Levesque said. “It’s another group called Dreamscape, which is another nonprofit … which the councilman did not sit on.”
   ”It’s a separate board of directors, a separate entity,” Mr. Boyne called out, adding that the mayor was “twisting the truth.”
   ”Guys if you want to debate this you can debate it at DCA, you can debate it with the township attorney,” Mayor Fried told the councilmen. “I wasn’t even going to bring it up today. If a town is giving someone $2 million you shouldn’t have anybody on their board.”
   Mr. Boyne said the council had not been told about the negotiations so he was unaware that being on the board of directors would cause a problem.
   ”It would have been nice if you had taken that information to council,” Mr. Boyne said.
   Mr. Fried shot back that that it was Mr. Boyne’s fault for not disclosing his relationship to the nonprofit first.
   ”It’s not my obligation to disclose it, it’s yours,” the mayor said.
   In interviews afterward, Mr. Levesque and Mr. Boyne stated that officials at Allies Inc. had told them the nonprofit’s intention was to create a separate entity with a separate board of directors to take over Mercer Mobile Homes.
   Attempts to confirm this information independently with Allies was not possible because Allies Senior Public Affairs Director Don Tretola did not return numerous phone messages left throughout the week at his office. Allies Vice President Elise Gambino Tretola did not return a message left on her cell phone.
   The discord between the mayor and Councilman Boyne continued over the weekend. On Friday, township residents received a letter signed by Mayor Fried in which he raised the Mercer Mobile Homes controversy as an example of why Mr. Boyne has “serious conflicts of interest that preclude him from doing his job to the fullest extent on Council.”
   The letter indicated that it had been paid for by the “Witt for Town Council” campaign.