UPPER FREEHOLD: Veterans appointments stalled amid controversy

Township Veterans Council chairman resigns after brouhaha

By Joanne Degnan, Managing Editor
   UPPER FREEHOLD — The political uproar over a controversial appointment to the Upper Freehold Veterans Council last week doomed the bid to expand the panel’s membership and prompted the chairman to resign in protest.
   The brouhaha at the May 17 Township Committee began when Committeeman Robert Frascella objected to a resolution that would have added three new members to the veterans council: Mayor LoriSue Mount, Plumsted resident Sheila Bogner, and Upper Freehold resident Ed Smires. The resolution ultimately failed by a 3-2 vote.
   Dr. Frascella objected to Mr. Smires’ appointment because he had been part of a citizens group that filed a lawsuit against the township in 2007 to force safety improvements on Sharon Station Road. Citizens Advocating Road Safety, known by its acronym CARS, withdrew the lawsuit in 2008.
   ”I have no problem with the first two individuals, but I do have a problem with individuals being placed on prestigious committees such as this that have cost the town a lot of money over frivolous lawsuits,” Dr. Frascella said.
   ”If he would like to write the township a check for $56,000-plus I would be glad to put him on the committee,” Dr. Frascella said later during the meeting.
   Township Attorney Granville Magee sought to clarify the history of the case, noting that it was not Mr. Smires personally who had filed the lawsuit. Rather it was an organization that Mr. Smires belonged to that sued, Mr. Magee said.
   ”Just for the record, that individual’s name was never a plaintiff,” Mr. Magee said. “Just to get that straight … it’s not factual what you said.”
   ”If he would like to write a check for that organization, I would say, yeah, OK. How about that?” Dr. Frascella replied.
   After Township Committee members asked whether all three appointments had to be voted on together as a group, or whether one name could be excluded, Mr. Magee said they had to vote on the resolution exactly how Committeeman Steve Alexander had amended it with all three names.
   ”It’s either all or nothing; it’s not like it’s a buffet here,” Mr. Magee said.
   Mayor Mount and Mr. Alexander, who is the only member of the Township Committee who is also a veteran, voted yes on the appointments. Dr. Frascella, Stanley Moslowski Jr. and Bob Faber voted no.
   The fallout from the committee’s action was evident soon afterward when the chairman of the Upper Freehold Township Veterans Council, Bruce Novozinsky, notified Municipal Clerk Dana Tyler by e-mail that he was resigning in protest.
   Meanwhile, the man at the center of the firestorm, Mr. Smires, said Tuesday in a phone interview that he was taken aback by the entire episode.
   ”Shame on them,” Mr. Smires said. “Who are they really hurting here?”
   Mr. Smires said he still intended to donate time and raise funds for veterans’ causes. Mr. Novozinsky and he didn’t need to be part of an official township-sanctioned group in order to help veterans, he said.
   ”This won’t stop me from doing what I want to do,” Mr. Smires said.
   Mr. Smires called the incident a “petty vendetta” and took issue with Dr. Frascella’s public statements about the town’s legal bills from the CARS lawsuit.
   ”We didn’t sue for monetary damages, we sued for action, to bring attention to a very serious issue,” Mr. Smires said. “It never even went to court so I don’t know how they could have spent $56,000 in legal fees.”