Borough could be billed for $3,400
By Jenine Clancy, Special Writer
JAMESBURG — A Borough Councilman’s lawsuit against the Middlesex County Clerk and borough clerk for not certifying his candidates for the November election was tossed out by a judge and will still cost taxpayers thousands of dollars in legal fees.
According to court documents filed Sept. 12 by Councilman Thomas Gibbons, who also serves as the Republican chairman for the borough, claims he was mislead by Middlesex County Clerk Elaine Flynn when she told him over the summer that his candidates, Gerald and Jennifer Sadowski were not on the ballot when they wrote in their names during the June primary election.
Mr. Gibbons also said Ms. Flynn mislead him and his candidates, just this past September when he claims she said he could not get a replacement.
Borough Clerk Tanya Panucci was also named in the suit for handing Mr. Gibbons over the paperwork, in what Mr. Gibbons claims was "misleading information."
Democratic candidates Colleen Rutsky and fellow Councilwoman Daria Ludas were also named as defendants.
The case was thrown out by a judge on Sept. 19, finding that the borough clerk and county clerk did everything appropriately.
The judge said Mr. Gibbons candidates were never registered Republicans and did have time to go through the proper channels to become registered.
At Wednesday night’s council meeting it was announced the legal fees for this case would be about $3,400 dollars, with taxpayers bearing the brunt of the costs when the bill gets mailed to the council at the end of the month.
"I engaged the Middlesex County Clerk in legal action on behalf on the Republican Committee in town, and inadvertently named the two Democratic candidates for election, and Tanya, our clerk," Mr. Gibbons said. "I just want to apologize, it was never the intention to have your names in this and the issue I had was (only) with the county clerk."
"The taxpayers deserve an apology," Councilman Brian Taylor said. "How dare you say you were unaware of who the defendants are…the facts are all here," Taylor continued as he held up copies of the court documents.
"The legal fees were more than half of the budgeted money for legal defense for the entire year," he said. "In this great country there is a free way to do this. You were aware of the case and all of the information surrounding it, so in my eyes, either you were negligent or incompetent."
Mr. Gibbons then proceeded to defend himself.
"When the candidates are nominated they are notified they can accept the nomination or not, in this case my concern was the candidates were given a letter that said they were not on the ballot, misleading information from the county clerk, not from Tanya. So around the summer I was looking for different candidates and found another candidate around September and when I went to find out how to replace a candidate, I went to the county clerk and asked how we go about doing this and (she) said I couldn’t find a replacement."
"Let me clear something up right here," Mayor Marlene Lowande interjected. "The candidates that were written in… The Sadowksi’s, Gerald and Jennifer, the lawsuit was with them as plantiff’s and the Republican party suing, so they were your candidates since the primary write-in, they were the candidates of choice for you and your party, you had three months, you waited (until) two days before the county was going to print the ballots."
Mr. Gibbons then explained since he was told he couldn’t get a replacement he decided to go with his original candidates, so one could resign to then get a replacement.
The counsel said there was not enough time to get a replacement and that since the summer, the Sadowski’s had plenty of time to go through the proper channels to become registered candidates.
"I am wondering who hired this attorney, we did not need to defend Tanya," Mr. Gibbons then said.
"Yes we did!," the Mayor said with a high inflection in her voice.
"She’s a defendant being sued in superior court," Mr. Taylor said sternly. "She is listed on the court documents."
Mr. Gibbons said it was not his intention for the borough clerk to be included in the documents.
"Your intentions and what you did are two different things," Mayor Lowande said. "You signed off on all court documents knowing who you were suing."
"Mr. Gibbons we disagree with you and have to leave it at that," she continued. "Every action that anyone up here as an elected official does or takes has to understand that it does have an impact on our tax paying citizens."
Mr. Gibbon still argued that the borough clerk did not have to be defended.
"The borough clerk was named as a defendant in this lawsuit, and I have a contract with the borough for a year and any legal action is automatically sent to my office," Borough Attorney Fred Raffetto said. "We had an obligation and duty to step in to protect the borough clerk, we don’t take a position to any candidates or any parties, but we had to step in to preserve the process… the borough clerk did everything appropriately in her capacity as borough clerk."
Councilman Taylor said the borough should garnish Mr. Gibbons $4,800 annual salary as a councilman, and that he should pay the borough back.
Mr. Taylor said they will not receive the legal bill until the end of the month, and he will try to make a motion at the next meeting for his proposal.