JACKSON — The debate surrounding an in-house legal department in Jackson could heat up again as residents who support such a change may attempt to place the issue before residents in the Nov. 3 election.
The news that residents may be asked to vote on such a proposal came just days after the state Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s 2013 ruling that kept the citizen-initiated question off the 2013 election ballot.
“Of course we’re very disappointed, but it was worth a shot,” said township resident and petitioner Raymond Cattonar.
Cattonar and other residents have advocated a move away from Jackson’s practice of hiring private attorneys in favor of establishing an in-house legal department that would include an attorney who is a municipal employee.
“We tried to do something innovative,” he said of the ballot question.
The Jackson Taxpayers Association, (JTA), which is a proponent of the switch to an in-house legal department, has said it believes the move would save Jackson hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees.
The petitioners were JTA members Catherine Giancola, Nicolas Antonoff, Richard Davidson, Roger Downing and Cattonar. The petitioners gathered more than 800 signatures that were needed to certify the petition.
Municipal officials challenged the move in court by calling into question a provision that would have allowed Jackson’s municipal legal department to be made available to the Jackson School District Board of Education at any time, with no cost to the school board.
Attorney Kevin Starkey, who represented the township, could not be reached for comment.
During a Superior Court hearing in August 2013, Judge Craig L. Wellerson said the provision regarding the school board was a “quagmire” from a legal standpoint. He said it conflicted with existing shared services legislation which states that both parties must agree to the terms of a shared services agreement.
Proponents of the initiative suggested that the court invoke a clause in the petition that would allow them to jettison a portion of the ordinance if it was in violation of existing law.
Although the clause was modeled after similar provisions in Manchester and Berkeley townships, Wellerson said removing the school board aspect from the ballot question would “modify the question itself.”
The litigation advanced, and an August 2014 decision from judges Jane Grall, William Nugent and Allison Accurso in the Superior Court Appellate Division concurred with Wellerson and said the court could not remove a legally troublesome portion of the ballot question from the citizens’ petition.
Cattonar said the JTA will likely remove the provision that deals with the school board in a subsequent attempt to give Jackson voters a say on an in-house legal department.
Estimates are that the legal fees in the municipality’s case against the JTA amounted to about $65,000. Cattonar said that figure proves the need for a salaried inhouse attorney.
“That’s exactly the point. How [those fees] went to upwards of $65,000, I have no clue,” Cattonar said, noting it was Jackson officials who initiated the litigation against the petitioners. “We didn’t sue the township. The township sued us.”
Contact Andrew Martins at [email protected].