Submitted Content
To the editor:
On December 9, the township Ethical Standards Board held a hastily announced hearing to ostensibly answer an ethics complaint lodged by more than twenty Hillsborough residents regarding a real estate transaction between Township Committeewoman Gloria McCauley and Business Administrator Anthony Ferrera.
Since this body hadn’t met in many years, and since it was already almost two months since the complaint had been served, the following was shocking but not surprising:
- Ethics Board members had to be sworn in, even though it was already December. A chair had to be selected, since that also was never done in 2017.
- Only four members of the six-member board participated in the meeting. One member supposedly recused himself, while another apparently didn’t show. The board could have selected a new member or members before this hearing or waited until a new member was chosen to have the hearing, but they went forward anyway, lacking two of six votes.
- Another member, in fact a lawyer, did not recuse himself, even though he is paid counsel for the Hillsborough Municipal Authority. Why didn’t he resign, or at least recuse himself?
- The ethics board refused to take up the Burchette complaint and stated that the reason for this was pending litigation.
- Yet, when both complaints were filed, township attorney Willard came right out in the press calling the complaint a partisan attack timed before the local election and declaring the accused innocent of violations. What about the “pending litigation” then?
- The ethics board had not met in advance of the hearing to study the parts of the ethics code said to be in violation, let alone to review the ethical standards the committee is sworn to uphold.
I am not even a signatory to the complaint, yet when I saw Attorney Willard come right out in the press before the hearing to absolve the accused, when I heard one of the board members announce his opinion before even hearing the case or members giving questionable legal/ethical reasons as to why they felt the accused had not violated ethical code, or worse yet, just saying the accused must be ethical because they know them to be without even really reviewing the code, then I knew this ethics board was not upholding their charge. Since when are members of our township committee and staff untouchable by ethics law, basically beyond the reach of enforcement of our own township and state code?
So what was a surprise? That this ethical standards body was apparently set up to protect those in power and all of their paid lawyers and law firms, against the public, the people of Hillsborough.
An ethics board is supposed to make sure those who have the public trust, avoid even the appearance of being unethical by following a fairly proscribed code. If the township government wants to abdicate responsibility, residents will seek the approval of a higher level ethics board, while keeping this issue at the forefront in 2018.
Meryl Bisberg
Hillsborough