NJ News & Views

[Editor's Note: At 7:52 p.m. on January 1, at 10:52 a.m. on January 2, at 11:11 a.m. on January 5 and at 7:32 a.m. on January 12, 2012, this story was edited for style, content and accuracy.]

At their last meeting of the year, Lakewood officials overseeing the state's largest Urban Enterprise Zone heard what may have been the best proposal of 2011 to bring jobs and commerce to town.

It may also have been the worst.

No member of the public will ever know just how good or how bad a proposal it was because no member of the media was permitted to hear and review it.

At the December 13 meeting of the Lakewood Development Corporation (LDC), the only reporter present was told to leave prior to the start of a scheduled presentation by Jeffrey T. Dyer, President of Shore Mobile.

Dyer told a reporter for NJ News & Views at the start of the meeting that his presentation was not a contract negotiation with the LDC, but that he hoped to receive Urban Enterprise Zone (UEZ) funding.

Despite Dyer's assertion, Lakewood UEZ Coordinator Patricia (Trish) Komsa maintained that his presentation would be held in executive session as a contract negotiation.

Under the New Jersey Open Public Meetings Act, contract negotiations in some circumstances would be a legal reason to hold a discussion in executive session. However, a business presentation would not.

No one will ever be able to challenge Komsa's action; under current township policy, officials of the LDC and the Lakewood Industrial Commission routinely turn off tape recorders documenting meetings once an announcement is made that they are being held in executive session.

Before the LDC convened its December 13 meeting, additional steps were taken to prevent the reporter from observing the presentation improperly heard in executive session.

A slide presentation screen was positioned to face LDC members in the darkened room and to block the reporter's view of it through glass panes in the meeting room door.

In place of a reporter, a public relations agent paid with UEZ funds heard the presentation.

After the presentation, the meeting was adjourned without reconvening it in public session.

While Dyer's presentation may or may not have been a good investment of taxpayer dollars, a presentation made in public session prior to his may not have even been eligible for UEZ funding.

Neither was a related presentation for UEZ funding made at an LDC meeting held one month earlier, which members of the Lakewood Township Committee later approved without state review.

At the November 1 LDC meeting, Jason Shanik and Chairman Ralph Lasry of the volunteer Lakewood First Aid and Emergency Squad informed LDC members they had unsuccessfully attempted to raise funds for a new ambulance.

The men said they didn't have anyone to write grants for the squad.

LDC Chairman Abraham Muller, a member of Hatzolah, another volunteer medical emergency group that also provides paramedic services, said the squad used a 1991 ambulance.

Muller said that the cost of an ambulance remount would cost $85,000.

Despite the group's status as a non-profit organization that does not create jobs that in turn promote commerce, LDC liaison Raymond Coles said members of the local governing body intended to fund the squad's work with UEZ dollars.

"The township (committee)already said they want to make it happen," Coles told the LDC.

At the December 13 LDC meeting, Rabbi Avrohom Waxman, Director of Hatzolah, also made a presentation for UEZ funding.

Coles was not present at the December 13 meeting. However, the township committee's other liaison, Aisik (Isaac/Albert) Akerman attended it.

So did LDC Chairman Muller.

Although Muller is a member of Hatzolah, he did not recuse himself or abstain from voting to approve funding for an organization on which he serves.

During his presentation, Waxman said one of Hatzolah's seven ambulances broke down on November 11.

He said that on November 17, a paramedic ambulance was totaled in a Motor Vehicle Accident (MVA) on Route 9.

Waxman said Hatzolah was looking to replace the paramedic ambulance, which it operates in partnership with MONOC, at a cost of $100,000, and the ambulance at a cost of $40,000-$45,000.

Waxman said the replacement ambulances would speed up the group's response time to calls for service from the community.

He said Hatzolah responded to 5,000 calls a year in Lakewood.

"We answer calls to Jackson, too," Waxman said.

Jackson is not a UEZ municipality.

At the December 15 meeting of the Lakewood Township Committee, members approved a resolution to insert a Special Item of Revenue into the 2011 Municipal Budget for the Urban Enterprise Zone - Lakewood First Aid and Emergency Squad Vehicle Grant, in the amount of $20,000.

According to media reports, the $20,000 will fund a down payment on another ambulance.

Hatzolah will also receive requested funding in 2012, according to the LDC vote and comments at the December 13 meeting.

While the township continues to subsidize volunteer non-profit emergency medical service groups with public dollars, it is cutting back on municipal services that generate public revenue.

On March 25, 2010, Zach Patberg of the Asbury Park Press reported that union members of FMBA 380, which represents township employees of the Lakewood Emergency Medical Services (EMS), agreed to a 30 percent pay cut in order to keep their jobs.

A full-time Lakewood Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) earns a starting salary of $26,260 and an experienced EMT can earn as much as $49,000, but only 11 Lakewood EMTs are employed full time.

The majority of the township EMTs work part-time.

Five part-time EMTs were hired in October at a salary of $12.75 per hour, bringing the total number of part-time township EMTs to 19.

The 19 part-time EMTs are not eligible for benefits.

Lakewood EMTs may work in Lakewood, but live in other municipalities. However, while they are working in Lakewood, the EMTs are increasing jobs and commerce in the township UEZ where they may shop and work - which is the goal of the UEZ program.

In an October 13 e-mail, a reporter for NJ News & Views asked Peter Lijoi, Director of the UEZ Authority (UEZA), two questions:

"What oversight measures has the UEZA put in place to ensure that local officials do not misappropriate UEZ funds not used for (eligible) projects?"

"Is the UEZA still conducting audits of municipal UEZ funds?

Lijoi did not respond for comment.

Although Lijoi's e-mail address and cell phone number are posted on the UEZA Web site for public dissemination, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Community Affairs responded at his request.

DCA spokesperson Lisa Ryan said in an October 14 e-mail that instead of paying for eligible UEZ projects, sales tax revenue collected by UEZ members through June 30, 2010 would instead be turned over to municipalities as state aid.

"Local UEZs will not have to come to the State UEZ Authority for program or project authorizations in Fiscal Year 2012," Ryan told NJ News & Views. "This will eliminate red tape and Bureaucracy for the zone municipalities and allow them to focus on economic development projects."

Ryan maintained that the state would still oversee tax dollars.

"Zone municipalities are required to use and account for these dollars as they do with any taxpayer dollars," she said.

According to Ryan, as of June 30, 2010, Lakewood UEZ members collected $7,480,000 in sales tax revenue for Fiscal Year 2010.

Ryan did not report any interest earned in 2010 from approved loans to qualified businesses.

The LDC may or may not be earning revenue from interest on loans to businesses that received UEZ micro loans during 2011.

According to a document Ryan sent NJ News & Views, the following businesses reportedly made interest payments from January 2011-October 2011:

• Miron Services, LLC, doing business as (dba) Miron Trucking
• Shenoahs LLC dba Curves
• Lakewood Judaica LLP
• FULFILLRITE LLC
• TIPS & TOQUES LLC
• THE GYM LLC

Although the 31 individual payments reported on the document totaled $3,255.53, each was prefaced with a minus sign in front of it.

UEZ municipalities generate funds through interest earned on loans to qualified businesses and through a reduced state sales tax collected by UEZ members. In prior years, municipalities had to request and receive UEZA approval for projects.

Under the administration of Governor Chris Christie, Lakewood officials will no longer have to seek state approval of public projects funded with taxpayer dollars spent in the township's UEZ.

Instead, the state will apply discretionary oversight that amounts to no oversight at all.

"Neither the DCA Commissioner (Lori Grifa) nor the UEZ(A) is required to approve or disapprove of a local zone's use of UEZ money per the SFY 2012 budget law," Ryan maintained in a December 29 e-mail to NJ News & Views.

According to section 82 in the New Jersey 2012 State Budget link that Ryan sent to NJ News & Views, that position may not be defensible in a court of law.

"(T)he use of such unexpended balances and the use of second generation funds for eligible purposes by such enterprise zones shall not require approval by the New Jersey Urban Enterprise Zone Authority," Section 82 reported.

Although the language states that unexpended municipal UEZ balances and second generation funds shall not require approval by the UEZA, it also states that the expenditures must be for eligible purposes.

In a follow-up e-mail, the reporter asked Lijoi to respond for comment to the following question:

"If the UEZA does not review all municipal zone expenditures, how can it determine whether or not the UEZ expenditures are for eligible purposes?" the reporter asked on December 21.

Neither Lijoi nor Ryan responded for comment to the question.

In a December 28 e-mail, NJ News & Views also asked the governor's spokesman, Michael Drewniak, to respond for comment to Lakewood approvals for UEZ funding requested by volunteer medical emergency groups that do not bill for services rendered and provide them to Jackson as well as Lakewood residents not in the UEZ.

"Does Governor Christie believe that Lakewood officials are spending UEZ dollars to bring jobs and commerce to the township in accordance with the stated goal of the program?" the reporter asked Drewniak. "If not, will the governor ask that Lakewood officials return all funds approved for this project?"

Drewniak did not respond for comment.

A reporter also called Drewniak for comment at his office, but was told he had left for the day.

Lakewood officials are not the only ones that may be misappropriating UEZ dollars on ineligible projects.

In 2009 and 2010, the state took millions in UEZ project funds from municipalities generating them, including Lakewood. Although the funds were dedicated for property tax relief, property owners did not receive them.

Instead, the state turned over UEZ dollars generated by shoppers that may not have been able to afford the added cost and distributed the monies as extraordinary aid to school districts statewide - including Lakewood and Jackson.

According to the December 20 meeting agenda of the Jackson Board of Education, members were scheduled to take action on a corrective action plan recommended by district auditor Suplee, Clooney and Company.

The meeting agenda did not include a description of the corrective action plan, which a reporter for NJ News & Views requested from the district through the Open Public Records Act (OPRA).

The corrective action plan approved by the Jackson board at its December 20 meeting stated that the Special Education Office, working with the Business Office, will take greater care completing the application for State Extraordinary Aid.

Under Method of Implementation, the Jackson board's corrective action plan stated the following:

"The Special Education Department will carefully review student files to identify students that meet the state(')s criteria to qualify them for extraordinary aid prior to placing them on the application."

"The Business Office will carefully review the Special Education Department(')s report and backup to ensure further that the application complies with the state(')s criteria. Both departments will maintain files to fully support the application."

"The Business Office will prepare an Extraordinary Aid Manual to be used by both departments."

Anyone seeking to hear the board's recorded discussion as to how it spent UEZ dollars at its December 20 meeting will not be able to do so, whether or not there was a discussion.

According to district spokesperson Allison Erwin, the board did not record its December 20 meeting.

The board's meeting minutes may or may not be reliable as a substitute for an electronic recording.

Four years ago, the Jackson Board of Education reported on an addendum to the June 26, 2007 meeting agenda that the district received two bids for installation of fencing at Liberty High School and had awarded the contract to the lowest bidder.

Board members misinformed the public.

They also misinformed a member of the media that reports to the public.

On June 27, 2007, a reporter for NJ News & Views requested to inspect the bid package and fencing contract under OPRA.

District personnel told the reporter they did not have the contract.

District personnel did not produce a bid package that included completed bid proposals submitted by both bidders either.

Instead, district personnel gave the reporter a bid package with blank forms.

While the reporter did not request a completed bid package, the reporter also did not request a blank bid package.

Under OPRA, officials can respond with a written denial of access letter if the requested document does not exist.

That is not what the board's designated records custodian or the board attorney provided to NJ News & Views.

Had such a document been created by the records custodian, it could have been introduced into evidence in a legal proceeding against the board and its administrators.

An electronic recording of the board's meeting may also be entered into evidence, but only if officials create it.

That may no longer happen during Jackson board meetings.

Just as Lakewood officials are seeking to suppress documented misappropriation of taxpayer dollars by turning off electronic recordings of their meetings, so, too, are Jackson officials.

According to a new policy the Jackson board introduced at its December 20 meeting, but which Erwin said was not read to the public or published in its entirety on the board's meeting agenda, the board will no longer record its meetings electronically.

Although the board has not adopted the policy on second reading, members have already turned off electronic recordings of their meetings, according to Erwin.

The policy permits the board to do the same to electronic video recordings made by any member of the public at their meetings.

"The Board will permit the use of video recording devices only when notice of such intended use has been given to the Board Secretary in advance of the meeting," the policy stated. "The Board Secretary or designee shall review the video recording guidelines with the person requesting to video record."

The policy stated that prior notice was not required to make an audio recording of board meetings.

According to the policy, the board's presiding officer may order the removal of a video recording device permitted during the meeting.

The board policy also calls for any video recording to be turned over to the district for review without a subpoena.

"Any person who video records a public meeting in accordance with the provisions of this Policy shall provide the Board the opportunity to obtain a copy of the recording at the Board's expense, but the Board shall have no power to edit or abridge the original recording," the policy stated.

The policy did not state that Board members were required to return any video recordings confiscated from private parties.

A reporter for NJ News & Views made an OPRA request to inspect the board's current contract for services to draft and review board policies that were scheduled for action in November and December 2011.

Erwin responded to the request by e-mailing a contract for services signed with Strauss Esmay Associates, LLP in 2003, which had a reported expiration date of 2004.

Jackson district policy in the expenditure of UEZ dollars has not met the goals of the UEZ program in that township, anymore than some Lakewood UEZ expenditures that are also not fully reported to the public or the media.

For more than a decade, the board has permitted a public school to be encumbered by a construction lien filed by a contractor's employees seeking to be paid a fair wage for a fair day's work.

On September 6, 2000, attorney Steven A. Berkowitz filed a Municipal Mechanic Lien Claim Notice, signed by Manuel Lambersky, for $11,820.67 against the Jackson Board of Education, owners of the Carl W. Goetz School on which they worked for district contractor King Mechanical Contractors, Inc.

On December 22, NJ News & Views called Lambersky, now 72 and preparing for retirement, for comment.

"We were non-union and (board contractor King Mechanical Contractors, Inc.) paid us a rate for a service worker, not a mechanic," Lambersky told a reporter. "We went to an arbitrator. It became a fiasco. King Mechanical was the problem."

Lambersky said King Mechanical laid off one of the workers right before Thanksgiving.

"He was mad," Lambersky said. "He called the State of New Jersey and it started the whole thing."

Lambersky said the district contractor also failed to pay differential.

The men were employed as pipe fitters working on boilers and heating systems, but were not paid the prevailing wage for their labor, Lambersky said.

"They were paying us the rate of a service worker and we were actually trained to do pipe fitting," Lambersky told the reporter.

Although King settled the labor dispute, Lambersky said he didn't remember speaking with any member of the Jackson board about the labor grievance.

According to documents on file with the county clerk's office, which a county official confirmed was still active in December 2011, the lien still encumbers district public school property assessed in 1999 at a total of $7,318,000, and in 2011 at a total of $10,180,100.

The property's 1999 land assessment value of $878,000 increased to $878,500 by 2011, while the building assessment has increased from $6,440,000 in 1999 to $9,301,600 by 2011.

Berkowitz said in a December 22 interview with NJ News & Views that the labor grievance was settled, but he acknowledged there may be "a communication problem" with the county records office that continues to report district property as encumbered.

The communication problem may be just as costly to Jackson property owners in the future as it was with or without their knowledge a decade ago.

In a report Erwin provided under OPRA, the district reported a continued decline in the number of students enrolled in its public schools.

On October 15, 2010, the district reported to the state that Goetz School had an enrollment of 1,343 students.

On October 14, 2011, the district reported to the state that Goetz School had an enrollment of 1,280 students - a decrease of 63 students, the largest single decline among all 10 Jackson public schools.

If district enrollment continues to decline, taxpayers may not realize any reduction in their property taxes from the sale of the Goetz School as long as it remains encumbered without action by the board.

Unless state officials also intervene to supervise taxpayer dollars invested in the UEZ program, taxpayers will also fail to realize any benefit from their investment in it.

On November 1, 2011, Lakewood received $10,239,410.17 in unspent project funds from the state; $864,871.38 in unspent local administration funds; and $0.00 in unspent jobs program funds, according to a document provided by Ryan.

Total cost to Lakewood shoppers that in large part subsidized the program: $11,104,281.55.

On November 1, 2011, all New Jersey UEZ municipalities received a total of $143,206,335.57 in unspent project funds from the state; $9,542,424.82 in unspent local administration funds; and $105,632.67 in unspent jobs program funds, according to Ryan's document.

Total cost of UEZ funds returned to municipalities without state oversight: $152,854,393.06 - more than 15 percent of $1 billion.

According to findings of a State Auditor's report, Lakewood Township and other audited UEZ municipalities require more state oversight of taxpayer dollars, not less.

According to a Jackson School District auditor, so do UEZ dollars received by the board of education as Extraordinary Aid.

In place of handing UEZ municipalities or New Jersey school districts a blank check subsidized with the proceeds of a regressive state sales tax that shoppers must pay, whether or not they can afford the added cost, state officials could use the money to subsidize a sales-tax-free shopping day statewide. The action would promote job and business growth statewide more effectively than current UEZ public policy.

The business of government is the business of the people. Instead of finding new ways to suppress media coverage of government business, officials must also change public policy to promote government transparency.

Over 35 years ago, New Jersey Governor Brendan Byrne lobbied for passage of the Open Public Meetings Act to accomplish that goal. At that time, there was no social media, there was no World Wide Web and there was no online reporting that reached a wider audience.

Instead of successive gubernatorial administrations updating the Open Public Meetings Act to keep pace with the advances of communications technology, New Jersey officials have shunned the light of public scrutiny by turning it off.

Last year, the Christie administration pulled the plug on the state's television coverage of New Jersey Legislative meetings.

On June 30, 2010, New Jersey stopped funding its public television station, WNJN, which televised state legislative meetings - including budget hearings.

Members of the Jackson Board of Education are ending 2011 on the same repressive note, despite administrative withdrawal of a board policy introduced on November 15 and scheduled for second reading on December 20.

According to the new board policy proposed last month, members would have appointed themselves the arbiters of journalistic ethics by employing guidelines suggested by the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) in order to publicly censure any reporter deemed "unethical."

In a December 2, 2011 report published in the Asbury Park Press, the district's official newspaper, board President Barbara Fiero was quoted as saying the proposed policy would address "people who are calling themselves journalists, but are really just bloggers."

The Asbury Park Press also reported that Fiero said that incorrect information designed to defame Jackson's school board members has been posted on the Internet in the past.

Journalist Phil Stilton of JTown Magazine reported on December 4 that the board policy was directed solely at one journalist.

"A school official who wishes to remain unidentified...told JTOWN Magazine in a phone interview yesterday that the intent of this policy stemmed from the 2007 incident with New Jersey News and Views," Stilton reported, referencing this editor/reporter's OPRA complaint filed against the Jackson board and its records custodian that year.

In a May 30 posting, NJ News & Views reported that the Government Records Council (GRC) had dismissed the complaint this year after declining to identify the person that filed it as a journalist.

The omission is significant.

All members of the Jackson Board of Education are required to sign an Oath of Office to support the Constitutions of the United States and New Jersey, which both protect freedom of the press.

Despite the state's action in dismissing the complaint, journalists will not become an endangered species anytime soon.

Their numbers continue to grow.

In a January 27, 2011 posting by "thequintessential" on a blog entitled "Famous, Infamous and Iconic Photos," the author discussed the power of images to convey a sense of immediacy to current events happening anywhere in the world.

"Revolutions often come from the unlikeliest places: from a shipyard in Gdansk; from a bus in Montgomery; from a prison cell on Robben Island," thequintessential wrote. "But even by these standards, it is difficult to imagine more humble origins than those of Mohamed Bouazizi, the fruit vendor whose self-immolation set in motion the events that would culminate in the first successful revolution in the Arab World."

Thequintessential told readers that shaky images of Bouazizi's suicide, taken by passers-by using their cell phone cameras, were posted on YouTube and shared on Facebook and Twitter. The video reports accelerated the exit of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali from Tunisia, ending his 23-year rule there.

"In the wider Arab world, however, revolution will not be televised, merely because press freedom, as well as democracy, remains elusive," thequintessential wrote. "But the region's geriatric despots are slowly discovering that the Internet is much more difficult to control."

Thequintessential compared the fall of entrenched Arab regimes to the fall of Communism over two decades ago.

"2011 may or may not be another 1989, but for the time being, it is satisfying to entertain the comparisons with that pivotal year when Communism died in Eastern Europe," thequintessential wrote. "Like the Revolution in Hungary…Tunisia had unleashed glimmers of hope, if not winds of change, for the Arab world. Comparisons with 1989 are still (premature), but it is only January, and a year is a long time in politics."