NJ News & Views

[Editor's Note: At 9:36 a.m. on May 19, 2011, this story was edited for style, content and accuracy.]

The most expensive cup of coffee in Lakewood is not being served by a barista or by a 4-star restaurant.

It is available for self-service in Town Hall, where the grinding sound of a single-serve coffee maker used by officials of the Lakewood Industrial Commission (LIC), eating lunch at their May 11 meeting, drowned out their taped discussion of public expenditures.

Commissioners and public officials had good reason to mute their discussion. The commission, which generates revenue through the sale or lease of public land in the Lakewood Industrial Park, can no longer afford to pay its bills.

Members are expecting the township to pay their bills for them.

"At this point, we are still extremely cash-poor in finances," Executive Assistant Anita Doyle told Commissioners during the meeting. "We're expecting another bill (list) next quarter, which we'll have to turn over to the township (for payment)."

Doyle is Executive Assistant to Yisroel (Steven) Reinman, Executive Director of Economic Development/LDC.

Reinman directs the Lakewood Industrial Commission and the publicly-owned Lakewood Airport, which is managed by the Lakewood Development Corporation (LDC) Reinman also oversees.

The LDC oversees the township's Urban Enterprise Zone (UEZ) program, which includes the Lakewood Industrial Park.

The Lakewood Township Committee recently appointed Reinman to the position of Deputy Township Manager.

The Office of the Township Manager oversees expenditures by all township agencies, including the industrial commission and the LDC.

For years, taxpayers have funded the commissioners' annual Reorganization dinner and monthly luncheon meetings, which few members of the public have been able to attend in the middle of the work day.

During the May 11 meeting of the Lakewood Industrial Commission, taxpayers continued to cater lunch for commissioners that attended the monthly noonday meeting without them.

On May 11, a reporter for NJ News & Views was the sole member of the public that attended the meeting.

Following the luncheon meeting, the reporter made an OPRA request for bills and invoices documenting its cost.

In response, Doyle provided a May 11 receipt to NJ News & Views for $68.85 - the cost of the luncheon foods purchased at Bagel Nosh on Clifton Avenue and 4th Street to cater the meeting.

Lunch included half-a-dozen bagels at $3.90; four additional bagels at 65 cents each; a dozen donuts for $8.00; two Danish/muffins at $1.50 each; cookie/apple donut at $1.25 each; 10 bags of potato chips at 35 cents each for a total of $3.50; and a quart of milk for $3.00. Non-taxable items also listed on the receipt, but not identified, were purchased at a cost of $12.52; $7.91; $4.67; $5.21; $12.29; and $1.00.

In addition to foods purchased for the monthly luncheon meetings, the May 11 industrial commission bill list included a charge of $78.66 from Watchung Spring Water Co. Inc. for "meeting refreshment costs," bringing the total cost of lunch to $147.51.

Although there are seven members currently appointed to the industrial commission, all members were not present at the May 11 luncheon meeting.

Industrial Commission members that attended the luncheon meeting were Chairman Robert Kirschner, Secretary Justin Flancbaum, and Commissioners Neil Brooks and Gregory Stafford-Smith.

Also present were Doyle, Reinman and commission attorney Sean Gertner.

Vice-Chairman Shlomo Katz and Commissioners Jeffrey Golub and Charles Silberburg did not attend the May 11 meeting.

Township Committee liaison Steven Langert attended the meeting as commissioners prepared to go into executive session. Although Langert did not attend the public session, he also lunched with commissioners and township officials - at taxpayer expense.

In a telephone interview later that day, Doyle defended the cost of the luncheon meetings. She said busy executives that took time out of their day to attend the meeting deserved to have lunch during it.

Her assertion is for the public to decide, but they may not be sufficiently informed to do so.

Throughout the entire year of 2010, no industrial commission meeting minutes were posted on the township Web site, which the industrial commission continued to subsidize in partnership with the LDC.

The township could no longer afford to pay its share in 2010, according to documents requested by NJ News & Views under OPRA.

No township official or member of the township committee has publicly proposed that the time of the meeting be changed to accommodate the public that also works and pays its bills.

Should any member of the public request to hear industrial commission business conducted on a recording of the May 11 meeting, they will be unable to do so over the intermittent grinding sound of the coffee maker used during lunch.

Doyle said the self-serve coffee maker was brought to the meeting room at the request of a commissioner that asked for coffee, but did not identify the commissioner that purportedly requested it.

Most commissioners appointed to the Lakewood Industrial Commission are real estate developers that own their own business.

Business owners are not only benefiting from their appointment to the commission with a free lunch at taxpayer expense, others that do business with Lakewood may be benefiting from gifts they are giving township officials.

At the February 3 meeting of the Lakewood Township Committee, members held first reading of an ordinance to rezone the Corporate Campus/Stadium Support Zone in the B-6 zone to permit facilities for the collection, recycling and processing of organic waste into energy.

The area includes the Lakewood Industrial Park.

For more than a decade, an increasing number of for-profit businesses have moved out of the industrial park, while non-public schools and non-profit organizations have taken their place.

In February, one company proposed to reverse that trend.

During the township committee meeting, representatives of Organic Diversion, LLC of Marlton made a presentation for construction of a proposed $30 million facility to recycle commercial food operation waste into low-cost energy. According to the representative, a $250,000 self-contained organics compactor would make up to 25 trips per day on designated truck routes, servicing area customers.

Lakewood Township ordinance permits mixed-use development in all zones, including commercial food operations that Organic Diversion would service.

The more successful Organic Diversion becomes, the greater the cost to New Jersey taxpayers that subsidize the repair of local, county and state roadways its waste compactor would travel - including the industrial park's interior roads.

NJ News & Views reported the proposed project in a February 8 posting.

On April 12, www.lakewood246.com reported a trip to Germany made one week earlier by Reinman, Mayor Menashe Miller and Lakewood Tax Assessor Ed Seeger as guests of Organic Diversion.

"The trip, funded fully by Organic Diversion at no expense to taxpayers, was an intense 52 hours of traveling and touring facilities coupled with meetings with the top brass at Viessman Technology, a key technology supplier for Organic Diversion," Miller reportedly told a reporter for the news site.

The site also told readers, "The trio of Miller, Reinman and Seeger (who was along to be able to properly assess the cost and tax base of such a facility in Lakewood) addressed their concerns to the Organic Diversion representatives who worked with the Lakewood officials on satisfying their needs."

Private sector companies that make gifts to public officials, such as free trips, gain an advantage their competitors do not.

More importantly, many companies have a built-in advertising/marketing/public relations budget that increases the cost of their goods or services to consumers. The result is that any company lobbying public officials with offers of a free trip cannot provide as great a savings to their constituents, even if the offer to "go green" is publicized by local government at a cost-savings to taxpayers.

There are exceptions.

The Lakewood Industrial Commission has succeeded in going green at a savings to taxpayers.

Instead of printing out meeting agendas on paper manufactured through deforestation, the Lakewood Industrial Commission May 11 meeting agenda was posted on the township Web site.

Doyle told NJ News & Views she would have offered her copy of the meeting agenda to any member of the public that had shown up during the May 11 luncheon and requested one.

Members of the public may have received a commission meeting agenda, but not necessarily a free meal.

The privileged expect a free meal, while the disadvantaged hope for one.

Every weekday, members of the public show up in government offices to apply for a free or reduced cost meal through Federally-funded programs such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), known in New Jersey as the Food Stamp program, which provides a nutritional safety net for low-income households, and WIC, which provides nutritional supplements for women, infants and children.

According to www.writefromkaren.com, the eponymous blog of a stay-at-home wife and mother, government continues to promote the myth of a free lunch to taxpayers at the expense of society's most vulnerable citizens.

In an April 12 posting, Karen discussed public policy enacted six years earlier by a principal at a Chicago school. The principal reportedly sought to have all students eat healthier meals at school in place of unhealthy meals some students brought from home. Karen maintained that government contractors benefited from the policy, not necessarily students, their families or taxpayers.

"People who do NOT qualify for free or reduced-fee lunches have to PAY for their children's (school) lunches every day and (many of) those people CAN'T afford to do so every day," Karen wrote. "It would be MUCH cheaper to buy a family pack of deli meat and a loaf of bread (ever heard of day old bread? CHEAP), and get several days worth of lunches from that food than to pay for one lunch their child may, or may not, eat."

Karen said the policy did not benefit parents or taxpayers.

"No matter how you slice this issue, government intervention is NOT THE ANSWER," she wrote.