NJ News & Views

[Editor's Note: At 1:05 p.m. on April 12, 2011, this story was edited for style, content and accuracy.]

Every week, emissaries for Lakewood's neediest visit its most generous to ask for alms.

Their chosen vocation may be the township's most dangerous.

Public policy is to blame.

On March 20, The Yeshiva World News reported that Pinchos Ben Sarah Esther Huminer, a 41-year-old Meshulach from Israel, was critically injured after being struck by a vehicle on the evening of the Jewish holiday of Purim.

A Meshulach is a charity collector for a Jewish organization. Often an individual Meshulach may operate as an independent contractor for several different organizations, taking a portion of the proceeds as profit. The percentage retained by the Meshulach is sometimes as high as 49 percent.

According to an August 30, 2009 online report by www.matzav.com, Israeli Meshulachim, the plural for a Meshulach, often rent rooms on a weekly basis at Lakewood's landmark Capitol Motel, where a fire broke out that year.

Since being struck by a motorist, Huminer, the grandson of a prominent Israeli rabbi, has reportedly been residing in a new location - Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune, where he remained in a coma.

Jersey Shore University Medical Center is a member of the Meridian Health Family.

In June 2010, Governor Chris Christie budgeted an additional $60 million in charity care by raising an existing tax on hospitals and using some of that money to leverage more aid from the Federal government.

According to a September 9, 2010 press release, Meridian provided over $40 million in uncompensated charity health care during 2009.

Huminer may require medical care for many years to come.

His wife and 14 children are still living in Israel, where Huminer sent them money he earned in Lakewood before his injury.

A reporter for NJ News & Views requested a copy of the police crash report of the incident. A police records clerk declined access to the report, which she said was incomplete.

Without a police crash report, the state or medical center cannot file a claim against the insurer of any other party involved in the incident that may be liable for Huminer's injuries.

On March 24, Orthodox Jewish media reported that Michoel (Michael) Rottenberg, Shraga (Charles) Pinter and Moshe (Moses) Peretz Schwartz had organized a fund-raising drive on behalf of Huminer, a rabbi, scribe and scholar.

"Tax deductible checks can be made out to “Cong (Congregation) Bais Mordechai” and mailed to 1455 Heathwood Ave. Lakewood NJ 08701," online media reported. "Please write ‘Pinchos Ben Sarah Esther’ in the memo."

A community telephone directory lists Michoel and Gitty Rottenberg as the residents of 1455 Heathwood Avenue, a multi-family parsonage not reported in township or county tax assessment records.

Huminer is part of a growing underground economy of workers that earn a living in the township and its neighboring municipalities, but do not report their earnings to state and Federal tax collectors.

Their business is hurting other businesses that do.

On March 15, just one week earlier, The Lakewood Scoop reported online that the driver hired by a group of Meshulachim was arrested as they drove from door to door seeking donations.

"Cab driver arrested near Kol Shimshon," The Lakewood Scoop headlined its March 15 report, posted at 11:37 p.m.

The post included a photograph taken of a uniformed Lakewood police officer, whose back was to the camera, as he was arresting a man in the rear of a vehicle.

"Police just arrested a driver after the rental vehicle he was driving was reported stolen by the rental company for non payment," the Scoop reported. "Police spotted the vehicle near Kol Shimshon and called for multiple backup units who surrounded the vehicle. The driver, who frequently drives around Meshulachim, was taken into custody."

Congregation Kol Shimshon is located at 323 Squankum Road in Lakewood.

Police reportedly searched an unspecified number of Meshulachim passengers in the vehicle, who were subsequently released.

Because the driver of the transportation service was charged with stealing the rental vehicle, a reporter for NJ News & Views contacted Lakewood Municipal Court Clerk Carol Jenkins and asked if a male was arraigned for grand theft auto after the reported arrest.

Jenkins said no.

A reporter also asked Jenkins if police had issued a summons to the driver of the illegal car service for violation of local ordinance regulating taxi and limousine companies in Lakewood.

Jenkins said no.

Children are no safer than adults when crossing Lakewood streets travelled by unregulated, and often uninsured transportation services.

Last year, Charles Webster of The Asbury Park Press reported that on Wednesday, November 3, Yisroel Krieger, 29, Bristol Court, was driving a 2007 Toyota Sienna minivan when he struck a 13-year-old middle school student in a school crosswalk on 7th Street at 2:25 p.m.
  
Krieger reportedly drove around a barrier before he struck the boy as he walked in a crosswalk to board a school bus, Lakewood Patrolman Erik Menck reportedly told Webster. The barrier warns drivers the road is closed from 2 to 2:30 p.m. on weekdays to allow students to cross the street during dismissal from school.
 
The 8th grade boy was taken to Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune with a broken arm, concussion and road rash, Menck told Webster.
 
Krieger was reportedly transporting a woman and a 4-year-old child at the time of the incident.

According to www.manta.com, Krieger is the owner of Sruly's Heimish Delivery LLC, located at 167 Bristol Court - a residential home in Lakewood.

According to sources, he also delivers passengers to their destinations as well as goods to market. .
 
Webster reported that Krieger was charged with reckless driving, failure to maintain a traffic lane, failure to stop for a pedestrian in a crosswalk and not having a child seat in the vehicle for the 4-year-old.

Menck reportedly told Webster that the investigation was ongoing and that additional charges were possible.

Last month, a reporter for NJ News & Views requested to inspect a copy of the Lakewood Police Crash Report of the incident. Police referred the reporter to the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office.

A designated spokesman for the prosecutor's office declined to be identified or quoted on the record. He said the case had been remanded back to Lakewood Municipal Court a week earlier. However, Lakewood Municipal Court Clerk Carol Jenkins said she had not received any notification from the county prosecutor's office confirming the spokesman's assertion.

The reporter asked Jenkins if a summons was also issued to Krieger for violation of township ordinance regulating Lakewood taxis and limousines.

Jenkins said no.

Township police have publicly asserted they attempted to conduct stings of the illegal transportation services, but were unsuccessful.

Two years ago, Lakewood Compliance Officer Leonard (Smitty) Smith, a former police officer, told members of the Lakewood Transportation and Safety Board he was unable to appear at municipal court hearings of summonses issued to illegal transportation owners and operators that were based on his complaints.

Without Smith's testimony, a municipal court judge dismissed the complaints.

As the township has grown, so has the number of citizens seeking to make an unreported living providing unregulated transportation services.

The money they make does not subsidize the increase in cost of services they use, such as road repair and construction.

On March 31, The Lakewood Scoop reported that over the past several months, there had been a sharp increase in the number of flat tires in town.

"Tire repair shops, as well as Chaveirim, (are) blaming it on poor road conditions," The Scoop reported. "One local tire repair shop says their flat tire repairs jobs have more than doubled over the last two months. Chaveirim tells TLS, they have also seen a significant increase in flat tire calls over the last few months.

Chaveirim is a non-profit organization providing many of the same services that for-profit and township-regulated tow companies also provide, but at no cost to the public.

The Scoop quoted a Chaveirim dispatcher, who said the service organization was receiving a minimum of 15 calls daily for assistance changing flat tires.
 
"So whose responsibility is it to fix the potholes?" The Scoop rhetorically asked in its report.
 
The answer is taxpayers, which The Scoop also acknowledged in its report.
 
"DPW Superintendent Tony Arrechi tells TLS they have a crew out every day filling potholes," The Scoop reported last month.

The problem is spreading beyond Lakewood.

www.merchantcircle.com provides online listings of travel and lodging businesses located in the Ocean-Monmouth area.

Since January 2011, Local Limo Taxi & Car Service of Jackson has been a member of Merchant Circle.

Although the company stated it was located in Jackson, the telephone number the company provided on its listing was for a land line located in Lakewood, according to www.anywho.com.

So was the listing for Sunsational Vacations LLC of Jackson.

Until 2007, Kiddie Cab was located at 6 Bittersweet Drive in Jackson before the owners moved to Freehold. The Jackson address is located in a residential neighborhood in the R-3 zone.

Unlike Lakewood, neither Jackson nor Freehold require businesses located there to pay a fee for a mercantile license.

Since last year, Jackson has furloughed municipal employees every Friday, with the exception of police and possibly one other public employee - part-time Jackson Mayor Michael Reina.

Last year, Reina received an offer of full-time employment with the state Department of Transportation (DOT). According to media reports, after public opposition, Governor Chris Christie told Reina he had to give up his part-time salary - but not his full-time job with the DOT, which was a conflict of interest with his duties as mayor of Jackson.

Reina may not have given up either salary. He may also be receiving benefits from both positions.

From January 14-20, a reporter exchanged e-mail correspondence with Jackson Township Clerk Ann Marie Eden after making an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request. The reporter requested 2010 earnings documents the mayor must receive at the end of the year from the township that pays him in order to file a state and Federal tax return.

The reporter also asked Eden for the value of the mayor's benefit package.

Jackson Township Clerk Ann Marie Eden provided a computer printout of the mayor's monthly earnings up to the month he reportedly announced he would give up his salary as mayor at the request of the governor.

Eden did not provide a copy of Reina's W-2 Wage and Tax Statement from the township, nor did she ask the reporter for further clarification of the request - a legal precedent established by the Government Records Council (GRC) that adjudicates complaints it receives under the Open Public Records Act.

Eden did respond to the reporter's request for benefits information.

"Benefits are not disclosable," Eden told the reporter in a January 20 e-mail response.

The reporter asked Eden if she was responding under advice of counsel.

Eden did not answer the reporter's question.

Jackson Township Attorney George Gilmore not only bills township officials he helps elect to office, according to a September 24, 2003 article published in the Asbury Park Press, he was vested in the state's pension plan, too.

"(In 2002), Gilmore's law firm of Gilmore & Monahan was paid $1,193,964 through no-bid contracts from GOP-controlled municipalities," reporter Jean Mikle told readers. "Although Gilmore is a private lawyer who works as a contractor for the government agencies, the salaries he was paid added thousands of dollars to his taxpayer-funded pension plan."

Mikle reported that Gilmore earned $196,504 in 2002 from four public jobs he held, including counsel to Republicans in the state Senate.

One of those state Senators is Robert Singer, a Lakewood resident whose 30th District Legislative office is located in Jackson.

Since 2005, Singer and Assemblymen Ronald Dancer and Joe Malone III have employed Lakewood Township Committeeman Menashe Miller as a community liaison.

For 30 years, Singer was a dual office holder that also represented Lakewood as a member of the township committee.

Last year, Christie reportedly requested that Singer, unlike Reina, not seek to run for local office while employed in a state position.

Christie reportedly did not ask Singer to give up his part-time salary and benefits as a committeeman - which a records custodian for Lakewood Township, not Jackson Township, disclosed upon request.

The governor did not reportedly ask Miller to give up any of the three part-time salaries he earns and any additional benefits he receives working for each of the 30th District state legislators, Lakewood Township or the Federal government, which employs him as a United States Air Force chaplain.

On March 12, a reporter made an online OPRA request to the New Jersey Governor's Office.

"Please e-mail all 2010 correspondence between the governor and/or his office and Jackson Mayor Michael Reina, Lakewood Committeeman/State Senator Robert Singer and Lakewood Committeeman Menashe Miller regarding their dual or multiple public employment positions. Thank you for your assistance."

On March 23, the governor's legal counsel - not the governor - responded to the request by denying it.

"This request is overbroad and improper," Assistant Counsel Raymond A. Brandes wrote the reporter on department letterhead received as an attachment from his secretary, Sallye Giordano. "OPRA is a records law, not an "information" law."

The reporter disagreed.

"Had the governor or Mr. Brandes asked me to be more specific with regard to my OPRA request, before or after I called their offices on March 21, they might have been able to fulfill it," the reporter responded by e-mail. "Instead, they sought a legal argument at taxpayer expense to deny access to public documents."

Just as Reina, Singer and Miller create a conflict of interest when they accept more than one public sector job, the governor creates a conflict of interest by improperly denying access to a member of the media.
 
"Each elected official in this state takes an oath of office to support the Constitutions of the United States and New Jersey," the reporter continued in the e-mail. "Those Constitutions each protect freedom of the press. Information improperly denied me is information improperly denied my readers as well."

One of the governor's responsibilities is appointing members to the GRC that would hear any complaint of improper denial of access under OPRA by his office, creating a further conflict of interest.

The governor not only appoints members of the GRC, he also appoints members of the state's Urban Enterprise Zone Authority (UEZA), which oversees Urban Enterprise Zone (UEZ) programs in municipalities that include Lakewood.

On March 12, NJ News & Views made an online OPRA request for UEZA documents.

The UEZA is part of the state Department of Community Affairs (DCA).

"Please make CD copies of the recordings of the February 9 and March 9, 2011 meetings of the Urban Enterprise Zone Authority (UEZA)," a reporter wrote. "If no electronic records were made of either of those meetings, please provide that reason in a written denial of access e-mail or letter. Thank you for your assistance."

The reporter attended the February 9, 2011 UEZA meeting, which was not electronically recorded as it was in 2005 - the same year the state was scheduled to hear a request by Lakewood to modify the township's UEZ boundaries.

According to a UEZA records custodian, who responded to the reporter's 2009 request for a recording of the meeting at which Lakewood's UEZ boundary request was also scheduled to be heard, the authority decided to stop recording its meetings.

That same year, Singer, then Lakewood mayor, told members of the public and NJ News & Views that under the state Open Public Meetings Act, he was not required to electronically record township meetings.

After Republicans gained a majority on the Lakewood Township Committee in 2009, Singer not only hired fellow state Senator Sean T. Kean as legal counsel to the Lakewood Development Corporation (LDC), which oversees the township UEZ, his administration hired Gilmore as a special counsel.

In January 2011, so did Miller, this year's Lakewood mayor.

Miller still works for Singer.

After a bipartisan redistricting plan was recently announced, Miller could be working for both Singer and Kean next year if voters approve a plan by Gilmore to have Singer run for re-election unopposed in the primary by Kean, who will instead run for one of the two vacated 30th District Assembly seats.

Kean will also continue to work for Miller and the rest of the Lakewood Township Committee.

Last month, committeemen ironically approved his hire as municipal court conflict attorney.

His services may not be needed.

For years, police chaplains that also have conflicts of interest have been appointed to the unpaid position that carries the rank of captain, but which current state law does not recognize as an ethics violation.

Rabbi Yisroel Schenkolewski is not only a member of the clergy, but a member of a political interest group that makes endorsements for elected office.

Committee members are elected officials.

No member currently serving on the Lakewood Township Committee has been elected or appointed without the endorsement of Schenkolewski's political interest group, the Vaad.

Although Schenkolewski makes political endorsements for elected office, he, as well as Gilmore, are Republican members of the Ocean County Board of Elections.

In 2005 and in 2009, police chaplain Usher Feiner used his official position as police chaplain in a ticket-fixing scandal benefiting his wife.

According to a May 24, 2009 report by the Asbury Park Press, a Lakewood municipal prosecutor asked that a speeding ticket issued to Feiner's wife be dismissed because the police radar used to clock her speed had malfunctioned.

Police denied that the radar unit, used to issue speeding summonses to four other drivers in a 7-day period, had malfunctioned.

By using his influence to have the speeding ticket issued to his wife dismissed, Feiner may have cost taxpayers needed revenue generated by other speeding tickets issued to motorists clocked with the same radar unit.

Instead of paying his wife's fines and setting an example for all motorists to drive through Lakewood safely, Feiner set a poor example of government ethics.

Lakewood's UEZ fund subsidizes the hire of police officers that patrol the township. As chairman of the Lakewood Development Corporation (LDC), Rabbi Avrohom (Abraham) Muller continues to participate in votes to pay UEZ officers because he does not receive a salary as a police chaplain.

Muller is also a member of the same political interest group as Schenkolewski.

The Lakewood Township Committee appoints members to the LDC based on recommendations of political interest groups that help elect them.

So does the governor.

In November 2010, the governor appointed a new executive director to the UEZA.

Despite a report last year by the state auditor, which found evidence of malfeasance in several UEZ municipalities - including Lakewood - Christie replaced acting UEZA Director Kathleen Kube, who worked as a part-time bookkeeper in her husband's automotive repair business, with real estate attorney Peter B. Lijoi.

In 2009, the same year the UEZA stopped recording public meetings or transcribing them, Lijoi's employer, Fairfield Residential LLC, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

"Fairfield Residential LLC, one of the nation's largest apartment owners and developers, filed for bankruptcy on Sunday, the latest casualty of the turmoil engulfing the U.S. real-estate market," The Wall Street Journal reported on December 14, 2009. "Fairfield, which has built some 64,000 apartments, condominiums and off-campus student-housing units throughout the country, failed amid an inability to refinance debt or sell investment properties. That left the private San Diego, Calif., company with a litany of near-term maturities on debts related to various development projects and other investments."

In 2010, Lijoi's employer, Fairfield Residential LLC, emerged from bankruptcy.

The public will never know whether his work contributed to the company's decision to file for bankruptcy or its success in emerging from it.

Because the state does not require all officials to file a financial disclosure upon their appointment to public office, even in an advisory capacity, no ethics disclosure was posted on the state's Web site for Lijoi, even though he continues to participate in UEZA votes to spend taxpayer dollars.

The state UEZ program was approved in 1983 to bring jobs and commerce to designated urban municipalities, such as Lakewood. Instead of helping businesses already located in town to thrive there, state and local officials are spending taxpayer dollars to drive them out.

Their plan is working, at taxpayer expense.

Last month, the Lakewood Township Committee approved the appointment of Yisroel (Steven) Reinman as Deputy Township Manager, even though the office of the township manager oversees Reinman's expenditures as executive director of economic development.

Last year, the township committee approved a pay raise and increase in Reinman's duties. He now oversees the LDC as well as the Lakewood Industrial Commission.

The Lakewood Industrial Park is the second largest in the state.

A reporter asked Lakewood Township Manager Michael Muscillo prior to the start of the committee meeting how much Reinman would earn as deputy township manager. Township Attorney Jan Wouters held up his hand and made a circle with his thumb and forefinger, indicating zero dollars.

That doesn't mean Reinman's services are not costing taxpayer dollars.

During the March 23 meeting of the industrial commission, which a reporter heard on tape, members discussed a request by Coni-Seal to terminate its land lease agreement with Lakewood. According to the taped discussion, Coni-Seal paved over environmentally sensitive land regulated by the Coastal Area Facility Review Act (CAFRA). Upon termination of the land lease, Coni-Seal or the township will have to remove the unapproved impervious coverage and restore the property to its original condition.

Members also discussed correspondence from Avallone Partners LLC, which also requested to terminate the company's land lease. However, Avallone Partners had mortgaged industrial commission property to Ocean First Bank, which the bank reportedly failed to release upon termination of the land lease.

"The LIC adopted a resolution accepting Avallone's termination on December 8, 2010," Wouters wrote in a March 17 letter to attorney Elizabeth M. Durkin. "Please be advised that if we do not receive a release of this lien against LIC's property within 30 days, we will have no alternative but to seek the court's intervention."

The township may not only require taxpayer dollars to enforce public policy in the industrial park, it may need to spend them to defend public policy there.

In a March 4 letter addressed to Reinman, Victor P. Iorio of Iorio Construction Company and Iorio Realty at 700 Vassar Avenue discussed 725 Vassar Avenue. Iorio said the neighboring 218,000 square-foot commercial and industrial property was being sold to the Cheder School.

"My concern (is) the safety of the students/children expected to be schooled (there)," Iorio wrote Reinman. "It is anticipated that there will be approximately 1,200 to 1,500 students/children at this facility, which amounts to 40 to 50 school buses every morning and afternoon transporting students/children in and out of the industrial park."

Iorio said the increased number of buses and students in the industrial park created a dangerous situation there.

"Directly across from this proposed school is the main entrance and exit servicing a major United Parcel Service facility which has anywhere from 40 to 50 large trucks entering and exiting each morning and late afternoon," Iorio said. "(This poses) a potential traffic nightmare."

Iorio acknowledged his company, Iorio Realty, had brokered the sale of one of two industrial park properties at 410 and 510 Oberlin Avenue South to schools. However, he asserted that the size of each of the 35,000-square-foot properties was so small, there was minimal impact on other industrial park tenants.

The sale of any tax ratable to any size school costs taxpayer dollars the township no longer receives and establishes a legal precedent in the industrial park, where schools are a permitted use.

Iorio said that sale of 725 Oberlin Avenue to a much larger school would result in a significant loss of revenue from township tax rolls.

"At 218,000 per s/f with a tax rate of $2.308 per $100 that amounts to over $258,500 per year in lost revenue to the township," Iorio wrote Reinman. "Lakewood Township, like many towns today, has its budget problems and cannot afford to lose this ratable. Additionally, I expect this sale will negatively affect the surrounding property values."

Iorio told Reinman other industrial park tenants shared his concern about the pending sale to Cheder School.

"Any continuation of this trend will force existing companies to move elsewhere out of Lakewood Township, resulting in future dire consequences for all of the citizens of Lakewood," Iorio wrote.

He indicated those consequences would defeat the purpose of the UEZ program in Lakewood.

Instead of promoting safe, productive environments for commercial businesses in the UEZ, public policy may cause them to leave town, taking jobs and property tax payments with them.

According to Iorio, some of those companies considering leaving are Jerry's Marine Service, Utica Stone, Roben Manufacturing, Creative Film Corp., Red the Uniform Tailor, Harold Imports, Humble Warehouse & Distribution, Worthington Biochemical, Aviv Associates, and Imperial Tile.

Iorio told Reinman the owner of Block 1601 Lot 4, proposed for sale to the Cheder School, was W.P. Carey of 50 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City and that the real estate company handling the sale was Grubb and Ellis, headquartered in Santa Ana, California.

"In light of the serious and clear safety problems in allowing a private school to operate at 725 Vassar Avenue (in) the Lakewood Industrial Park…I have retained counsel…to represent me and my legitimate concerns and interests in the above matter," Iorio told Reinman.

The industrial commission does not have the authority to tell schools where they may or may not open for business.

The Lakewood Township Committee does.

Members are continuing to promulgate public policy that favors schools and housing over business and industry.

At their April 7 meeting, committeemen approved an ordinance on second reading that rezoned Route 70, a heavily-trafficked retail corridor in the B-5 Highway Development Zone, for conditional use Mixed-Use Townhouse Development.

The change will likely increase the number and size of non-public schools opening throughout the township.

One of those sites may be the Towne and Country Shopping Center at 1900 Route 70, which the UEZA recently approved for inclusion in the Lakewood UEZ.

According to the Merchant Circle online list, AAA Travel is located in the Towne and Country Shopping Center in Suite 300B.

According to the Ocean County Clerk's Web site, the owner of the shopping center is not paying any taxes on the property where AAA Travel is located.

Merchant Circle also listed A Local Limo, located at 2275 West County Line Road in Jackson, which the Ocean County Clerk's Web site also reported paid no property taxes.

The address is the location of the Bennetts Mills Plaza shopping center.

Until 2007, Jackson Township received the owner's permission to use the shopping center's supermarket parking lot as the location of a Park and Ride for commuters taking bus transportation to New York City.

On April 4, a reporter for NJ News & Views asked Jackson Township Clerk Ann Marie Eden if three of the transportation companies listed on www.merchantcircle.com were registered with the municipality as taxi, limousine or car service companies.

Registered taxi, limousine and car service companies pay a fee to the township.

Eden, who works at the pleasure of the mayor and council, refused.

"That's not my job," she told the reporter.