NJ News & Views

[Editor's Note: At 7:42 p.m. on September 1, 2010, this story was edited for style, content and accuracy.]

There is no metered parking in Lakewood, but for many motorists driving there, the days of free municipal parking will soon be over.

The township is one step closer to operating a paid municipal parking lot instead of the free municipal parking garage that was discussed for years.

At the August 19 meeting of the Lakewood Township Committee, the three members present unanimously approved an ordinance on second reading that establishes a municipal impound yard.

For a nominal fee of $25, police will store abandoned vehicles; vehicles owned by drivers charged with DWI (drinking while intoxicated); disabled vehicles involved in "serious" or fatal crashes; vehicles confiscated as evidence; and vehicles seized under violations of Title 39 or 2C, or for investigative purposes.

Owners will pay a much higher price to get their vehicles back.

Police will serve as collection agents for registered tow services that remove the impounded vehicles at a cost of $150 for each vehicle with a gross vehicle weight of less than 15,000 pounds, as well as any extraordinary or additional fee charged by the towing service, and $250 for all vehicles with a gross vehicle weight of 15,000 pounds or greater, as well as any extraordinary or additional fee charged by the towing service.

A related ordinance scheduled for first reading was carried at the August 19 meeting. The ordinance would further amend the township code book to include a winch fee.

Township ordinance defines a motor vehicle as any automobile, omnibus, road tractor, trailer, truck, truck tractor and vehicle according to R.S.39:1-1.

The impound ordinance has registered township tow operator Joe Barina of Barina Automotive seething.

According to Barina, who publicly addressed the township committee during the meeting's public forum, Mayor Steven Langert, Police Chief Robert Lawson and Township Manager Michael Muscillo met with him, listened to Barina's concerns, then committeemen adopted an ordinance in violation of fees established by the state Department of Community Affairs (DCA) to tow specified vehicle weights.

"You took it from 8,500 pounds (down) to 1,500 pounds," Barina said. "That's $150 to pick up a dump truck."

He said that vehicles as heavy as 8,500 pounds could not be towed without special equipment, which Barina Automotive owned.

"You're going to tow a heavy duty truck for $250?" Barina asked. "If (its) overweight, you can't (even) tow it."

Barina charged that instead of working with him in good faith to negotiate a compromise, committeemen adopted an ordinance that illegally reduced the state's established towing weights and fee schedule to eliminate the need for Barina's services.

Barina, who said he has not received any consumer complaints, repeated Langert's response upon hearing Barina's opposition to the reduced fees tow operators will receive under the revised ordinance.

"You told me, 'You don't like it, get off our tow list'," Barina said.

According to Barina, the public will not like committeemen's action either.

"You're going to work with them?" Barina asked, referring to the large number of Lakewood motorists that cannot afford the fees to recover a towed vehicle. "You're going to take their car and sell it!"

The township needs the money.

At the same committee meeting, members approved a resolution to adopt a corrective action plan based on an audit of the 2009 municipal budget.

Auditors for the firm of Holman & Frenia, P.C. in Medford provided two recommendations that committeemen adopted.

Audit recommendation #1 advised the township that the Lakewood Tax Collector be separately bonded in order to comply with New Jersey State statute, but did not identify the specific statute requiring it.

Audit recommendation #2 advised the township that an analysis of all tax overpayment transactions be maintained and reconciled on a monthly basis.

According to sources, a complaint was filed with the state last year that charged the township with discriminatory practices in the collection of property taxes. The complainant alleged that the township refunded tax overpayments by some property owners, while adjusting the future tax bills of other property owners.

Public policy may have depleted public coffers.

A copy of the proposed municipal budget introduced on May 6, 2009 reported that the state Division of Local Government Services (DLGS) had approved deferral of $10,008,958.73 in payment of July school taxes to the district until August.

The 2009 municipal budget appendix disclosed that the township had $10,299,837.65 in surplus on December 31, 2007 and $7,031,705.58 in surplus on December 31, 2008.

By padding the 2009 municipal budget with over $10 million in school taxes that were not be paid to the district for a month, the township committee projected a $5.5 million surplus on paper that it did not have in its treasury to close an approximate $4.5 million municipal budget shortfall.

A reporter for NJ News & Views asked Langert during the August 19 meeting for the total overpayment of all tax refunds referenced in the auditor's corrective action plan recommendation. Langert did not provide the amount.

The reporter also asked Muscillo for the total. Muscillo, who recently succeeded former Township Manager Frank Edwards, returned the reporter's call, but did not provide the requested total either.

Jerry Conaty of Holman & Frenia, who conducted the 2009 Lakewood municipal audit, did not return a reporter's voicemail request for comment.

Attorney Jan Wouters, an associate of Township Attorney Lawrence E. Bathgate II, did respond to the reporter's request for the specific state statute requiring the township tax collector to be separately bonded.

Wouters, who sits on the dais with Bathgate at committee meetings and responds in place of Bathgate to all legal matters, told the reporter in an August 23 e-mail, "I have no idea what you are talking about."

In 2009, committeemen budgeted $615,500 for legal services and costs.

In 2010, committeemen budgeted $650,000 for legal services and costs.

The reporter asked Senator Robert Singer, Lakewood mayor of 2009, for the state statute referenced in the corrective action plan.

Singer, who did not attend the August 19 committee meeting, did not return the reporter's request for comment.

In a township with the largest Urban Enterprise Zone (UEZ) in the state, public policy promulgated at the state and local level in conflict with Singer's role as state senator and Lakewood committeemen has resulted in the continuing loss of small businesses that pay township fees, not just township property taxes.

Last year, Langert met with Lakewood taxi owners. He proposed legalizing unregistered transportation service companies in competition with registered taxi companies by calling them car services.

All of the taxi owners that attended the meeting stated their opposition to the proposed change.

Despite taxi owners' opposition, Singer voted to approve a change in state statute the following spring that accomplished the same purpose.

One month before Langert met with registered taxi owners, Howell Township adopted an ordinance in September 2009 that reflected the proposed state change months before state legislators approved it.

One week before state legislators approved the change, the Jackson Township Council removed an ordinance scheduled for first reading on the March 23, 2010 meeting agenda that also would have reflected state changes before state legislators adopted them.

The Jackson council reintroduced the ordinance and adopted it the following month.

In a letter dated February 2, 2010, provided to NJ News & Views under the Open Public Records Act (OPRA), Jackson businessman Patrick McHale asked local government to include car service in Chapter 97 of the township code book, which regulates taxi and limousine service.

"Our insurance company finds the auto registration classifying our car as a taxi in conflict with the true description (of) a "car service" car," McHale told council members.

According to Diane Iannarone of Leisure Hack, registered in Lakewood and Brick, there is no difference between a taxi and a car service.

"Whether you call my service a taxi or a car service, its still the same operation," Iannarone told NJ News & Views. "We do not cruise; everything is done by phone appointments that log the pick-up location and the destination. So what's the difference between my transportation service and a car service? This is what we've been doing for 38 years."

Not anymore, according to amended state statute, which now refers to car service as a separate classification of for-hire transportation.

While Singer did not sponsor the legislation, his participation in the legislative vote to approve it was a conflict of interest.

He should have abstained.

Since he didn't abstain, he should have voted no.

For years, Lakewood taxi owners have told committeemen and members of the Transportation and Safety Board that unregistered transportation companies, some driving unmarked vehicles with darkened windows and out of state plates, were soliciting fares at locations around town that included the Lakewood bus station, which has a leased taxi stand, and the local ShopRite supermarket. Owners of registered taxi services produced numerous business cards that illegal transportation companies were handing out to the public.

For years, committeemen and township officials have failed to prove they issued a single summons to the unregistered transportation company owners - which would have generated revenue to the township, as well as ensured the public's safety.

Unlike Lakewood, Jackson and Howell Townships did not have any opposition to the change in local ordinance.

A reporter for NJ News & Views made an OPRA request for the names of all taxis registered in Howell and Jackson. Officials for both municipalities reported that no taxi service was currently registered to operate in either township.

That doesn't mean limousine and car service providers registered in Howell and Jackson are not in competition with taxi operators registered in Lakewood.

Iannarone said Lakewood officials also delayed the processing of applicants seeking to drive her taxis, further hindering her ability to make a living in town.

Lakewood public policy was funded by state and Federal grants to grow local business.

In 1983, the state approved the UEZ program in designated urban municipalities that later included Lakewood in order to promote commerce and jobs.

The UEZ fund is generated by the interest earned on loans to qualified businesses and by a reduced state sales tax that goes to the municipality.

Years earlier, Lakewood officials also approved a program to reclaim wildcat lots located throughout the township that could be redeveloped to accomplish the same goal as the state's UEZ program.

In September 1960, the Lakewood Township Committee created the Lakewood Housing Authority and Redevelopment Agency to develop affordable housing, schools and commercial business in town after Lakewood's hotel era ended.

Later that decade, committee members also created the Lakewood Industrial Commission to administer land to which it recovered title through an In Rem foreclosure department established at the time.

Half-a-century later, township officials are nurturing and growing unregulated home-based businesses that do not report taxable income, instead of tax ratables that generate township fees and pay Federal and state income taxes.

At the August 19, 2010 township committee meeting, committeemen approved an ordinance on second reading that amends the township code book, referred to as a Unified Development Ordinance (UDO).

The ordinance exempts residential property owners from applying to the Lakewood Planning Board for site plan approval, provided the change is not from a residential to a non-residential use.

As amended, the ordinance now requires that residential property owners also seek planning board administrative approval if the zoning officer determines that an addition is planned to a residential lot for a non-residential accessory use.

Residential property owners seeking a change of use to a non-residential use or a non-residential accessory use must submit a copy of the site plan; an executed Site Plan Exemption Checklist, together with all the items listed in Section A "Administrative Data" of the Site Plan Exemption Checklist; an application fee of $250; and an escrow fee of $1,900.

All over Lakewood, unregulated companies are open for business in residential homes whose owners are unlikely to apply to the township for a change of use permit if they have to declare their income, let alone pay for planning board approval.

When residential properties are converted into commercial businesses and homeowners do not declare their earnings to local, state and Federal government, taxpayers must make up the lost revenue.

Last year, a Lakewood businessman known as the Candy Man stored his wares in the rented garage of a residential home at 58 Seminole Drive. The home itself was rented out to an Orthodox family that could not park on their rented home's driveway while the Candy Man rented its garage.

Since 2006, neighbors said a procession of three large trucks would arrive twice a week in the residential neighborhood to deliver palettes with large boxes that were warehoused in the rented garage.

During one delivery, neighbors said one of the boxes broke apart, enabling them to see its contents. The box contained imported Kosher food, cookies and candy sold at local supermarkets around town.

Neighbors also said that before the Candy Man began using his home on Genesee Place and the residential property he leased at 58 Seminole Drive to store his food products, the Seminole home garage was open for business as an automotive paint shop.

At the August 19, 2010 committee meeting, a reporter for NJ News & Views asked committeemen if the amended change of use ordinance also applied to residential homes already converted to an accessory non-residential use.

Wouters said, "Probably."

Probably not.

Earlier this year, committeemen approved an ordinance on second reading that continues to permit residential property owners to earn unreported income from the comfort of their homes.

An increasing number of those homes are tax-exempt locations of non-profit businesses.

At the July 26 meeting of the Lakewood Development Corporation (LDC), the township agency that oversees the municipality's UEZ fund, members heard a presentation for Job Link funding.

Rabbi Moshe Zev Weisberg, Director of the Lakewood Community Services Corporation (LCSC), one of the non-profit organizations that receives Job Link funding through the UEZ program, was not sitting in the audience during the presentation.

Weisberg is not just a recipient of UEZ grant funding, but a member of the LDC that approves it. So is LDC member Ada Gonzalez, his employee. Both Weisberg and Gonzalez receive their salaries through the Job Link Program, which funds several non-profit organizations in addition to the LCSC.

At the start of the LDC meeting, Weisberg sat down, took out his cell phone and placed it on the table in front of him as speaker after speaker made a presentation for Job Link funding.

Weisberg did not announce the name of the party at the other end of the line or explain the reason for continued interruptions created by sounds coming from the phone. At one point during the meeting, his cell phone ring tone began playing the Beatles song, "Do You Want to Know a Secret?".

Like many Lakewood non-profit organizations, the LCSC is located in a residential home that is eligible for tax exempt status.

Although the LCSC maintains an office at 500 Kennedy Boulevard, a professional building located at the northwest side of town, county tax records report that the non-profit organization is the owner of a residential home at 415 Carey Street.

Last year, the state Urban Enterprise Zone Authority (UEZA) approved $25,000 in Job Link Year 13 funding, according to the 2010 municipal budget. This year, the LDC is requesting the same amount in Job Link Year 15 funding that the state approved in Job Link Year 14 funding: $426,000.

During the LDC meeting's public forum, a reporter asked LDC members if non-profit organizations that provided job placement and ESL (English as a Second Language) services to Lakewood clients also asked them for copies of their first year tax returns to ensure that taxpayers saw a quantifiable return on their investment in the program.

The reporter said that area developers frequently employed Lakewood day laborers, but did not report the workers' earnings to state and Federal government.

Many day laborers do not file tax returns either because they are undocumented aliens without permission to work in the United States.

Langert recently disclosed that the township was closing the muster zone that committeemen approved on public land near Route 9 for use by day laborers and their prospective employers, who shunned it.

In 2006, Mayor Marc (Meir) Lichtenstein asked for $37,500 in UEZ grant funding to build a muster zone on Swarthmore Avenue in the Lakewood Industrial Park, which day laborers and their employers also shunned.

Committeemen continued to fund services to residents that do not report taxable income at their August 19 meeting. Members sought to encumber $426,000 approved by the LDC for Job Link year 15 funding, even though the state took all Lakewood UEZ project funding earlier this year to help close its' own $11 billion budget shortfall.

A reporter for NJ News & Views asked committeemen how much of the total was allocated for the ESL (English as a Second Language) program operated by the LCSC.

Langert declined to respond to the reporter's question until after committeemen had closed the public forum.

He said he did not know, even though he voted to approve the total.

In 2008, the year Langert successfully campaigned for a seat on the township committee, the industrial commission approved a $40,000 funding request by Weisberg for his organization's ESL program after the state declined to approve UEZ funding for it.

Langert was committee liaison to the industrial commission in 2009 and 2010.

Non-profit organizations that receive UEZ monies through the Job Link program may not require the same proposed level of funding in Job Link Year 15.

Herschel (Harold) Herskowitz, owner of Toys for Thought in downtown Lakewood, told committeemen on August 19 that he recently followed and videotaped the Job Link bus on its 5:00-5:45 p.m. evening route. Herskowitz said a total of eight passengers got on and off the bus, which made three stops and spewed black soot behind it.

The Job Link bus was funded to provide workers employed in the industrial park with transportation to commute to work.

At the Lakewood Township Committee meetings held on December 20, 2007 and January 17, 2008, John Jennings of T&M Associates presented a township plan to buy nine full-sized buses and a spare, similar to those used by the New York City Transit Authority. The shuttle bus service would be incorporated with the township's Job Link Bus service, making it eligible for reimbursement with Urban Enterprise Zone (UEZ) funding.

According to members of the Lakewood Transportation and Safety Board, which met on October 28, 2009, the proposed committee plan to purchase shuttle buses with state and Federal grants hit a road block - lack of municipal budget funding for their required 2-year operation at an estimated cost of $1.2 million.

According to the presentation by Jennings, the municipal bus plan that incorporates the Job Link bus would primarily service Beth Medrash Govoha, described by many sources as the world's largest rabbinical college, and Orthodox developments where many of the school's adult students and their families live.

The director of Beth Medrash Govoha is Aaron Kotler. Kotler is a member of the Vaad, a political interest group that makes endorsements for elected office. Because the Vaad can coerce a large bloc of Orthodox Jewish voters to elect endorsed candidates, the Vaad is also an influential government lobbyist.

Weisberg, whose office voicemail identifies his organization as Higher Education Management, not the Lakewood Community Services Corporation, and LDC Chairman Abraham Muller, a Lakewood police chaplain, are also members of the Vaad.

At the July 26 LDC meeting, Muller participated in a board vote to approve $690,000 in year 16 UEZ funding for the continued employment of Lakewood police officers deployed throughout the zone.

Although police chaplains do not receive compensation for their services, a reporter asked Muller why he did not abstain since police chaplains hold the rank and authority of police captain.

Muller maintained he was not required to abstain since he did not personally benefit from the LDC vote to fund the salaries of UEZ police officers.

As a UEZ member, he does.

Last year, Muller asked the LDC to include his supermarket in the township's request for a UEZ boundary change. At the end of the year, LDC members announced that the state had approved the request.

Instead of spending taxpayer dollars to promote taxable jobs and commerce in Lakewood, township officials have increasingly approved public funds to promote their own continued employment in public office.

During the January 2009 Reorganization meeting, committeemen represented by a new Republican majority voted to appoint Singer the new mayor of Lakewood. Singer's administration appointed real estate investor and developer Robert Kirschner to the Lakewood Industrial Commission, which generates revenue through the sale of public land.

Commissioners voted to appoint Kirschner to the position of chairman in 2009 and in 2010.

Kirschner's wife benefited from his appointment.

In 2009 and 2010, the LDC and the industrial commission both voted to hire Frantasy Enterprises, LLC, a Lakewood public relations firm owned by Kirschner's wife, Frances Kirschner.

On February 28, 2009, the industrial commission voted to award Frantasy Enterprises a $24,000 township grant drawn from funds budgeted for Marketing and Public Relations VI, according to LDC Resolution 09-04-5.

Frantasy Enterprises also received $28,350 in UEZ project funds, bringing the total of her contract award to $52,350.

A reporter for NJ News & Views recently inspected Robert Kirschner's state-required 2010 Financial Disclosure, which did not report his wife's company as a source of his income.

Robert Kirschner did not abstain from voting to appoint his wife to a paid consulting position or from voting each month on bills of payment for her services at a cost of $2,000.

Neither did Singer, who also voted to approve the LDC contract with Frantasy Enterprises, from which he is now also personally benefiting.

Singer has expanded the scope of public relations services provided by Frantasy Enterprises to include his 2010 re-election campaign for township committee.

In an August 2 press release issued by Frantasy Enterprises, Kirschner promoted the accomplishments of the Republican administration that hired her.

"What A Difference A Majority Makes," Kirschner titled the press release.

She described Singer as the lone Republican voice of fiscal frugality on the township committee, continuing to oppose Democratic finances for more than a decade.

"When a person is the minority vote on the Lakewood Township Committee, as Senator and Committeeman Robert Singer was for 12 years (four Democratic votes to Senator Singer’s lone Republican vote), it is just about impossible to effect change," the press release opined. "During the 12 years, Committeeman Singer voted against the township budget eleven times, making him the sole vote against the township budget."

In 1999, Lakewood Democrats became the new majority on the township committee. However, Singer was not the lone Republican for 12 years, as Kirschner stated in her press release.

In January 2004, Republican Menashe Miller joined Singer on the Lakewood Township Committee, but did not support Singer by voting with him against adoption of the annual municipal budget proposed by the Democratic majority.

In January 2009, Republican Steven Langert was sworn into office on the township committee, creating a new political majority that voted to appoint Singer mayor of Lakewood for the first time in 15 years.

While Singer did not seek appointment to the office of mayor this year, he is still seeking a seat on the township committee - despite a conflict of interest with his position as state senator.

"Since the Republican party took control 18 months ago, the Township Committee is tackling taxes and township problems head on," Singer was quoted in the press release. "It hasn't been easy. We were left with virtually no surplus, about five thousand tax appeals that cost us legal fees, and an inspection department slated to lose one million dollars."

Singer defended state legislation he sponsored in Trenton that resulted in a reassessment of Lakewood property values earlier this year.

"The first thing we did, in the first 12 months, was ask for a reassessment of the town in order to curtail the huge amount of tax appeals, which cost the township hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees," Singer was also quoted in the press release.

According to the 2010 municipal budget and township records, the committee hired the same firm that performed a revaluation of the township to also perform a tax reassessment at a reported cost of $700,000.

That amount is almost as much as the committee budgeted in legal fees one year after Singer sponsored state legislation to reassess Lakewood property values.

According to Internet postings, the new assessments may also be discriminatory against some taxpayers at the expense of others.

Every fiscal year, Lakewood Democratic and Republican administrations have continued to budget more money for legal services to defend public policy that benefits a narrow political interest instead of the general public.

On August 19, Heath Gertner appealed to committeemen for a change in public policy.

Gertner asked that committeemen reconsider their plan to convert the former Little League field between 9th and 10th Streets and Clifton and Lexington Avenues into a municipal parking lot within walking distance of Beth Medrash Govoha. Instead, Gertner proposed that committeemen build a pocket park in its place.

Gertner said that a pocket park would more effectively brand Lakewood than the current marketing effort funded by UEZ dollars.

Members of the LDC budgeted $250,000 in UEZ funds to market and advertise the township to businesses that would locate there.

Included in the campaign is funding to rebrand Lakewood with a more modern image than the Victorian horse and carriage design on signs welcoming visitors to downtown Lakewood.

"Parks play a big role in the growth of a municipality," Gertner told committeemen. "A pocket park costs less than $60,000 and can be built by bonding."

Gertner said the pocket park provided social as well as economic advantages for Lakewood residents. In his opinion, such a project would more effectively promote Lakewood in a positive image than any public relations campaign at several times the cost.

The project could change public opinion, according to Gertner.

"I believe we are worthy of accolades," Gertner said. "It takes a lifetime to build good standing, but only a moment to destroy it."