NJ News & Views

There is good news and bad news for Lakewood taxpayers.

The good news is that next school year the Lakewood Board of Education will make the fifth and final $700,000 annual payment on a $3.75 million replacement of the Lakewood High School roof in 2007.

The bad news is that all six public school roofs must now be repaired or replaced.

The repairs can't wait.

According to sources, a section of the Lakewood Middle School roof recently collapsed under the weight of heavy winter snows that district personnel did not remove as soon as possible.

Sources also told NJ News & Views that years of board neglect in repairing the leaking roof had in turn caused mold in the middle school, as well as two district elementary schools - the Spruce Street School and the Ella G. Clarke School.

Mold grows in schools when airborne mold spores land on a damp "food source" and begin digesting it in order to survive, according to a January 2004 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Indoor Environments Division (EPA IED) fact sheet.

Water required for mold growth can enter school buildings and portable classrooms through leaky roofs, pipes, windows, foundations and other structural openings. Water may also enter schools due to floods, poor drainage or misdirected sprinklers.

The fact sheet also reported that moisture problems in schools can result from painting or carpet cleaning, high humidity during the summer, and lack of air conditioning or heating system use when school is not in session.

Last month, the Jackson Board of Education held a referendum to ask voters for approval of four bonding questions that included installation of a heating, ventilating and air-conditioning (HVAC) system at Jackson Memorial High School, built in the 1960s.

The board also asked voters to approve funding to "go green" by installing solar panels on the school roof, which was remediated for mold about a decade ago.

An increasing number of New Jersey school districts have installed solar panels on public school roofs to generate funding as well as low cost energy, which in turn has reduced the amount of available grant funding to "go green."

Prior to the referendum, a district spokesperson denied that Jackson Memorial High School had mold or that the roof needed to be replaced or repaired.

Health hazards due to mold include irritation of the eyes, skin, nose, throat and lungs in both mold-allergic and non-allergic people. Unchecked mold growth can result in or be the cause of "sick building syndrome."

It can also damage or destroy materials on which it grows.

Last year, the Lakewood Board of Education also considered going green in order to finance the repairs of all six public school roofs. That option won't be possible, according to an e-mail provided by district business administrator/board secretary Robert Finger under the Open Public Records Act (OPRA).

"We have reviewed electric bills and done extensive site visits with early indication that virtually all roofs are in need of significant repair," James Bryan of RAI Services said in an October 26, 2009 e-mail. "We have determined that there is no way we can roll roof repairs into a PPA solar project cost and reach any reasonable investor returns."

Bryan said the district would need "a top notch balance sheet and great credit" to qualify for the project, which he acknowledged it did not have.

He proposed an alternative to installing solar panels on all public school roofs that would have financed their repair.

"If the BOE would like to address a single school that might have workable roofs, we can do that, but that too is a long shot because project is small," Bryan wrote in the e-mail. "My best advice, get the roofs repaired (we can certainly do that work), then approach the solar issue."

According to Finger, the board does not have any capital improvement projects planned through the 2010-11 budgeting process. Instead, he said the board planned to enter into another lease-purchase agreement to repair the public school roofs, which Ocean County Superintendent of Schools Bruce Greenfield confirmed on February 19.

If the district cannot make the annual required payment on each of the six school repairs, it could risk losing them through such an agreement without state intervention.

The state has projected a budget deficit as high as $10 billion in 2010.

If the district does not repair all public school roofs, both the Lakewood Board of Education and the Lakewood Township Committee will continue to expose taxpayers to costly litigation resulting from illness or injuries sustained by anyone visiting, working or attending class there.

In 2007, the Lakewood Board of Education financed the replacement of the high school roof through a $3,750,000 lease-purchase agreement instead of asking voters to approve a referendum question to bond for the capital improvement. The board discussed financing repair of the middle school roof as well, but ultimately decided against it.

Four years later, the board may need to spend far more than $4 million each to repair all public school roofs, even with lower interest rates.

The township is willing to help the district repair school property, but not school buildings.

On Thursday, November 19, committeemen held a second reading and vote to approve bonding for three capital improvement projects totaling $1,774,846. The most expensive project will cost taxpayers $1,255,510 for replacement equipment for the township Public Works Department.

The bonding item also includes equipment and labor to perform unspecified renovations to the Clifton Avenue School playground.

According to Lakewood Township Manager Frank Edwards, the cost of the equipment for the Clifton Avenue School playground is $54,000 - which the Lakewood Board of Education is not paying out of the $1,274,677 surplus the district reported at the end of the 2008-9 school year.

NJ News & Views asked Finger if the board planned to finance any capital improvements projects using the surplus. In a November 24 e-mail, Finger said no.

"At this time there are no funds available for any capital projects for the Lakewood schools," he wrote.

Three years ago, board President Chet Galdo, who resigned last year, estimated the middle school roof repair at the same cost as the high school roof replacement - about $3-4 million.

Prior to the 2007 school election, board members initially budgeted approximately $1.5 million for capital improvement projects in most of the district's public schools, including repair of the middle school roof and the Spruce Street School's crumbling façade. Members also proposed installing a back-up boiler for Clifton Avenue School priced at $50,000 - about the same cost as the playground equipment committeemen are bonding to replace.

On February 22, 2010, a reporter for NJ News & Views asked a clerk with the township Inspection Department if any inspectors had recently visited the public schools, including the middle school, and issued violation notices to the board.

The Inspection clerk said none were listed among computer records.

Lakewood non-public school children are no more protected by the township or the board than public school children.

At the February 2 meeting of the Lakewood Planning Board, attorney Abraham Penzer represented Oorah Inc., a Lakewood charity located in the township's industrial park. Penzer described his client's development design to planning board members, which the Lakewood Industrial Commission heard at their Reorganization meeting the previous week.

"The industrial commission was very excited about it," Penzer told planning board members. "It’s the wave of the future."

Oorah's proposal, approved one year ago by the planning board, consists of building commercial structures on the charity's headquarters with a warehouse on the first floor, office space on the second floor, and non-public schools on the third floor.

The idea is not new, but it is just as dangerous to school children.

For years, boys in grades 1-4 attended class in Cheder Bnai Torah, a non-public boys elementary school located in a former attorney's office over a Formica factory at 166 Main Street.

Known popularly by the name of the corporation that produced it, Formica is a heat-resistant, wipe-clean plastic laminate of paper or fabric with melamine resin.

Melamine resin or melamine formaldehyde, also known as melamine, is a hard, thermosetting plastic material made from melamine and formaldehyde by polymerization.

Formaldehyde is classified as a human carcinogen. It has been linked to nasal and lung cancer, with possible links to brain cancer and leukemia. Short-term exposure to formaldehyde can be fatal. Long-term exposure to low levels of formaldehyde may cause respiratory difficulty, eczema and sensitization.

Oorah receives donations of vehicles that can be just as dangerous to humans working or playing near them.

Lymphoma is a cancer of the lymphatic system. One of the causes is benzene, which is a carcinogen found in many paints, lacquers, and thinners employed by automotive paint shops.

No less deadly are the fumes produced by combustion engines that power a gas-fueled car. Carbon monoxide is the most lethal of automobile emissions. It is odorless and invisible to the human eye when present.

Combustion-related poisoning robs the body of critical oxygen, leading to serious illness or death.

One year ago, Penzer also publicly discussed the project at a planning board meeting. At that time, he said Oorah proposed to have students wait for bus transportation to and from school on a loading dock platform where the donated vehicles were dropped off and picked up.

This year, Penzer said students would instead be waiting for buses in a separate area in the back of the building. To ensure they waited there, Penzer said his client proposed not to install sidewalks in front of the property.

"Having sidewalks would encourage (students) to walk near (Swarthmore Avenue) instead of the building playground (in back)," Penzer said.

Penzer told the planning board that the playground in the back of the property was an eagle migratory point. He said Oorah had made a CAFRA application to build the playground.

The state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the Coastal Area Facility Review Act (CAFRA) govern development of environmentally sensitive areas that serve as a habitat for endangered plant and animal species.

Oorah is located on wetlands that flow into the Metedeconk River, a state-protected waterway that provides drinking water to neighboring Brick and other surrounding communities.

Penzer said his client wanted to construct two or three of the mixed-use buildings on the site.

There are many tenants waiting to fill them, according to Penzer.

"We have calls from New York City (school directors that) want to come here," he told the planning board.

For two years, New York City non-public schools engaged in a business relationship with another Lakewood developer that also created dangerous conditions on his property.

In 2006, real estate investor, developer and Lakewood landlord Mark Engel opened an unapproved day camp on the site of the former Brookside Country Club he purchased off Ft. Plains Road in Howell.

On August 23, 2006, Engel and camp manager Ross Gantz appeared in Howell Municipal Court and pled guilty to a summons issued for failing to have lifeguards on site while children were swimming in the pools.

Despite lack of a use variance to operate the expanded facility and summonses issued for numerous health code violations, the county and the township continued to permit the business to operate.

The following year, township and county officials had no other choice but to finally shut it down.

In a July 26, 2007 memorandum, Kate Andrews, Registered Environmental Health Specialist with the Monmouth County Department of Health, reported that police and code enforcement accompanied her to the swim club and found 218 female campers from Brooklyn using pools that failed inspection on July 19.

On July 27, Betty Lou Textor, Howell Assistant Director Land Use/Code Enforcement, sent Engel a hand-delivered Cease and Desist Order.

Last year, members of the Howell Zoning Board of Adjustment denied Engel's application for a change of use variance that would have allowed his camp to reopen with a day care center and leased picnic grounds.

On February 22, a clerk in the Howell Planning and Zoning Office told NJ News and Views that Engel had informed the township he plans to seek approval to redevelop the site as 5-lot residential housing.

Last week, Engel enlisted the support of the Lakewood Township Committee to relax proposed changes in the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) that would enable him to do the same in the town where he lives.

"I'm one of the smaller developers in town," he told committeemen. "(I've) been doing my thing for 10 years. There are a large amount of developers that put money and time into duplexes. (Please) table this ordinance. I believe if we put our heads together, we could come up with something everybody (agrees on)."

The ordinance Engel opposed would have required all developers of 2-family housing and duplexes constructed in the R-10 and R-7.5 zones to meet required lot and width sizes.

Committeemen voted to carry the ordinance to their March 25 meeting.

After the meeting, a reporter for NJ News & Views asked Committeeman Marc (Meir) Lichtenstein why he voted to carry the ordinance.

Lichtenstein, a Lakewood property manager, told the reporter, "You know why."

He declined further comment.

In his 2006 Financial Disclosure, Lichtenstein stated that he was also a real estate investor. Some of the properties he listed were in his name, others were not.

That same year, Lichtenstein told NJ News & Views he was also a real estate developer.

Not all elected officials are willing to disclose their business interests.

In past years, NJ News & Views reviewed the Ethics Disclosures submitted by Meir Grunhut, a member of the Lakewood Board of Education. Although Grunhut stated on his disclosures that his sole source of income was his family business Astor Chocolate, sources have informed NJ News & Views for months that he also earned revenue from other sources.

According to eyewitness accounts, school buses have entered Astor Chocolate on New Hampshire Avenue and dropped off or picked up students at the back of the building, out of sight of most area residents.

While many companies provide a day care center for their employees, under the revised Lakewood UDO, any child care center the state does not oversee is also considered a school and is eligible for district transportation services.

In a February 17 e-mail to Finger, a reporter for NJ News & Views made a request for comment to Grunhut.

Last year, a reporter telephoned Grunhut for comment. Grunhut at first accepted the phone call, then told the reporter he changed his mind.

"You caused me problems in the past," he told the reporter before hanging up the phone.

In the e-mail request for comment, the reporter asked Grunhut if he was operating a day care center on the premises of his company, Astor Chocolate.

Through Finger, Grunhut did not deny the charge. Instead, he declined comment.

As a member of the board of education, Grunhut has never abstained from voting to approve funding for transportation of students to a non-public school - including one operated in his family's for-profit business.

After the reporter asked Grunhut for comment, district administrators ceased providing information to the reporter under the Open Public Records Act (OPRA), a state law they are ethically required to uphold.

Grunhut is not the only district official with a conflict of interest he has not disclosed to the public.

According to sources, board attorney Michael Inzelbuch, who is also a tenured special education consultant, may also be an investor in out-of-district special education schools that Lakewood students attend.

Several days after asking Grunhut for comment on his investment in a non-public school, the reporter left a voicemail message for Inzelbuch at his office asking for confirmation of the same charge.

Inzelbuch did not return the call for comment.

Several months after the board appointed Inzelbuch their attorney in 2002, the state judiciary ruled that board attorneys no longer had to file an ethics disclosure.

From 2006 to 2009, Inzelbuch has solicited litigants to sue the Jackson Board of Education in the Tri-Town News, the official newspaper of both districts.

According to sources, Grunhut is also an investor in the 2001 purchase of the newspaper - which he also failed to disclose as a source of income.

The state's School Ethics Act describes the ethical responsibilities of school representatives and administrators that serve the public.

It also describes what constitutes a conflict of interest for board members and district officials.

Under 18A:12-24, Conflicts of Interest, no school officials or member of his immediate family may have an interest in a business organization or engage in any business, transaction or professional activity that is in "substantial" conflict with the "proper" discharge of his duties in the public interest.

No school officials may use or attempt to use their official position to secure unwarranted privileges, advantages or employment for themselves, members of their immediate family or others.

Under 18A:12-25, Disclosure statements of employment, contracts or business with schools, each school official must state whether they or a relative is employed by, receives compensation from, or has an interest in any business which is a party to a contract with the school district they represent or that employs them. Officials are required by law to identify the business on their disclosure as well.

State law also addresses the importance of the official's signature and accuracy of information in the disclosure.

"Each statement shall be signed by the school official filing it, and the school official's signature shall constitute a representation of the accuracy of the contents of the statement," according to state ethics law. "A school official who fails to file a statement or who files a statement containing information which the school official knows to be false shall be subject to reprimand, censure, suspension, or removal."

School officials could face even more serious consequences under state law.

"Nothing in this subsection shall be construed to prevent or limit criminal prosecution," the statute also stated.

Township officials are also held to the same standard of ethical conduct.

Not all have complied with their ethical responsibilities either.

Elected representatives of the Lakewood Township Committee as well as the Lakewood Board of Education are required to take an oath of office to support the Constitutions of New Jersey and the United States upon their installation.

They are also required to submit a written oath of office signed by the official administering it. Elected officials are also required to sign the document and to fill in their address and telephone number in the spaces provided on the form in order to provide proof of residency.

Not all do.

Last month, NJ News & Views made an OPRA request to inspect the most recent Oaths of Office submitted by all incumbent members of the Lakewood Township Committee.

After receiving e-mail copies of the scanned Oaths of Office, the reporter noted that Committeeman Raymond Coles had not submitted or filled out all required information on his Oath of Office for 2009. The document did not include the signature of anyone administering the Oath of Office, even though Coles was supposed to be sworn in for another 3-year term on the governing body that year. Coles also failed to fill in his address and telephone number on the form.

A reporter made a second OPRA request for all Oaths of Office submitted by Coles since his appointment in December 2001 to the unexpired term of Deputy Mayor P.G. Waxman, who resigned to take a position on the Ocean County Tax Board.

In November 2002, 2005 and 2008, Coles successfully ran for a full 3-year term on the township committee. He was sworn in as a member of the township committee in January 2003, 2006 and 2009.

Coles served as mayor in 2002, 2004, 2007 and 2008, and as deputy mayor in 2006. Del Mastro said committee members that served in either of those positions were also required to file an Oath of Office.

The New Jersey Department of Archives and Records Management (DARM) states on its Web site that all Oaths of Office for incumbent members of municipal governing bodies must be kept on file each year the elected official serves and for five years after the elected official leaves office.

Under advice of attorney, Del Mastro told NJ News & Views she was not required to keep all Oaths of Office on file that Coles had submitted more than five years ago.

Coles may never have signed or even submitted all of them.

The oldest Oath of Office Del Mastro provided for Coles was witnessed on January 1, 2003 by her predecessor, Lakewood Township Clerk Bernadette Standowski.

Standowski retired at the end of January 2009.

The 2003 Oath of Office as committeeman did not include proof of residency. Neither did the 2007 or 2008 Oath of Office as Mayor. Instead, Coles left the lines with his address and telephone number blank.

In 2009, the year Coles was sworn into office for another 3-year term, Republicans became the majority political party on the township committee. Although Coles did not serve as mayor or deputy mayor, Del Mastro provided two different Oaths of Office submitted by Coles.

One of the 2009 Oaths of Office was witnessed by Standowski, initialed by Coles, but did not include proof of residency.

The other 2009 Oath of Office Coles submitted was not witnessed at all.

A reporter asked Del Mastro why the township had accepted the incomplete Oaths of Office. She said whoever filled out the forms and signed them for Coles probably forgot to do so.

Coles is not alone.

Steven Langert, sworn into office as a first-time committeeman in January 2009, submitted an Oath of Office that was not witnessed either.

The reporter made a third OPRA request for all Oaths of Office submitted by all incumbent committee members. On the advice of attorney, Del Mastro took a marker and covered the address and telephone number spaces on all Oaths of Office she scanned and e-mailed to the reporter.

The Oath of Office requires elected officials to uphold the Constitutions of New Jersey and the United States. Both constitutions support freedom of the press to disseminate public information, which Del Mastro censored with the approval of all five committeemen.

Last year, another public official also failed to keep his Oath of Office.

Twenty years after asking his bride that their wedding vows not include the promise to "forsake all others," South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford told his wife Jenny he was in love with another woman.

According to media reports, Sanford rendezvoused with his mistress in her native Argentina at taxpayer expense.

Sanford is now reimbursing state government approximately $12,000 in travel expenses to Buenos Aires that he improperly claimed.

It may be far more difficult to restore the public's trust.

In a July 2, 2009 online editorial, Katherine Jean Lopez of the National Review Online discussed Sanford's marital and civic failings.

"One involves a vow, the other an oath," the conservative columnist wrote. "Mark Sanford has kept neither. And his rambling interviews and appearances (and disappearances) provide ample reason to wonder if he's up for either job right now."