Aberdeen, the Township of Money Pit

Since the good people of Aberdeen have supported their monolithic democratic town council for over a decade, I have to assume to following will be welcome news.

Although the town budget hasn’t been posted yet, the township has announced good news; municipal property taxes will be going upabout 5% this year. That’s more than triple the rate increase from the school district. Once again, the township has successfully increased its share of the property tax pie.

More good news. The township continues to invest in senior housing with another $360,000 for CME to do more “environmental remediation” at the old South River Metals site. Don’t know if we’ll ever actually have senior housing but it won’t be for lack of spending money on CME. Perhaps it would be cheaper for the town to reincorporate as a wholly owned subsidiary of CME.

Too bad Aberdeen’s bond rating dropped. (Hat tip: AberdeenNJlife). Moody says the downgrade resulted from Aberdeen’s “weakened financial position following fund balance draws in each of the last seven years.” Makes you wonder if they’ve been reading the blog. Well, no problem. We can just raise more taxes.

On a final note, it’s nice to see the township recognize our old public defender, John Fiorino Jr; the council just voted to by his daddy’s property for $130,000.

Aberdeen. Such a nice town. If only it didn’t cost so darn much.

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Sunshine Watch

Given the town council’s proclivity to maintain two sets of agendas, one for public disclosure and one for its council members, I thought it might be fun to occasionally shine the light on discrepancies between the two. So, here’s another example of a sunshine violation.

The council’s posted agenda for February 2, 2010 states:

RESOLUTION NO. 2010-45 – BE IT RESOLVED by the Township Council that it hereby awards engineering services for South River Metals Remediation.

The minutes for that same meeting state:

RESOLUTION NO. 2010-45 - BE IT RESOLVED by the Township Council that it hereby authorizes Emergency Temporary Appropriation in the amount of $350,000.

RESOLUTION NO. 2010-46 - BE IT RESOLVED by the Township Council that it hereby authorizes three proposals for engineering services associated with the Former South River Metal Products Site not to exceed $160,000.

RESOLUTION NO. 2010-47 - BE IT RESOLVED by the Township Council that it hereby authorizes emergency agreement for remediation of a tank on the South River Metals Site.

So, resolution 2010-45 became resolution 2010-46 with the tidy little sum of $160,000 added for “engineering services”, which is just a euphemism for CME, the council’s largest political contributor.

Then, two more resolutions were magically added to the agenda. One is another CME project for the “emergency” tank remediation at South River Metals, a precursor to constructing the new senior center. This is the same place where Councilwoman Gumbs famously declared in fall 2005, “If all goes according to plan, the development could be completed within the next 18 months.”

Perhaps the development’s tardiness prompted the town council to declare an “emergency” without time to put it on the public agenda.

Then, there’s the other emergency that didn’t allow for advance notice – a $350,000 “Emergency Temporary Appropriation", seemingly to pay for it all. The insertion of “temporary” suggests the town is banking on a March, 2009, promised grant from our great but near bankrupt state. Well, good luck with that.

We’d know more except these three resolutions are also the only ones whose full text isn’t posted on the town website.

Considering the senior residence has been in the works for eight years and we still haven’t done so much as dig a hole in the ground, it’s nice to know Aberdeen Township still feels the sense of urgency to allocate hundreds of thousands of dollars to its largest political patron without advance public notice to getter done. >>> Read more!

A Norman Kauff Bedtime Story

My dear readers, I know how much you like to read about Matawan and Aberdeen but I hope you’ll forgive me if I digress a bit, today. You see, this story takes place in a far away land called Manalapan.

A long time ago, in the year 2000, Mayor Stuart Moskovitz of Manalapan complained that the township attorney, a man named Norman Kauff, was charging too much money. Yes, he accused our precious Norman Kauff who served so many years as Aberdeen Township’s attorney.

Anyways, the mayor complained and kvetched and carped until Kauff stopped coming to town meetings at all. But this just made Mayor Moskovitz even angrier. After all, Norman Kauff was still getting paid, both salary and pension contributions, even though he was no longer coming to town meetings.

But Mr. Kauff didn’t see any problem at all. In fact, only two years later, Hazlet had agreed to hire Mr. Kauff as their township attorney even though he wouldn’t be attending their town meetings either. No, he would send a subordinate to attend those long and boring public forums.

Well, Mayor Moskovitz kept complaining until Norman Kauff quit. That same year, Moskovitz lost reelection but a few years later, in 2005, he was appointed the township’s attorney. That appointment only lasted one year. But I jump ahead of myself.

After Kauff quit, he got a job for his good friend, Daniel McCarthy, as an attorney on the township planning board and as special counsel. Yes, this is the same Daniel McCarthy who replaced Kauff as Aberdeen Township’s attorney.

Daniel McCarthy, with some encouragement from Kauff, began agitating for Moskovitz’s dismissal. As township attorney, Moscowitz had overseen Manalapan’s purchase of two homes in front of the Manalapan Recreation Center. At the time of the transaction, there was no problem and New Jersey’s Green Acre’s program contributed $250,000 to the purchase. However, the township engineer, Greg Valesi, now claimed the site required an environmental cleanup that his company would be happy to perform; the homes had an underground storage tank and some pesticides were found on the grass.

Mr. Valesi works for a small company called CME Associates. Yes, the same CME Associates that serves as Aberdeen’s engineers. Original cost estimates for the cleanup were $18,000 but they’ve now risen to $110,000.

McCarthy then convinced the township to sue Moskovitz for damages.

I don’t know about the next part of the story but Moskovitz claims that the new township attorney, Caroline Casagrande, and the new mayor, Andrew Lucas, were reluctant to pursue the case but Kauff promised them party support for higher office. I don’t know how Kauff, a strongman in the Monmouth Democratic Party, could help two republicans but Casagrande and Lucas did gain their party’s nominations.

Casagrande won election for State Assemblywoman of the 12th district. Lucas, at age 29, became one of the youngest people to ever receive the republican nomination for Freeholder in Monmouth County. He was also the first republican in over 20 years to lose the election.

Shortly after her victory, Casagrande founded a new law firm, Menna, Supko & Casagrande. Yes, that’s the same Pasquale Menna who’s the borough attorney for Matawan. Pasquale Menna was formerly of the law firm Kauff & Menna, as in Norman Kauff.

Well, to get back to the story, Manalapan decided to sue their former mayor and township attorney and hired Casagrande (Menna’s new partner) and McCarthy at about $130 per hour.

Here’s where the story gets good.

Around this time, an anonymous blogger calling himself “daTruthSquad” suddenly appeared. daTruthSquad was both highly knowledgeable and highly critical of the town’s lawsuit. Casagrande and McCarthy insisted Moskovitz must be the anonymous blogger but he denied it. So, they did what any fine attorney billing the taxpayer an hourly rate would do – they subpoenaed Google, demanding the Internet behemoth unmask the blogger.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation leapt to daTruthSquad’s defense and the presiding judge quashed the subpoena.

And the case continues for around $130 per hour per attorney plus expenses, all for the good of Manalapan. Or is it for the benefit of you-know-who?

Now, my dear reader, it’s time for bed. But you best remember to be on good behavior or I’ll be calling Norman Kauff.

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