The Hillside Planning Board will discuss the vacant lots on Central Avenue at a meeting on Sept. 17.
The lots, which the township now owns and recently cleaned up, has been the subject of some controversy. The township’s engineering consultants submitted their study of the land with their suggestions for development to the Planning Board this summer.
Hillside real estate broker Joseph Menza is making his second bid for the mayor’s office next year.
Menza revealed his intentions in today’s Star-Ledger and told The Hillsider that he plans to make the township’s rising property taxes and government mismanagement the big issues of his campaign.
A proposed townhouse development on Central Avenue was the hottest issue in the Township Council ward election two years ago, almost costing 3rd Ward Councilman John Kulish, who supported the plan, his seat.
The issue has mostly been dormant since then, but Central Avenue is back on the table after Wednesday night’s special council meeting.
Township engineers Harbor Consultants informed the council that they had completed their study of the site — which the town now owns and the Planning Board deemed “in need of redevelopment” last month — and will be presenting their findings to the Planning Board on July 16.
The Hillside Township Council last night elected 3rd Ward Councilman John Kulish as its president and 1st Ward Councilman Edward Brewer as vice president.
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Councilman-at-large Leonard Gilbert did not seek another term as council president, just as he had promised last week.
Neither Kulish — a registered Republican allied with the Democratic machine — nor Brewer are up for election next year. Could this be a plan to keep the at-large candidates, whose terms expire next spring, under low profile to avoid taking the blame for this year’s (and last’s) property tax increase?
As expected, the two independent council members, the 2nd Ward’s Shelley-Ann Bates and the 4th Ward’s Gerald “Pateesh” Freedman, were not appointed to any council committees.
It has long been a show of force by the majority party on the council and Board of Education to excluded opposition members from committees, although the practice seems a bit odd. First of all, being on a committee isn’t fun. It means extra work and extra meetings. Secondly, all final decisions are made by the full council or school board, not by a committee. And finally, not being on any committee sure makes it a lot easier to sit back and be the critic.
In any event, President Kulish told Freedman and Bates not to be concerned about the lack of assignments, promising them they’d be kept busy “up to their necks” in the upcoming year.
In other news:
Richard Bauch, of Democratic moneybag firm Schenck, Price, Smith & King, and Kathy Hatfield are in as Personnel Attorneys
Robert Renaud was reappointed as Special Tax Appeal Attorney
Steve Rogut is the Bond Attorney
Samuel Manigault is the Public Defender
Francis McIntyre is in a Special Township Attorney for the Board of Health
Harbor Consultants are still the Township Engineers
Ed Kologi and Michael Simitz are Special Township Attorneys
Daniel McCarthy is Special Township Attorney
Robert Varady, a resident of King Street, is the ABC attorney
Diane Rowe was reappointed as Deputy Township Clerk
Supee, Clooney and Co. are the auditors again
Anthony L. Acampora, M.D., who Kulish noted was his doctor, was appointed to complete all pre-employment physicals
Hugh Keffer is the night prosecutor and Lara DiFabrizio is the day prosecutor
Adam Samiec was brought on again as an engineering consultant.
Appointments to boards included the usual suspects:
Local Assistance Board: Rev. Nancy Ruckert and Ann Kaufman
Board of Health: Alan Zimmerman, Rosemary McClave, Debbie Stroud
Zoning Board of Adjustment: Joe Miskiewicz, Nagy Sileem, Chales Watts
Swimming Pool Commission: Paula Reico
Community Recreation Advisory Council: Frederick Bloomfield
Township engineers Harbor Consultants stepped down from the Planning Board Wednesday night rather than get kicked out as board chairwoman Myrna Weismann promised.
Here’s the Star-Ledger’s story.
Planning Board chairwoman Myrna Weissman told the Star-Ledger that the board tomorrow may move to dump the township’s engineering firm, Harbor Consultants, from the board.
Weissman charged that the politically connected engineering firm wields too much power at the municipal building, and takes orders from the council.
Advertisement“They are the township engineer, the zoning board and planning board,” she said. “I wasn’t one of them, but several of our members said, ‘We’ve got to get rid of Harbor Consultants.’”
As The Hillsider has reported, Harbor has pumped lots of campaign contributions into Charlotte DeFilippo’s Hillside and Union County Democratic committees and candidates.
The Planning Board is stacked with mayoral appointees allied against the Township Council, which is at odds with Mayor Karen McCoy-Oliver.
The board will also approve designating an abandoned Central Avenue property as being “in need of redevelopment.” That’s the property on which 3rd Ward Councilman John Kulish wanted luxury developers K. Hovnanian to build townhouses — an idea that almost cost Kulish his re-election last spring. The alternative to the homes on the industrial street, a warehouse, has since found another location outside Hillside.
Firms that give generously and regularly to the Hillside Democratic Committee (HDC) and its candidates also benefited from township, school board and county contracts worth millions.
The relationship between the contributions and the contracts they received, while not illegal, should raise eyebrows among pay-to-play critics and taxpayers concerned with whether contracts are awarded to the most qualified and affordable companies.
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GIVE & TAKE
Nearly every firm that helped fund the Hillside political machine’s $58,000 war chest this year has worked for the township or Union County government, which is controlled by the machine Democrats.
They also got a $3.051 million contract from Union County and more than $202,800 in contracts from the Union County Improvement Authority, which is run by Democratic party boss Charlotte DeFilippo, a Hillside resident.
AUDITORS TAKING
CARE OF BUSINESS
One of the biggest contributors to the Hillside machine is the auditing firm Suplee Clooney, which is awash in contracts from Hillside and Union County.
The HDC last year got $295 from the firm and $885 more from Suplee Clooney employees, none of whom live in Hillside.
The HDC also reported a $295 contribution from Elizabeth D. Cagnassola, who election finance reports list as a humble “homemaker” from Westfield. Why would a Westfield housewife be so desperate to donate to the Hillside Democrats? Perhaps she knows Robert Cagnassola, a partner in Suplee Clooney.
But Suplee Clooney isn’t needing for dough.
The company lists a 2005 contract with Hillside for almost $95,000 — the second most expensive auditing contract the firm had with a Union County municipality. The firm continues to do work for Hillside.
The firm also did work for the Improvement Authority ($112,700), the Joint Meeting of Essex and Union Counties ($15,500), Union County ($280,975) and the Union County Utilities Authority ($31,200).
Contracts with other county municipalities, school boards and public entities amounted to about $1.1 million in 2005.
BUSINESS AS USUAL
New Jersey’s rampant pay-to-play system, in which campaign contributions often follow or precede awarding of contracts, has long been blamed for the state’s highest-in-the-nation property taxes and its miles-long corrupt parade of indicted and convicted officials.
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Recent legislation that allegedly seeks to curb pay-to-play is both difficult to understand and easy to circumvent.
A state prohibition on contributions from companies that do business with Trenton, for example, doesn’t affect donations to county parties, certain campaign committees and municipal parties or candidates. The result is virtually what we had before the laws took effect.
But one law, however, helps shine a light on the process by annually publishing a list of companies that do business with the state and how much they donated to campaigns.
The Election Law Enforcement Commission this year revealed that about 1,700 companies reported $5.4 billion in public contracts and donated about $15.2 million to campaigns.
What does this mean for New Jersey? Your tax bill might be a good indicator.
This year, Hillside municipal taxes are going up; Union County taxes are going up; and state taxes, spending and debt are as high as ever.
The Hillside Democratic Committee raised more than $18,000 and spent over $17,000 of it in a failed bid to elect their school board slate in last month’s election.
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That explains why there were so many long faces at Township Hall the day after school board veteran Nathalie Yafet and her slate wiped the floor with the committee’s candidates
Election finance reports obtained by The Hillsider show the machine’s Committee for Sensible School Spending — made up of county employees Richard Samiec, Jamar Cherry and Salonia Saxton — outraised and outspent Yafet’s slate 6 to 1. But Yafet, June Korzeneski and Tori Isaac bested the big bucks in the voting booths.
Among the machine’s contributors were the usual suspects who always give to power broker Charlotte DeFilippo’s organization.
Harbor Consultants, who serve as the township’s engineers, donated $500.
Scott and Cynthia Readlinger, of Cranford-based Hale Insurance, each donated $750.
Martin Statfield, another insurance broker, ponied up $500.
Assemblyman Neil Cohen, D-Roselle, gave $500 out of his campaign fund.
Imperial Construction Group, of Elizabeth, also gave $500.
The campaign inherited the leftovers from the previous year’s committee for school board members Nagy Sileem, Angela Garretson and Ralph Humphrey. That was $6,750.
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The Hillside Democratic Committee, meanwhile, only loaned the failed campaign $3,950.
An interesting expense noted in the report was $108.63 reimbursed to DeFilippo for “pizza, etc.” The report did not say if the pizzas were for herself or campaign workers.
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As for Yafet, her team’s reports showed a $100 contribution from former school board member John O’Shea and $60 from Korzeneski relative Kathleen Russo, of Monroe Township.
Yafet and her husband Steven gave $3,000 of their own money.
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There were no reports, however, from the third slate organized by school board member Andre Daniels.
All candidates are required to file reports. Contributions of over $300 have to be itemized, and all cash contributions of any amount have to be disclosed.
But the state Election Law Enforcement Commission’s Web site show no filings from Jose Betances, George Cook and Antoinette Parker — even though the campaign had lawn signs and two sets of color glossy literature.
The same officials who opposed bonding a few years ago to renovate and expand the township’s overcrowded schools now want to embark on a multi-million dollar plan to, among other things, build a new library and expand police headquarters.
The Star-Ledger reports today that the township engineers, Harbor Consultants, estimated the project to cost $3 million, but some on the council think the final tab could be upwards of $7 million.
The council now has about $2.6 million to contribute to the project, and would have to bond for the difference.
Mayor Karen McCoy-Oliver, who supports building a new library, said the issue should be up to the voters.
“I know the council has said it is receptive to open government, and letting people speak their mind,” the Ledger quoted her as saying. “What’s most appropriate is to do a referendum. Let the people decide. We are in tight financial times, so bring it to the people.”
The renovations would include:
A few years ago, the school district tried to construct additions to three school buildings under a $33.8 million plan in which the state would pay a third.
By state law, the plan had to be voted on in a December referendum, which was defeated 1,155 to 496 after an ugly opposition campaign by the Township Council and Hillside Democratic Committee.
“Why isn’t there a hotel, why isn’t there three hotels in Hillside?” asks Hillside’s township engineer.
The Star-Ledger reports that the Planning Board has begun reviewing the township master plan and Michael Mistretta, of Harbor Consultants, has a couple of suggestions.
One of them is getting rid of a township ban on hotels in order to capitalize on Newark Liberty International Airport.
He also suggests rezoning neighborhoods, perhaps yours, so as to aid redevelopment.
For example: Re-zone North Broad Street from office-commercial to retail-commercial.
Other streets under review include Florence Avenue, near the former Bristol-Meyers Squib R&R building, Liberty Avenue, Route 22, Long Avenue and Maple Avenue.
Don’t worry, though. Mistretta says there won’t be any eminent domain.
The Hillside Township Council has hired a consultant to look into building a new library and renovating the municipal building and community center, the Star-Ledger reports in its print edition today.The new 2-story library would be erected on the site of the War Memorial building, which would be demolished.
The library site, on the ground level of the municipal building, would be used to ease crowding at the police department. The library recently underwent repairs when flooding caused major damage a few years ago.
Design and planning alone by Cranford-based Harbor Consultants, the township engineers, will cost an estimated $86,000. The full cost of all the projects is not yet known, the Ledger reported officials saying.
