Ethics Complaint Dismissed Against 12 S. Amboy Officials

Reprinted from Amboy Beacon, Aug. 11, 2010 SOUTH AMBOY

A Local Government Ethics Law complaint filed by open government activist John Paff against 12 South Amboy officials for failing to file their required 2008 Financial Disclosure Statements (FDSs) was dismissed recently by the state Local Finance Board.  Among those failing to file FDS forms for 2008 were Planning Board Chairman Michael Wilday, Vice Chairman Mark Noble, now a City Council member; Ryan Tooker, son of Business Administrator Camille Tooker; Robert Senape and Alternate Lawrence Stratton; Zoning Board of Adjustment Chairman Frank Farrell and members Jamie Stratton and Richard Moran; Redevelopment Agency member Kevin Mezsaros and Counsel Craig Coughlin, Tax Assessor Brian Enright and Police Captain Darren Lavigne. These officials’ failure to file their 2008 FDS forms — along with a list of South Amboy officials failing to file their 2009 FDS forms when due — was published in a front-page story in the Amboy Beacon on Sept. 2, 2009, entitled “12 Fail To File.” On Aug. 25, Paff, who chairs the N.J. Libertarian Party’s Open Government Advocacy Project, filed complaints with the Board against the 12 “Local Government Officers” serving in the City of South Amboy who were required by law to file FDS forms. “I filed this complaint because each of those officers had failed to file the Financial Disclosure Statement (FDS) that the Local Government Ethics Law required to be filed on or before April 30, 2008,” Paff explained. “Note that when I filed my complaint, the FDS forms were over 15 months overdue. “After I filed my complaint, the 12 officials filed their tardy FDS forms, and the city forwarded the completed forms to the Local Finance Board on Sept. 15, 2009,” he added. “On July 28, 2010—more than 10 months after the city had filed the tardy forms—the Local Finance Board notified me that my complaint was ‘dismissed’
because it ‘no longer (has) a factual basis,’” Paff said. “In other words, the fact that none of the officials had filed by the April 30, 2008 deadline does not, in the Local Finance Board’s view, constitute a violation of the Ethics Law. Thus, local government officers are free to simply ignore the FDS filing requirements, knowing that they can simply file their tardy forms in the unlikely event that someone complains.” Paff said he has complained “for years” about the Local Finance Board’s failure to “meaningfully-enforce” the Ethics Law.
Instead of being “intended to actually-punish wrongdoing” by holding local officials accountable by ferreting-out unethical conduct, the Ethics Law appears to be “intended to placate the public and create an illusion” of oversight, he said. While such Ethics Law violations could result in fines of $100 to $500 being assessed against non-filing officeholders, Paff has noted that “the Local Finance Board, to my knowledge, has never actually fined anyone for failing to file an FDS. “I predict that these 12 non-filing officers can simply file their tardy FDS forms anytime during the next several months and, unless the Board departs from its standing procedure, it will dismiss my complaint for ‘no longer having a reasonable factual basis,’” he stated before filing his complaint.