Flap puts legal work in limbo

Friday, October 1, 2004
By JAN BARRY
STAFF WRITER

RINGWOOD - Actions that require a municipal lawyer - from the cleanup of gasoline-tainted wells, to deciding on a permit for the big quarry in town, to negotiating employee contracts - may be postponed until next year.

That's the implication of a dispute on the Borough Council over whether to approve more money for municipal attorneys.

The council's two Republicans and one independent argue that the Democratic majority has exceeded the budget line item for legal expenses and should now be held accountable. They therefore refuse to let their votes provide the council majority needed to approve more spending.

The Democrats counter that since the municipal budget was set in the spring, there have been unexpected expenses to address various matters and that this is not an unusual situation.

But with independent Ted Taukus joining Republicans Scott Heck and Bill Marsala in voting no, the four Democrats came up short in an effort Tuesday to provide an emergency appropriation to cover legal bills. That fiscal action requires five affirmative votes.

"It's a serious issue," Heck said in a heated discussion that flared up around midnight. "We need to stay within our budget." Heck said that, with three months still to go in the year, the $135,000 legal budget is already exceeded by about $3,000.

Marsala said the spending amounted to "fiscal negligence."

Borough Manager Ken Hetrick said legal budgets also were exceeded in previous years, when Republicans ran the council. The matter was eventually resolved by transferring funds from another account. But the state does not allow the municipal government to make such transfers until November. And even those transfers need five votes.

"So we close down the town now, or what?" asked Councilman Tom MacAllen, a Democrat. No one responded and the meeting adjourned on an uncertain note.

By Thursday, implications of the dispute began to unfold.

"We are going to do our best not to incur any legal expenses," Hetrick said. "I think if the Republicans persist in going down that road, this could create severe problems."

A community meeting on gasoline contamination in residential wells, set for Thursday evening, was canceled.

"Our attorney would not have been there, because of the lack of funds," MacAllen said, referring to the borough's special attorney on water pollution, Greg Coffey. Coffey was scheduled to provide an update on what is being done to address gasoline contamination in residential wells near the Citgo service station on Skyline Drive.

Hetrick said another community meeting would be scheduled.

If the council deadlock continues through the rest of the year, MacAllen said, "basically it means you won't have an attorney working for the town."

The municipal government also is in the midst of reviewing an application by the quarry off West Brook Road owned by Braen Stone Industries for a renewed operating permit. A public hearing on the matter has been repeatedly postponed since last spring and is currently set for Nov. 30.

The quarry is supposed to put up enough money to pay for the fees of municipal experts reviewing the application. It has yet to do so, saying it wants assurance that it will get a renewal.

"The quarry is the single largest line item" for attorney costs, MacAllen said. "If they had paid in accordance with the ordinance, this wouldn't even be an issue."

At Tuesday's council meeting, Borough Attorney Joseph Maraziti said his work on that case totaled about $20,000.

Hetrick said Thursday that he would try to get the quarry licensing escrow money paid now. That money would reimburse funds that had to be taken from the legal budget, he said.

Hetrick said his accounting shows that about $124,000 has been spent on legal expenses, with bills from August and September still to be factored.

In more than 25 years' experience as a municipal manager, Hetrick said, he has never seen a fiscal deadlock like this. Nor was it previously an issue in Ringwood, his research into recent budgets found. Until this year, the council was run by a GOP majority.

"In a number of prior years," Hetrick said, "the legal expenses were significantly higher than budgeted."

E-mail: barry@northjersey.com

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