Manalapan will wait on ‘pay-to-play’

Manalapan
will wait on
‘pay-to-play’
BY DAVE BENJAMIN
Staff Writer

MANALAPAN — A decision to act on an ordinance that would ban the practice of "pay-to-play" has been postponed by the Township Committee until a stronger law can be written.

The issue came up for discussion on Jan. 14 when Heather Taylor, the communications director for Common Cause New Jersey, urged the members of the governing body to adopt the model pay-to-play reform ordinance the group has developed.

Pay-to-play is the practice that has come to describe a system in which professionals such as engineers, planners and attorneys make campaign contributions to candidates for government office with the expectation they will subsequently receive public contracts for which there is no competitive bidding.

Some citizens and newspaper editorial writers have suggested that the practice of pay-to-play is akin to bribery. The practice has come under scrutiny by ethics reformers who see pay-to-play as a corruption of the political process.

Officials in some New Jersey municipalities have adopted ordinances setting limits on campaign contributions professionals may make to a candidate. The state Legislature has not acted on the matter and has left it up to local governing bodies to decide what, if anything, is appropriate for their community.

Locally, Freehold Township and Marlboro officials have adopted pay-to-play restrictions. Officials in neighboring Millstone Township rejected a pay-to-play ordinance in a 3-2 vote last week.

In comments to the committee, Taylor said, "This ordinance addresses the problem of pay-to-play, the all-too-common practice in which campaign contributions are traded for government contracts. This ordinance is designed to sever the link between contributions and contracts and ensure that merit and cost effectiveness drive the process for selecting professional consultants."

Taylor said while this situation may not be a problem in Manalapan, one only has to glance at headlines in New Jersey’s newspapers to see that pay-to-play is increasingly prevalent in communities throughout the state.

By adopting the ordinance, she said, Manalapan officials would put in place important safeguards and send a message to other communities and state government that now is the time to end pay-to-play and restore integrity to a broken public contracting system.

The Common Cause ordinance sets limits on political contributions that may be made by professionals who do business with the town or who wish to do business with the town.

It reduces the amount to $400 that professionals doing business with the town can give to a mayor or council member and $500 to any municipal, county or party committee within one calendar year of the contract. Restrictions on con-tributions would also apply to spouses and children living in the same house as the professional.

The law calls for a four-year no-contract penalty on a professional who attempts to use intermediaries to avoid contribution limitations.

During the discussion, Township Attorney Donald Lomurro said neither candidate who ran for Township Committee in November asked him or his firm for a contribution.

Lomurro said the Common Cause proposal really doesn’t go far enough because a professional can give money to a political action committee (PAC) and the PAC can, in turn, give it to a candidate. He noted that the Common Cause ordinance does nothing to stop that practice.

"You can give it to a state party," said Lomurro. "They could give it to [a] Manalapan [candidate] and that wouldn’t be barred under your ordinance."

Lomurro said the ordinance presented by Common Cause was not effective enough to achieve the goal. He said the ground work has been done to develop a law that is stronger than the Common Cause proposal.

Mayor Beth Ward asked how the ordinance would affect non-pro­fessionals.

Taylor said that in regard to contracts that require competitive bidding, the low bidder would still be the person or firm that would receive a public contract.

Ward told Taylor there is a need for the language to be more spe­cific, saying, "We’re going to have to up the bar a lot."

Taylor said she preferred that a Manalapan ordinance would take it further.

Committeeman Drew Shapiro said it is ironic there is nothing in the Common Cause pay-to-play or­dinance that addresses contribu­tions to political candidates from builders.

"The way this is written it ac­tually promotes candidates to get contributions from the builders," Shapiro said. "I would like to see something in there about taking money from developers."

Committeeman Bill Scherer said that since Lomurro’s law firm had developed the pay-to-play ordi­nances Freehold Township and Holmdel enacted, then most of the work is already done.

Lomurro asked the committee members to wait a few weeks so he could work on the ordinance.

Committee members agreed to wait and give Lomurro time to come up with a stronger proposal relating to pay-to-play.

In other business, Committeewoman Michelle Roth has been confirmed as the Township Committee’s liaison to the environmental committee, the Planning Board and the trans­portation committee. Roth is a for­mer chairwoman of the Planning Board

Michael Alongi, captain of the Englishtown-Manalapan First Aid Squad, has been appointed to the emergency management council, and John C. Hartman and Steve Ross have been appointed as deputy fire inspectors.

The committee appointed Stacey Beers as a dispatcher for the Manalapan Police Department and authorized the hiring of William P. Dutton as a probation­ary police officer.

Drew Shapiro and Marissa Shapiro have been appointed to the community alliance committee; and Edward R. Reed Jr. has been appointed as a full-time electrical inspector.