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Hillside Officials Plead Ignorance to Scandal Involvement
Several weeks after a Philadelphia newspaper reported that Hillside officials are involved in the McGreevey billboard scandal, Hillside politicians are just now pleading ignorance to Town Hall's complicity.
Hillside councilmembers tell the local newspaper that they believe township attorney Dwayne Warren when he said and continues to say that the billboard deal was legitimate.
The billboard deal involves Town Hall selling the rights to a piece of township property over to an advertising company, which has erected a billboard on that land.
Councilmember-at-Large Jorge Batista, a real estate attorney, claims he didn't know the law or that the deal had not been given approval by the zoning board. The HILLSIDE CITIZEN-DISPATCH wonders how a councilmember who works as a real estate attorney could fail to notice such things.
Ward 3 Councilmember John Kulish, also pleads ignorance to the press and stated that such deals should not be made in the future. But many wonder why such a deal was made to begin with.
What makes the deal scandal-worthy is that it was approved by Hillside officials without going through a bidding process or receiving approval by the Hillside zoning board. This was the only billboard that received such special treatment.
The deal raised further eyebrows when an unnamed Union County Democratic Party boss pulled strings to have the state push through the approval of the Hillside billboard without going through the state's own legal protocol.
And how are the people of Hillside benefiting from this deal? Not much. The deal approved by Town Hall only guarantees Hillside an annual fee of $10,000 from the company. This is considerably low considering the fees that other billboards pull.
The HILLSIDE CITIZEN-DISPATCH doubts very much that a Party boss when out of his or her way to get the state to approve a billboard in Hillside so that the township would receive only $10,000.
WHY THE SCANDAL
The McGreevey administration has come under the eye of state and federal authorities after it was revealed that administration members had exploited the government's authority in order to circumvent laws prohibiting or limiting billboards.
In the end, these officials earned millions of dollars from their deals.
This is just but one of the many scandals plaguing the McGreevey administration, which has ties to the Union County Democratic political machine. One by one, however, corrupt officials all across the state are learning that they are not above the law.
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