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Hillside in Midst of State Billboard Scandal
Citizen-Dispatch staff report
The latest scandal to plague Governor James McGreevey's administration involves billboards. A Federal Grand Jury is currently investigating whether state officials misused their power and authority to erect profitable billboards for their own personal enrichment.
And now a leading Philadelphia newspaper has exposed that Hillside officials may also be involved!
According to Philadelphia Inquirer reporters Tom Turcol and Maureen Graham, state transportation commissioner James P. Fox went out of his way to expedite the approval of 15 billboards in order to please the request of an unnamed "Union County Democratic operative".
It turns out that Fox's initial intention was to allow the erection of a billboard in Hillside, which the Inquirer reports was 15th on a state waiting list. But when the division refused playing favoritism for just one sign, Fox ordered all the signs above Hillside's to be approved as well.
According to the paper, it is a "rare involvement in the day-to-day operations of the department" for Fox to have directed the DOT to grant a permit just for Hillside.
In responding to press inquiries, Fox falls just short of admitting he did all this just to please the Union County machine operative who he refused to identify.
MEANWHILE IN HILLSIDE
While county party operatives and McGreevey aides were circumventing state procedures and protocol, local officials in Hillside were doing some circumventing of their own, the Inquirer exposes.
According to research, Hillside Town Hall granted the Matrix Outdoor Media company the "right to develop the sign on municipally owned ground".
This, township officials did without any competitive bidding process and without referring to the Zoning Board for a hearing!
The Inquirer writes:
"Fox's action in the Hillside case reflected what career state employees and others say has been unprecedented involvement in routine billboard matters by the McGreevey administration."
Fourth Ward Councilman Gerald "Pateesh" Freedman, the sole good-government activist on the township council, told the DISPATCH he questioned the billboard deal at a public meeting.
"The Township Attorney said the firms involved [with Hillside] were not involved with McGreevey," he said.
Freedman intends to hold the attorney accountable to his words.
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