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SIDE NOTE
Party Boss Named to Library Board
Charlotte DeFilippo, a "voracious reader", was recently appointed to the Hillside Public Library's board of trustees by the Town Council. Council and Mayor claim they could not get anyone else to do it.
See Related:
Mayor's Appointments "Elitist"
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Town Hall Ignores Billboard Scandal Questions
Citizen-Dispatch staff
The Hillside Township Council and Mayor ignored questions from the public and from Ward Four Councilman Gerald "Pateesh" Freedman over the governing body's possible involvement in the McGreevey billboard scandal.
The McGreevey administration is once again under scrutiny as some of its members are being investigated for abusing their authority to grant lucrative billboard permits to advertising companies.
Many of these officials coincidentally made fortunes and received thousands of dollars in "donations" from billboard tycoons as soon as the deals went through.
A Philadelphia newspaper this month revealed that the Hillside Township Council awarded, without bid, permission for the Matrix company to erect a billboard on Route 22. The deal also went through without a hearing at the town's zoning board.
Soon after, a Union County Democratic Party official pulled strings at the state level so that the rules on billboards could be brushed aside to allow the billboard to be built in Hillside.
Because Hillside officials did not request bids for the billboard, it is unknown how many more tens of thousands of dollars the township could have profited from.
Another unknown is whether any politicians in the county profited from the deal as a result.
This week's ELIZABETH REPORTER reports that state Sen. Raymond Lesniak, D-Union, forcefully protested a bill that would place a $24 million dollar tax on billboard owners.
The billboard tax was one of the few taxes Governor McGreevey did not sign.
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