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Bad Advice: Hillside Council, Attorney Should Face Inquiry over Billboard Scandal
Contrary to what Township Attorney Dwayne Warren believed and told the Township Council, the Matrix Outdoor Media company is indeed involved in the McGreevey billboard scandal. This is just the latest development in Hillside's involvement in the ongoing statewide political controversy.
The billboard scandal, as some are calling it, stems from two McGreevey administration aides who used their political positions and connections to broker billboard deals between governments and advertising companies.
These officials manipulated and bypassed zoning laws in order to get billboard approval for companies who made generous contributions, it is alleged.
Hillside became involved when the Council approved a billboard on public property without zoning approval and without going to bid. But billboards also need state approval. So then, a Union County Democratic Party operative influenced the state Department of Transportation to give the Hillside billboard favored treatment for approval.
"First, it did not go through the zoning board. The township attorney said the council could just approve it," Hillside Councilman Gerald Pateesh Freedman tells the Star-Ledger. "Second, I'm going to ask the town attorney whether we need to renegotiate this contract because we did not get the going rate."
Freedman was the only Councilman who opposed the billboard.
Other Councilmen are denying wrongdoing and claiming that they followed township Attorney Dwayne Warren's advice.
Warren maintains that nothing was done wrong and that the deal was the best for Hillside. Hillside Mayor Karen McCoy-Oliver agrees.
But the deal may not be the best. Billboards, including the one in question on Route 22, are very lucrative but Hillside will only be getting $10,000 a year. If the township had gone to bid, other media companies would most likely have offered more, sources tell the DISPATCH.
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