Beck, O’Scanlon & Casagrande Ethics Reform Bill Approved by Senate Committee

March 4, 2010

Contact: Layli Whyte / (732) 933-1591
District 12

Senator Jennifer Beck, Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon and Assemblywoman Caroline Casagrande are pleased to announce that, S-1063, which prohibits local officers or employees from lobbying or advocating before any body of the municipality where he or she serves was passed out of the Senate Community and Urban Affairs Committee today.

The Assembly version of the bill, A-1619, sponsored by O’Scanlon and Casagrande was introduced in January and referred to Assembly Housing and Local Government Committee.

“The importance of this legislation cannot be overstated when discussing fairness, transparency and equitability within our government,” said Beck. “When a trusted official uses his or her influence for personal gain, the entire system of checks and balances is put in jeopardy. I was stunned to discover this law was not already in place, and I have made it a priority to see that this is a situation never again seen in New Jersey.”

In 2002, Paul Abrams, then a member of both the planning and zoning boards in the Borough of Tinton Falls, was retained by a builder to lobby for zoning changes related to the development for which Abrams was contracted to be paid $200,000. In addition to advocating for the developer, while continuing to sit on the planning and zoning boards, Abrams worked to broker deals with neighbors of the property, former Army-owned land known as C-COM, to sell their property to the developer, and made use of the borough Zoning Board attorney and engineer to re-write zoning laws to benefit the builder, and was paid for these actions by the developer.

Although charges were initially filed against Abrams because of a suspected conflict of interest, Monmouth County Prosecutor Luis Valentin dropped the case in October 2008 when it was discovered that there was no law on the books that prohibited Abrams from committing these actions.

“Unfortunately,” said O’Scanlon, “New Jersey does not have the best reputation when it comes to ethical issues, but this piece of legislation is going to act as one of many steps towards ethics reform. We need to raise the standards and close this loophole that permitted such a conflict to occur completely within the boundaries of the law.”

“It’s gratifying to see this legislation moving forward,” said Casagrande. “Finally, I believe we’re on our way towards making real ethics reform. We need to be able to trust our elected and appointed officials to do what is in the best interest of our citizens. The situation in Tinton Falls was a severe disappointment, but it shed light on a loophole that permits an unsavory form of lobbying. Now that we know the problem exists, we are in a position to fix it.”