Council serves Nittoso notice of misconduct

BY JENNIFER DOME
Staff Writer

Andrew P. Nittoso Jr. Andrew P. Nittoso Jr. said the Brick Township Council did not notify him properly that he has been charged with misconduct, neglect of duty and inefficiency, among other violations, in his position as chairman of the Brick Township Municipal Utilities Authority (BTMUA).

The council approved a list of 19 specifications to support these charges at its recent June meeting, with Councilman Fred Underwood casting the only dissenting vote. The letter notifying Nittoso of these charges was mailed on June 29, council President Ruthanne Scaturro said.

However, Nittoso said Monday that he did not receive the notice until last Thursday, July 7. He said the letter was sent to the BTMUA’s offices, and not his home or business. Perhaps it was because of the holiday or staff members were on vacation that he did not receive the letter earlier, he said.

According to Scaturro, Nittoso is allowed 10 days to respond from the time that he receives the letter to request a hearing. A hearing date has been scheduled for Aug. 2 if Nittoso requests one. At the hearing, the Township Council may find that Nittoso should be removed from the BTMUA’s Board of Commissioners.

Nittoso said that because he just received the notice last Thursday, and the hearing date is coming soon, he will request that Scaturro renotice him of the charges. He said he expected to have a letter hand-delivered to Scaturro Monday.

Nittoso said he would then like to have 10 days to respond to the charges with a request for a hearing if he so chooses.

“We’ve got to start over and do it the right way from the beginning,” Nittoso said.

Scaturro said Monday that if the date is too soon, the hearing can be rescheduled. However, she said that she doesn’t feel the need to renotice him.

“I have no problem moving the date,” Scaturro said.

The decision to

charge misconduct, etc.

Council members have been discussing removing Nittoso from the Board of Commissioners since March when the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office began investigating the former BTMUA chairman’s overdue sewer bill. Daniel F. Newman Sr. had not paid a sewer bill for his Pineland Plumbing and Heating business for 19 years. An Ocean County grand jury has since cleared Newman of any criminal wrongdoing and it cleared Nittoso as well of his alleged involvement.

Around the time the investigation began, BTMUA Director Kevin Donald said that Nittoso told him to “bury” Newman’s overdue sewer bill — an accusation that Nittoso has denied and Newman says is a lie.

Since then, Nittoso has accused Donald of lying, saying the problems that exist with the BTMUA are because of the executive director.

But Republican commissioners of the BTMUA said Nittoso was wrong not to have informed other commissioners of Newman’s sewer bill since Nittoso knew of the matter since November. When Nittoso refused to step down from the Board of Commissioners at the Republican commissioners’ request, the Township Council stepped in.

Township Attorney Charles Starkey said that because the council members have the authority to appoint commissioners to the BTMUA, they also have the authority to remove them. Commissioners may be removed for deficiency, neglect of duty or misconduct in office, he said.

Besides misconduct, neglect of duty and inefficiency, the council also charged Nittoso with “willful violations of the provisions of the authority by-laws, rules, regulations, policies and/or procedures manual” and “willful violations of the Open Public Meetings Act ... relating to your duties as a commissioner and/or authority chairman.”

Among the specifications of the charges listed in the notice sent to Nittoso, the council members said that Nittoso had:

•ordered Donald to give his brother, Kevin Nittoso, an employee of the BTMUA, a $1,500 bonus that he was not entitled to.

•purposely concealed information about a criminal investigation from five other commissioners for six months.

•ordered Donald to keep information from two commissioners.

•released information about the purchase of Parkway Water Co. without approval from the commissioners.

Some council members questioned the specifications during the June 28 meeting.

“I think we’re taking matters into our own hands and we’re making opinions, not facts,” Councilwoman Kathy Russell said.

Scaturro said the specifications are “statements of fact.

“I saw most of these things first hand and read them first hand,” the council president said.

Although Nittoso has denied accusations that council members have mentioned publicly before the list of specifications was approved, he said Monday that he did not wish to comment on the charges now.

How will the hearing be conducted?

At the Township Council’s June 28 meeting, Councilman Stephen Acropolis said he wanted outside counsel appointed to represent the council during Nittoso’s hearing, if Nittoso requests one. Scaturro agreed that the council needs an outside attorney or judge to guide it through the process.

Mayor Joseph Scarpelli said that night that he would not sign a contract to bring in outside counsel if a hearing is held. Starkey explained last week that with Brick’s form of government, the mayor is the only person who has the authority to enter into contracts.

“Don’t push this; put it behind you,” Scarpelli told the council members. “I will not sign a contract for an outside source.”

“We can’t move on and the residents of Brick Township can’t move on because they feel there’s been an injustice here,” Scaturro said.

“We have an obligation to the citizens of this community,” Councilman Anthony Matthews said. “We as officials cannot turn our backs on this.”

Whether or not the council will use Starkey as their counsel for the hearing remains to be seen.

Speaking from his Brick office Thursday, Starkey said that while the statute that allows council members to appoint commissioners to the BTMUA also gives them the right to remove commissioners “the statute is completely silent as to how you do it.” He has recommended handling the matter as if Nittoso was an employee who is being removed from his position. However, using the Rice notification, which Starkey said was meant to protect employees when being asked to leave a job, doesn’t make the process any clearer about whether there should be a hearing officer.

Starkey said he feels that since the Township Council will make the ultimate decision to remove Nittoso or not, “The council has to sit, in effect, as the judges.”

Scaturro said Monday that as she understands it, the council acts as a hearing officer as a body. She said she’s looking for legal advice because “the statute is non-specific so there’s not much dictation on their part as how we should proceed with this.”

She said she feels the council’s representation should be a third person, someone who hasn’t been associated with any of the previous meetings regarding Nittoso.

If he represented the council as their attorney, Starkey said he would like the hearing to be conducted in the following manner: The evidence supporting the charges made by the council would be presented; Nittoso or his attorney would have the ability to question that evidence; then Nittoso would have the right to present his own case.

Starkey said that if he represented the Township Council, he would oversee the legalities of the hearing, he would not act as a prosecutor.

While speaking with The Bulletin recently, Nittoso said he wondered if he would have the ability to subpoena witnesses on his behalf. According to Starkey, the council has subpoena powers and he has recommended to Scaturro that if Nittoso needed the council to subpoena witnesses as well, then she should do so.

Scaturro said last week that she would agree with this since it would be fair to both parties.

Acropolis has said that he believes the Township Council is entitled to the evidence and testimony compiled by the Prosecutor’s Office during Newman’s investigation. However, Starkey said last week that he doesn’t believe any of the prosecutor’s work product would be available to the council as evidence. He said it wouldn’t hurt to ask, but he doesn’t believe the Prosecutor’s Office would release that information.

Nittoso said that he is still deciding what he wants to do since he may be required to retain an attorney on his own. Although top employees at the BTMUA are entitled to representation if their position is called into question, Nittoso said there doesn’t appear to be support for the authority to pay for his counsel. Depending on how much his legal fees may be, Nittoso said he may just consider stepping down.

Otherwise, he said he definitely wants a hearing to take place in public.

“They’re coming back for another bite at the apple with this hearing,” Nittoso said, referring to the grand jury’s finding that he was not criminally liable for his involvement with Newman’s overdue sewer bill.