Ethics committee is half officials, half residents
Council approves three citizens to serve one-year terms
BY PATRICIA A. MILLER
Staff Writer

Brick Township Council members recently tapped a church deacon, a pharmacist and a financial adviser to serve on the fledgling ethics information committee.

"I think we can look at these résumés and see the commitment these three individuals have to Brick Township," Councilman Anthony Matthews said at the July 10 council meeting. "I believe this committee will work very well along with our ethics officer. It's bringing good government back to Brick Township."

The ethics committee will consist of three Republican council members - Matthews, council President Stephen C. Acropolis and Councilwoman Ruthanne Scaturro - along with the three citizens named to the committee at the meeting.

They include Richard V. Lau, a pharmacist and past president of the Brick Township Chamber of Commerce; Edward Fischer III, a retired Lakewood police officer and ordained deacon with the Roman Catholic Church; and Diane J. Hart. an investment adviser.

Each will serve a one-year term on the committee. Members of the committee will hear ethics complaints, then guide the person to the proper agency, Matthews said.

Councilwoman Kathy Russell and Mayor Daniel J. Kelly earlier this year said only citizens should serve on the committee, so it would be free of political overtones.

"It's only taken them four years to come up with something that has no teeth it," Kelly said recently.

Russell said at the July 10 meeting she was disappointed that not one person on a list of 46 residents she submitted earlier this year as possible committee candidates was appointed.

"However, these are good people," she said. "I will support this. But I want to remind everybody that the Local Finance Board is the agency charged with [overseeing] ethics for the state of New Jersey."

The ethics committee was a long time coming.

Matthews first proposed an ethics committee back in the fall of 2004, when he was running for a seat on the Township Council. In October 2005, he presented a plan for a seven-member ethics board consisting of only council-appointed citizens, not township officials, who would serve three-year terms.

"It will be a citizens' group, so no one can feel anyone's hiding anything in town hall," Matthews said.

But the original proposal would have taken "a ton of paperwork," Matthews said Monday. "It was all under a different format, a very, very time-consuming process. We don't want to give legal jurisdiction to a committee."

He said he received between 15 to 20 résumés from residents interested in serving on the committee. He, Acropolis and Scaturro recommended the final three, he said.

Residents with ethics complaints always have the option of going directly to the agency they think should handle the complaint, said Township Attorney Jean Cipriani.

"Often they don't know that," she said at the meeting. "The Local Finance Board is well-known to people in government and not really well-known to most people in the community as a thing that even exists. They are much more likely to turn to the local municipality. So the ethics information committee will provide information to them about ways to make complaints."

The state Local Finance Board has the authority to conduct investigations and issue subpoenas," Cipriani said.

"Some towns choose to have a local board that does that," she said. "This can be very problematic and that's why there is a state agency to do that, to remove any sort of the local passions and politics."

The names Russell submitted were "very nice," but none of the people on her list submitted resumes, Matthews said at the July 10 council meeting."

"We received no résumés from all the people on the list," he said. "So I don't know if their heart was truly in it or not. There is a difference between someone who volunteers and someone who has their name on a list."

Since most people in town are not familiar with the state's Local Finance Board, the ethics information committee will serve as a local contact if there is a problem, Matthews said.

"The council is the legislative branch," he said. "We do not make the final decisions. We guide them to where they can take the complaint. We're just sort of a springboard, to get things rolling. We're not going to handle it ourselves."

When a complaint comes in, it will be presented to the ethics committee without the name of the complainant, Matthews said Monday.

"The township clerk will give a scenario, not a name," he said. "I'm trying to take the quote politics out."

Matthews said he started work on the ethics committee his first year in office, but the state then revamped its entire code of conduct.

"I had to scrap what I was working on and start all over again," he said.