Council resurrects old Newman sewer issue
Former mayor says GOP out to 'get Danny Newman'
BY PATRICIA A. MILLER Staff Writer
It's been three years since Brick Township Municipal Utilities Authority commissioners decided in a split vote not to pursue the hefty interest former Democratic Mayor Daniel F. Newman owed on an unpaid sewer bill.

Now Republican Township Council members and Mayor Stephen C. Acropolis want it back.

"Our former mayor, Mr. Newman, is one of the people who keeps talking about how we should get restitution from other people, council President Ruthanne Scaturro said at the June 24 Township Council meeting.

"Think about what $88,000 would purchase in these hard times," Scaturro said. She then read a detailed list of how much in the way of gas, utility bills, food and health insurance could be paid for with the amount.

The council authorized Township Attorney Jean Cipriani to research the matter. Cipriani said at the meeting she wasn't prepared to comment on the issue.

"I need to research it on a couple of levels," she said. "I don't have enough information to give an opinion. I need to get the factual background."

At issue is the interest on a $10,794.12 sewer bill that Newman paid on March 28, 2005, for a building on Piel Avenue and Mantoloking Road where he once ran his Pineland Plumbing and Heating business.

Newman on Monday called the whole matter a "let's get Danny Newman issue."

The overdue bill was discovered in the fall of 2004, when the building's new occupant applied for site plan approval. Newman was chairman of the MUA at the time.

Sewer service began on Mantoloking Road in 1986, and a sewer pipe was run into the Pinelands building. Newman said at the time that MUA officials visited the site several times over the 19 years to read the water meters. He paid for the water use, but no one discovered the discrepancy with the sewer charges until fall 1984.

Both Scaturro and Councilman Brian DeLuca aren't buying that.

"What I find most disturbing about this is that if it was Alan the Florist that didn't realize his sewer bill wasn't being paid, if it was Tony's Pizza, I could understand that," DeLuca said at the council meeting. "But when you're a plumber and that's your business, how can you overlook something like that?"

DeLuca said if he owed the bill, he would pay it.

"I don't need a lawyer to tell me whether I should pay it or not," he said. "He should just come forward and pay the bill. That would be the right thing to do."

Scaturro on Monday compared the unpaid sewer bill to a certified professional accountant not knowing he or she had to pay taxes.

"He was a former mayor, chairman of the MUA and he was a plumber," Scaturro said. "He should have known he had a sewer bill."

Newman said Monday that Pineland Plumbing and Heating was a tenant in the building, which was owned by One Piel Avenue Inc. Newman said he was the major stockholder in both companies at the time.

"Technically, I could have refused to pay the bill," he said. "When they finally discovered the bill, I felt that because I owned those corporations, I was responsible for those bills."

The same day Newman paid the overdue sewer bill, the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office requested MUA documents pertaining to Pineland Plumbing and Heating.

An Ocean County grand jury later cleared both Newman and then-MUA Chairman Andrew P. Nittoso Jr. of any criminal wrongdoing in a decision "based on the evidence presented" in June 2005.

Newman said Monday he asked to testify before the grand jury. "I volunteered to go to the grand jury," he said. "I was never subpoenaed. I was never a target of those investigations. Never, never, never."

Councilwoman Kathy Russell, the lone Democrat on the Township Council, asked what prompted the discussion on Newman's sewer bill.

"I'm rather surprised by it," she said at the June 24 meeting. "The BTMUA approved two different title searches for that man's property. I think this situation belongs over at the BTMUA. I think enough people have been hurt by the issue and it's time for us to move on."

Although the MUA is an autonomous body, Township Council members appoint the commissioners and have a fiduciary responsibility when it involves money, Scaturro said.

"We have a vested interest that these people would conduct themselves in a professional manner," she said Monday.

Council members and Acropolis are also considering seeking restitution from former Democratic Mayor Joseph C. Scarpelli and former Public Works Director John H. Nydam.

Scarpelli, who was elected to an unprecedented four terms as mayor, pleaded guilty in January 2007 to accepting bribes from an unnamed developer. He is serving an 18-month sentence in federal prison at Fort Dix.

Nydam pleaded guilty to third-degree official misconduct and theft charges in February. He was sentenced to five years probation, in part because of his substantial cooperation with state and federal authorities into the Brick corruption investigation.

"I think if we are going to go after Mr. Nydam, which we are, and Mayor Scarpelli, which we are, we should go after all these people," Acropolis said. "It's just a matter of consistency. It's not a matter of singling out one person."

Councilman Joseph Sangiovanni, who was an MUA a commissioner at the time the Newman interest was waived, said he would be glad to sit down with Cipriani.

"There's a lot of things you need to know, and I was there," he said. "When that came out, they chose not to share that information with us. All we ever wanted were some straight answers and we couldn't get them."

Newman said Monday the council's plans may be related to his questioning and subsequent Open Public Records Act requests for information about the MUA's hiring of Republican Freeholder James F. Lacey as executive director.

"I'm really not sure it's not engineered by Lacey," Newman said. "I filed seven of them (OPRA requests) so far and I'm still at it."