Another Red Bank Council meeting, another ugly blow-up. And last night’s was a Richter-scale doozie.
As usual, the main event was Mayor Ed McKenna v. Councilman John Curley, but two other council members and a borough resident got into the finger-pointing and shouting.
Through it all, Curley’s opponent in the race to succeed McKenna, Council President Pasquale Menna, stayed on the sidelines before restoring an air of calm to the proceedings.
Last’s night flashpoint, or at least the first of several, was the question of whether or not William Meyer of Tinton Falls has long been misrepresenting himself as a Red Bank resident for giving his address as 12 Monmouth Street when he speaks at public forums, as he did last night.
Meyer owns the building at that address and runs a law practice from an office there. McKenna, also an attorney, has previously contended, in a letter to the editor of the Hub, that Meyer is “a fraud” for failing to instead identify himself by his town of residence.
Last night, Meyer raised objections to the borough’s plan to pay $2.4 million for a two-acre parcel of property on the West Side for the creation of affordable housing project called Cedar Crossings. (An ordinance clearing the way for the land purchase passed after the brouhaha. See the Asbury Park Press today for details.) Meyer cited two examples of case law to bolster his argument.
Up next after Meyer was Tony Busch of West Front Street, who angrily demanded a investigation into whether Meyer is illegally using his office as a residence. That brought a sharp rebuke from Curley.
“Mr. Busch, I’m glad to see you’re an FBI agent. I’d like to see your credentials,” he shouted. Meyer, he said, “is a taxpayer, and he has the right to speak.” When Busch retorted that speakers are “supposed to” give their home addresses, Curley called Busch a “minion” of McKenna, and offered to get Busch a dicttionary when Busch said he didn’t understand the word.
McKenna jumped in, insisting that Curley allow Busch to speak, but the shouting continued. It was defused, or seemed to be, when Councilman Robert Bifani interjected that perhaps speakers in Meyer’s situation “give both addresses next time.”
The calm didn’t last. Curley, apparently reading from notes or a prepared statement, ran through a litany of reasons for his objection to the land purchase, including an appraisal of the land’s value that he questioned. But when he mentioned Bifani’s family, who own an adjacent property to the Cedar Crossings site, McKenna burst back in, shouting over Curley, who forged ahead.
“You lie,” McKenna shouted. “There’s another lie! You’ve just told five blatant lies!” McKenna called Curley a “used car salesman” who is “incapable of telling the truth.”
“Tell me what you have done in four year on the council toward affordable housing,” he shouted. “Absolutely zero.”
Republican Councilwoman Kaye Ernst, who regularly sides with Curley, intervened, but that brought a rebuke from Democrat Art Murphy, who angrily told Ernst he was “up to here” with what he said were her constant interruptions of other speakers.
Bifani succinctly and without shouting chastised Curley for bringing his family into the argument.
Councilwoman Sharon Lee didn’t say a word. Menna, too, chose to stay out of the line of fire until the combatants had spewed most of their venom. At that point, he calmly explained that he thought the legal analysis offered by Meyer was off the mark, and said he saw no reason to challenge the findings of a respected appraiser.
The borough’s purchase of the land, which is to be fully funded by the state, is a “sterling opportunity,” he said, to add to the borough’s affordable housing stock.
William Katchen is one of the members of the Red Bank Affordable Housing Corporation. He is also involved in the Paramus Affordable Housing Corporation in which the FBI is investigating them. Below is an article as well as explaining how money flows from non profit affordable housing corporations
http://www.bergenunitedway.org/pdf/1208press/uwclips23.pdf
Here is a link to learn more about Red Bank Affordable Housing Corporation members http://www.courtyardsatmonmouth.wordpress.com
These links you are posting are great George! I hope that the good people of Red Bank are now able to get some kind of idea as to who really runs Red Bank and the corruption that has gone on for years, all at the taxpayers expense and to the benifit to others. I hope that people see the connection between McKenna, Murphy, Menna, Dupont and the others.
Cindy,
Thank you! You do not realize what goes on in town until you have to deal with them. I know first hand about what you mention. I know that the person responsbible for my problems was more powerful than Mayor Menna as Mayor Menna was in agrement and in support of my project. Once you figure out who really runs Red Bank, you know where to direct your efforts. But unlike that person, I am letting him know that I am the one exposing him to his own potential problems. I would like to hear him explain the cedar crossing development to the voters as well as the investigators.
US Senate passes the Public Corruption Prosecution ImÂprovements Act to go after government corruption
http://www.northjersey.com/news/bergen/US_Senate_wants_renewed_power_to_prosecute_corrupt_public_officials.html
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/02/post_247.html
This is what the bill states:
The Public Corruption Prosecution Improvements Act (S. 49 / H.R. 2822) provides fixes to the Sun-Diamond and Valdes cases and adds other crucial enhancements to key aspects of federal criminal law.
In response to Sun Diamond, the bill makes clear that benefits to public officials designed to curry favor for non-specified future acts or to build a reservoir of goodwill are prohibited by clarifying that public officials may not accept anything of value given to them because of their official position.
To respond to Valdes, the bill broadens the definition of “official act” to include “every action that is within the range of official duty,” and makes clear that a corrupt payment, or a series of payments, can be made to influence more than one official act.