October 24, 2008
By SETH AUGENSTEIN
SPARTA -- Last week's Superior Court victory for the township's group of committed petitioners was nullified by the town clerk Wednesday.
Township Clerk Miriam Tower rejected the petition challenging the township's salary ordinance establishing pay ranges for some 11 non-union employees, including the five councilmen and several department heads. The petitioners believe the raises are too high.
Tower said she found only 578 of the 668 signatures to be valid, falling short of the 650 needed to bring the pay range ordinance to the town's voters. She said 90 names were removed as invalid from the final tally because they included people not registered to vote or signatures not matching the handwriting on file with Board of Elections. Three of the signatories lived out of town, and two even asked to be removed from the petition, Tower said.
"So I rejected it again," she said Thursday.
On Friday, Superior Court Judge Theodore Bozonelis had handed down a split-decision that rejected a petition to create an opt-out clause for the town wide garbage utility, but approved the petition challenging the salary ordinance. However, the judge emphasized that 650 valid signatures of that salary ordinance petition would need to be verified to bring the question of the salary ordinance to voters for the November 2009 general election. Bozonelis also made clear the petitioners could not again supplement their petition with additional, circulated pages, which was Tower's initial contention with it.
Mayor Brian Brady, who was a target of a recall petition organized by the group earlier this year, said he was skeptical about their motivations.
"They cost the town more in legal fees than what they're aiming to save the town," Brady said.
Phil Lid and Jesse Wolosky, the two most vocal petitioners of the group of five who have continually challenged and petitioned the township government since the initial December ordinance establishing the garbage utility, have said collecting the signatures for the salary petition took a single weekend. They have continually said their ultimate goal is the ouster of Township Manager Henry Underhill.
Wolosky said he and the petition group would continue to challenge the township government.
First, they will seek to check the rejected signatures themselves. After that, they plan to meet with the rest of their petition circulators to decide what their next step would be.
"We'll go through the proper channels," Wolosky said.
