December 7, 2008
By SETH AUGENSTEIN
SPARTA - A prominent local activist has filed a legal claim against the township for its investigation of his home address.
The investigation of Jesse Wolosky’s legal address even involved the intervention of a Congressman, U.S. Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, over several months earlier this year.
The township deliberately undermined some of Wolosky’s activities by pursuing the address investigation, said a letter written by Wolosky’sattorney Walter Luers, and which accompanied the tort claim filed in August.Wolosky’s activist involvement in town spanned from a petition andsubsequent March referendum on the town wide garbage services, to recall drives against a majority of the sitting councilmen, to several Superior Court lawsuits. He and his lawyer say that the town's probing into his address undermined his activist causes. By publicly questioning the residency of Wolosky, he alleges, it called into question his motive in the minds of registered voters at a crucial time in town politics.
“It’s not a coincidence that he’s the most outspoken person in town,” Luers said in an interview this week.
Tort claims must be filed six months prior before lawsuits can be brought against government entities. Under tort law, the six-month window is set aside to give the government a chance to remedy the grievance. What’s more,Wolosky will have to prove Sparta was negligent in investigating and publicizing his address.
The address accusations arose in a report in The Sparta Independent in February stating that the township was “investigating” Wolosky’s address - which actually receives mail for 1 Vista Drive, 1 Vista Lane and even occasionally 44 Morning Star Drive to the same home in the area of the Sunset Lakes development. An April 28 letter from Township Clerk MiriamTower to Frelinghuysen’s office followed, in which she asked the congressmanfor assistance with what she called the “fictitious address” at 1 Vista Lane, further voicing her worries about tax evasion, terrorism and voter fraud.
“I’m a constituent. Why didn’t anybody believe me about my address?” Wolosky said in an interview. “I’m outraged that I was accused of tax evasion, terrorism or voter fraud. ”Despite defeats with the garbage referendum and the recall petitions,Wolosky has now responded to both the newspaper’s report and the township’s claims with legal action. He filed a libel suit against The Sparta Independent already filed in Superior Court, and also filed the tort notice with the township, and against Tower herself. He said part of the reason he has continued to fight local officials is because he feels the township singled him out because of his activist stances.
At his home, Wolosky has stacks of mail addressed to 1 Vista Drive. There are even tax and water bills from the township that are addressed to 1 Vista Drive - the original address on township tax maps before the 1990s subdivision of the Sunset Lakes development, and before the creation of Morning Star Drive. He said the 1 Vista Lane address only became an issue after the Sussex County Board of Elections registered him as a voter at 1Vista Lane last December. That address was created by records in the Board of Elections computer system.
The congressman’s involvement resulted in the deletion of the Vista Lane address from postal records. Jim Fotenos, a spokesman for Frelinghuysen,said in an e-mail that the congressman regularly acts as intermediary between his constituents and federal agencies.
“The Congressman’s office routinely receives requests from constituents and municipal governments looking for assistance with federal agencies. When those requests are made, the Congressman's office serves as a liaison between his constituents and the federal government working to facilitate prompt and timely resolution,” Fotenos said.
However, Fotenos said the nature of the congressman's involvement in the address issue remains confidential.
