January 13, 2011
BY JEFF SISTRUNK
SPARTA -- A Sparta resident has filed a lawsuit against the township, claiming that it violated petition laws on several occasions last year.
Jesse Wolosky, who has led several petition drives in Sparta and Mount Olive and recently won a lawsuit against the Sparta Board of Education, filed the suit in response to the manner in which the Sparta Township Council handled the restructuring of the Department of Parks and Recreation last year.
The lawsuit calls for an ordinance passed by the council in September that split the department into two divisions to be voided.
Wolosky is represented in the case by Walter Luers, while Sparta Township is represented by Thomas Ryan, its municipal attorney. Calls to Ryan's office seeking comment were not immediately returned.
As outlined in the lawsuit, Wolosky has multiple objections to the council's actions.
In April 2010, the council adopted an ordinance that eliminated the Department of Parks of Recreation and the position of recreation director and created a new division within the Community Development Department called the Division of Recreation and Senior Services. Council members at the time called the ordinance a cost-saving measure; the elimination of the recreation director was purported to save the township about $120,000 annually in salary and benefits.
A month later, a committee of petitioners who objected to the ordinance garnered the necessary number of signatures on a petition calling for the measure's repeal and submitted the petition to Sparta Municipal Clerk Mary Coe. Wolosky said he was neither involved with the petition committee nor did he sign the petition.
Coe certified to the council that the petition was valid on June 22. On July 8, the council introduced a measure to repeal the ordinance and on July 27, it adopted that measure.
In September, the council passed, on second reading, an ordinance reorganizing the Department of Parks and Recreation that contained some language that was similar to that found in the repealed ordinance. The new ordinance split the department into two separate entities within the Community Development Department.
Citing a state statute, Wolosky contends that, because the council didn't take action to repeal the original ordinance within 20 days after the public's petition was certified, it was required to submit the ordinance to repeal to the public to vote upon in a general or special election. When Wolosky presented this argument to the council at its regular meeting Sept. 14, Ryan said that the fact that the council introduced the measure to repeal the ordinance within the 20-day timeframe was sufficient.
Wolosky's lawsuit also points out some of the similarities between the April and September ordinances and, citing another statute, alleges that the council is prohibited from passing an amended version of the repealed ordinance for three years unless it first presents it to the public to vote upon.
The defendants' response denies that the two ordinances are the same and claims that the statute in question only applies to ordinances that were voted upon in a general election, which the original measure was not.
Wolosky said he filed the lawsuit out of concern for how future petitions in Sparta will be handled.
"It's important for the residents of Sparta to discover whether or not the council was circumventing the law," he said. "What's the point of people having the right to petition if the council can just re-write a repealed ordinance?"
At the Sept. 14 meeting, Ryan called Wolosky's accusations that the council circumvented the law "grossly presumptuous."
The lawsuit is scheduled to be heard before Superior Court Judge Theodore Bozonelis Jan. 21. Sparta is asking that the judge dismiss the suit.
