Why?  What might be the Borough’s true motivation for its objection? 

I have no idea. You’d have to ask them.  I’ve received ever-shifting reasons over the course of the past 2 years, but none appear to “hold water.”  Even the judge, in his denial of one of the Borough’s recent motions to place an injunction upon me, alluded to the lack of credibility created by their ever-changing proclaimed rationale for the denial of my application.

Most recently, the Borough’s outside counsel, Fred Semrau, said that it is because the Borough Engineer, Paul Ferrero, deems this proposed stone fence to be a “public safety hazard” because he purports to worry that “some passing motorist might run into it.”  Note that:

1. it’s to be located 4 feet inside my property from the edge of the road, 
2. that there are many stone fences in the Borough, including no fewer than 7-8 on Talmage Road alone, that are closer to the road than what I’ve proposed, none of which filed for permits or have subsequently suffered any “enforcement” by the Borough, despite this same Mr Ferrero’s 20 years in this very same role, and
3. that preventing errant motorists from careening into my property was one of my originally stated (to Mr Ferrero, in fact) reasons for designing the replacement fence to use stone in the first place!  Mr Ferrero registered NO such public safety concerns at the time i stated this.  I told him that I needed to protect my family from being injured or killed by irresponsible passing motorists.  So, am I to understand that it took Mr Ferrero more than 4 months to subsequently decide that he now viewed this as a public safety hazard, only after other manufactured justifications were proven to be false?  

 

Before that, the same Mr Semrau stated that the application rejection was due to the fact that the then-serving Chief of Police, John Camoia, had deemed the planned stone fence to be a public safety hazard (no mention of any other objections, including any from Mr Ferrero) because it would infringe on sight lines for motorists approaching the corner of Cherry Lane and Talmage Road.  Well, it turns out, that written statement to me, made by the Borough’s outside counsel, was just an outright lie, and he very likely had sufficient information to know that it was untrue at the time he made that statement.  How do we know?  In response to a subsequent OPRA request for all communications between the Chief of Police and any Borough officials regarding this matter, only one response was provided by the Borough.  It was an email from the Chief to the former mayor.  In this email, on which Mr Semrau was copied, the Chief NEVER states that the fence definitively presented any sort of public safety hazard (he did speculate that it might cause sightline challenges were it to be allowed to be too high).  So, he never had an actual public safety concern, only, potentially, a hypothetical one.  (The Chief was clearly never told by any Borough official that the fence was to be only 30″ high — again, not one person on that email chose to share such crucial information with the Chief.)  Nonetheless, in his first email to me (sent roughly two months AFTER he saw this email), formally notifying me of the rejection of my application, Mr Semrau stated only one reason for the Borough Council’s rejection — the Chief’s determination (note that he doesn’t mention the conditionality of the Chief’s potential reservation, which was obvious from the Chief’s email) that the new stone fence would impair visibility to the point of creating a public safety hazard (which, of course, the Chief had never actually determined).  An outright lie, it turns out, on behalf of the Borough, by Mr Semrau, it’s legal counsel.  I doubt that lying, in writing, is what we expect of those advising our Borough officials on legal matters?

Why, and by whom, was the Chief misled.  The Chief indicated, when he came over and viewed the mock-up of the stone fence, that he had been led to believe (he didn’t, and still won’t, say by whom) that it was to be much higher than it actually was.  I had submitted plans, complete with measurements, months beforehand, to the office of the Borough Engineer.  Mr Ferrero, in fact, had told me that he wouldn’t even consider submitting my application to the Borough Council if I did not provide such detailed drawings of the proposed fence with my application.  I had discussed the height of the proposed fence with the former mayor.  Why was the Chief not provided with these drawings and measurements, when asked to opine?  With such broad knowledge of my planned fence height, who in the Borough could have been so misinformed as to mislead the Chief?  Or, more likely, was it intentional, in order to get a “desired response?”  His email responds to the former mayor by starting with “As requested, I reviewed the situation” and, later, continues, “I agree” that the wall “might” be a sight line inhibitor.  This language suggests that he was being “led” to a certain desired conclusion.  He still only noted a conditional concern.  Had he, instead, been provided with the readily available information regarding the proposed height of the fence, he would have been able to make a definitive declaration, rather than the conditional declaration that was contained within his email (the only communication — according to the Borough — that anyone in the Borough had with the Chief regarding this matter).  Copied on this email were Mr Semrau, the outside counsel, Borough Administrator Joyce Bushman and Borough Councilman Neil Sullivan.  Certainly, at least Mr Ferrero knew the proposed height, but he was curiously not included in this email chain, despite his deep involvement in the rest of the process.  The mayor knew the proposed height — I had made quite a point of sharing with her just how low it was when first asking back in September 2023 about what practical purpose, if any, might justify such Borough bureaucracy as a “road opening permit,”  when I had no plans to touch, let alone “open,” a road.  (In fact, the former mayor indicated, in that first conversation, that she had “never even heard” of a “road opening permit” application coming before the Borough Council in the past, so she appeared, as well, to be surprised by such a requirement.) Why did she choose NOT to inform the Chief about the actual proposed fence height when his email response to her request makes it so obvious that the Chief did not possess such crucial height information already in the Borough’s possession?  

So, why did the Borough change its previously-stated formal rationale for rejecting the application — that the fence would be a public safety hazard because it would obstruct vehicular sight-lines at the intersection?  I can only assume it’s because they realized that they had been caught lying about that previous falsified justification.  I sent an email to Mr Semrau, responding to his initial email to me, noting the Chief’s perspective that the proposed fence would propose NO public safety hazard.  So, what did Mr Semrau do then?  He sent me a new letter with a new reason for the “public safety hazard,” a concern never previously expressed by the Borough Engineer, about the risk of a passing motorist running off the road, 4′ into my property and colliding with the new fence.  He never addressed the falsehood of his previous email to me.  Mind you that I already had both stone and wooden fences, and a privet hedge, even closer to the road.  Mind you that I had specifically noted in my earliest conversations with the Borough Engineer that one reason I was using stone for this new fence was to protect my family from additional unlawful, damaging incursions onto my property by irresponsible (and, sometimes, drunk) motorists.  

The chief, when only weeks after Mr Semrau sent his initial letter to me, personally viewed the scale plywood mockup and suggested that he had been misled (presumably, by Borough officials) to believe that the planned height of the”solid” fence was twice as high as that actually planned (thus, he had also clearly never been provided with the detailed plans for the fence, complete with measurements, that I had previously submitted to Mr Ferrero’s office – at Mr Ferrero’s insistence —  with the “road opening” permit and required survey.  Again, suspicious.)  When asking the Chief to opine, why would the mayor and Borough engineer (and, who knows who else?) choose not to provide the Chief with information (like my detailed plans, complete with measurements, including fence height, already in their possession) that would be clearly be critical to such an assessment of a possible visibility hazard.  I often wonder — the Chief will still not “name names” — who it was that misled him.  Evidence suggests that it was the former mayor.  Once the Chief of Police saw the plywood mock-up of what was actually being proposed, the Chief immediately indicated (and has recently confirmed in a sworn deposition) that he did not view the proposed stone fence to be a public safety hazard.    In fact, only after we subsequently received his only written communication on this matter in response to an OPRA request, it became clear that he never had an actual public safety concern, only, potentially, a hypothetical one.  He stated in his email response to the former mayor — months before I was even informed (intentionally misinformed, I suspect) by Mr Semrau of this falsified position attributed to the Chief — that “if this solid fence were to be permitted, he would suggest that “a height restriction be put in place” (it already had been, unbeknownst to the Chief at that time of this email, because the Borough failed to provide the Chief with the submitted drawings with measurements). So, to put a fine point on it, Mr Semrau (a lawyer)  was copied on an email that clearly stated the Chief’s potential, qualified concern, chose to subsequently present to me that the Chief’s concern was such a definitive, unqualified concern that the Council rejected my application.  That certainly appears to be an outright and intentional lie from the very lawyer that is supposed to be advising our Borough officials on how to behave legally and, presumably, appropriately and ethically.  Shameful.  So, why all of the suspicious, often nefarious, behavior from the former mayor, the Borough Engineer, the outside counsel, the Borough Administrator, Council member Sullivan?  Was a bribe or campaign contribution of some sort being sought by one or more of these people?  No one ever asked me for one. Perhaps one of them thought that, by delaying me for so long, I might grow sufficiently frustrated to the point of proactively offer a bribe or campaign contribution (the former mayor was running at the time for the NJ senate seat vacated recently by Bob Menendez — in fact you may recall her campaign website, which, according to press reports at the time, was a plagiaristic “carbon copy” of JD Vance’s Ohio senate campaign website, complete with it’s “Dark Day in America” theme —  “only 4 words changed” is what I heard — seems quite lazy, even by politician standards) in exchange for being permitted to move forward expeditiously?  I didn’t pay a bribe, I wouldn’t pay a bribe, and I’ll likely never know if that was what someone was really after.   

So, what kind of “leg” is the Borough now trying to “stand on” here?  They have correctly noted that my proposed fence will be located within the right of way (ROW) for the road (just as are all of the other existing stone fences, including those on Talmage Road, to which the Borough has never objected).  Big deal.  Why do they care?  There is certainly nothing in their own municipal code that prevents this.  Those Borough Council members that voted against it have repeatedly dodged that simple question.  Steve Andrews is gone, as are one or two others whose names I don’t recall.  Voted out.  So, if you want to know, you can ask Neil Sullivan, Marilyn Althoff or our current acting mayor, Jim Kelly, all of whom were Borough Council members at the time.  They should know why they each voted “no,” and did so without any presented information, questions or debate.  They just won’t tell me.  I know that Matt Bruin and Alex Henry Traut were elected only after this rejection of my application occurred, as I think is also the case of both Bruce LeFera and Will Russo, so no direct blame for the “original sin” goes with any of them, although none of them has taken any serious initiative to “right this wrong” since they came to office, despite awareness of the issue.  I will also note that it is the current acting mayor Kelly and the existing Borough Council, in concert with Mr Ferrero, Ms Bushnell and Mr Semrau, that have presided over the initiation of litigation against me.  So, all of the currently serving folks do deserve the blame for the initiation of litigation against me and my family. 

This entire thing has spiraled in an unfathomable manner.  When first notified back in September 2023 by the Borough Engineer that he would require a “road opening permit,” I asked him why, about what practical use the Borough might have for keeping me from replacing my fence on MY property within the ROW.  Perhaps, I asked, for future widening of the road or extension of the Talmage Road sidewalk this far out from the center of town?  He categorically rejected these possibilities.  Instead he stated that he could envision no such reason, and noted that this complicated, more expensive application process was just “something I had to go through.” That’s what he said — it was just a bureaucratic formality I had to go through.  The former mayor reiterated that same point.  Then, the apparent scheming started and this is what it has led to.

Eventually, once the Borough Council rejected my application (which surprised me, after previously hearing from both the former mayor and the Borough Engineer that this was simply a bureaucratic formality I had to endure), and when pressed for an answer, only then did their outside counsel begin providing these specious “public safety concern” reasons that were either intentionally fabricated through deceit, it appears, or simply made no logical sense.  I’ll note three counterpoints to their basic “ROW objection”:

1. First, there is no municipal code that prevents installing a conforming fence — my proposed fence is conforming — in the ROW, and the Borough has never cited any code section, despite many requests, as the basis for their rejection of my application
2. My existing fence and hedge have existed in the ROW for more than 35 years, and they are further into the ROW (closer to the road) than my proposed replacement fence would be, so why are they only now objecting?  Also, is there no concept of “grandfathering” in this Borough?  Because so many non-conforming structures appear to exist in our Borough, I assume that some of them may be “grandfathered,” if such a concept does, in fact, exist.
3. There are many other stone fences — including 7-8 just on Talmage road alone, two of which were installed by then-presiding Borough officials — that are not only also in this ROW, but are actually closer to the road than my proposed fence — not one of these, on Talmage Road at least, was installed subject to a filed permit (as was mine), let alone an approved permit.  Yet there has been no enforcement by the Borough — on the watch of the very same Borough Engineer, who has been in this same position for about 20 years — on any of these properties at any time.  Does the Borough not view any of them as presenting this same “public safety hazard as they purport to view mine?”  If not, why not?  They are  stone fences or walls closer to the road than mine.

The Borough’s various stated positions all appear untenable relative to the Borough’s municipal code and its own enforcement behavior pattern — with the very same Borough Engineer in place — over recent decades.  So, the way they are handling my proposal feels very arbitrary.   A review of their communications have strongly suggested that prevarication has permeated their communications with me and, in some cases, amongst themselves.  Intentional misrepresentation, arbitrary use — or abuse — of power, apparent manifest dereliction of duty, substantive incompetence — these are not qualities or behaviors that we should seek in our elected or appointed Borough officials.  So, while I’ve received various versions over time as to why they object, some were outright lies and other “hold no water.”

You be the judge.