Recent Developments

So, how has it been going recently?  Well, at Christmastime last year the Borough threatened to fine me daily until I paid to remove the small section of stone fence (nowhere near the intersection they claim to be concerned about) that I had already paid to install, so I paid to have it removed.  Then, they sued me in NJ State Court because they didn’t like that I temporarily piled all of that stone on my property in a location still within their ROW, while I continued to seek justice.  Of course, the same Municipal Code that does confer on the Borough the responsibility for approving fences that conform to the Municipal Code, does not confer any approval authority to prevent me from storing materials on my property, including in the ROW, but that didn’t matter to them. So, the good news is that I finally got an honest, independent arbiter, the State Court judge, instead of a local, biased official, to whom to plead my case.   The Borough lost, not once, but twice.  Grossly unprepared, “Keystone Cops”-like legal representation didn’t help them, but the judge seemed to find everything about their “perspective” and interpretation of the law questionable.  So, the judge ruled twice that I do not have to move that stone pile, and we remain in court now to see if he will force the Borough to allow me to install my replacement fence.  We are currently going through the very expensive process of discovery and depositions.  I am being forced to pay a large sum of money for legal expenses just to defend myself against this persistent governmental harassment, but I hope that it will at least lead to discovering the truth about exactly who in this government behaved so badly, why they did it, who has been responsible for trying to perpetuate it and cover it up, and why they continue to try to intimidate one of the Borough’s own longtime homeowners and taxpayers.

Stay tuned.

Upcoming Local Elections — An Opportunity to Send a Clear Message

In the meantime, we have local elections in November.  The ballot box can be as effective as the courtroom.  Two Borough Council members, Neil Sullivan, one of the “potted plants” who rejected my application without any deliberation are up for reelection, and Bruce LeFera, are up for re-election.  I have no reason to believe that Mr LaFera behaved badly in this, but it is also the case that he has not stood up against this continuing malfeasance either.  Mr Sullivan, on the other hand, was one of the Borough Council members that voted against my application, and the only one of these Council members who also was copied on the very email where the Chief expressed only a conditional concern, and he still voted against my application without asking a single question. Because he was copied on that email, he cannot claim to be merely an unwitting “potted plant” that failed to perform his duty of deliberative due diligence.  His seeing that email in advance of his vote strongly suggests willful complicity.  

This past Spring, it was suggested to me by an influential fellow Republican, a former mayor of ours here in Mendham Borough, to make the Mendham Republican Committee Chair aware of this ordeal and his (the entire government is Republicans) governmental mess, which I did.  He thought that the Chair might want to consider this unflattering mess before deciding who to recommend to the same Borough Council that neglected to perform their deliberative due diligence before, on my application, to temporarily fill the outgoing former mayors remaining year, before a new election could be held to vote on who would complete her unfinished term.  Unfortunately, when I spoke to him, the Chair didn’t seem to be all that alarmed by the behavior of these governing officials, never followed up with me to learn more and, to the contrary, proceeded to recommend one of those very same Borough Council members, Jimmy Kelly, who had neglected to perform his duty of deliberative due diligence on my matter, to be interim mayor, and — wouldn’t you know it — the Borough Council selected him.  Mutual backscratching appears to be the one skill they all appear to possess.  So, for me, it’s hard to conclude anything other than the Republican “machine” in Mendham Borough doesn’t care about this type of abuse of power and manifest delinquency amongst “its own.”  I conclude that the “machine” is sufficiently comfortable that it can behave in any way it so chooses, because, as I often hear from them, “no one in town pays attention.”  They are always commenting on the fact that no one in town actually attends the monthly Borough Council meetings, so they behave without fear of accountability.  With the local press all but gone now, there really is no practical mechanism to hold them to account, so they behave as they wish, without regard to the wellbeing of either an individual constituent or the community at large.  The Republican machine may be right on their assessment of community apathy with regard to meeting attendance.  But, you know what Mendham Borough resident DO do?  They VOTE.  Last year, out of about 3,600 registered voters in Mendham Borough, about 3,200 votes were cast in the Borough Council general election.  Now, it was a big election year, with a presidential election, but I’m hoping that Mendham Borough voters will turn out again this November to let their voice be heard.  

How can a 6-member, presumably deliberative and representative group of “our neighbors” decide to unanimously reject an attractive fieldstone fence that completely conforms to the Municipal Code, that replaces a broken down jumble of wood fence, stone fence and mangled hedge, rendered that way by irresponsible passing motorists, that would protect both the second oldest homestead in Mendham and the humans that have lived in this home for nearly 35 years, along with the new grandchildren that we have been blessed to have come into our lives recently?  How does that happen?  Worse yet, how does that same government conspire — there really is no other word for it — for two more years to frustrate the reasonable request of one of its homeowners, then drag one of their taxpayers to court, a taxpayer who has paid all of his taxes and served this community by coaching rec-league youth basketball in town for a decade, by serving multi-year stints on both the Borough’s Planning Board and the Regional High School District’s Board of Education, by chaperoning on 14 (and counting!) annual week-long mission trips to Appalachia to help our high school youth develop as young adults prior to leaving for college, including during the worst “COVID year,” organizing those local teens to re-install much needed campus drainage and install park benches for the senior citizens at our local Mendham Affordable Senior Housing (“MASH”) campus, next to Kings.  The list goes further, but I won’t bore you.  This is the type of community member our local government officials want to harass?  What has become of our local government?

What Would I Like to See?

First and foremost, I would like to see a clear message sent by our Borough community that this we reject this type of behavior by both our local elected the officials they appointed.  Where were the cooler heads that should have stood up to the former mayor for HER own good?  While the Borough Administrator and Borough Engineer both appear quite culpable, the advice provided by the outside counsel is particularly questionable.  Not only has he, presumably, directed the Borough down this expensive path, for no possible discernable benefit to the Borough community at large, but it is now clear that he lied, in writing, on behalf of the Borough — for which the Borough will be held accountable — and he appears to be simply “running the meter” on our Borough taxpayers.  The more they drag this out, the more of your money he gets paid.  I believe that this “rot” has proven itself so persistent that the individuals involved, who have consistently proven themselves unable or unwilling to address their own wrongs, should be removed, via electing “new blood” to elected office and replacing appointed officials.  The bureaucratically entrenched need to be removed, and replaced with community members that feels a sense of duty to the community and will behave in a responsible, trustworthy, responsive manner with respect to those they serve.  Given the lack of any response to this travesty of justice and waste of taxpayer money by the Mendham Borough Republican Committee, I, even as a Republican my entire adult life, feel that we need to give the Mendham Democrats a shot.  After all, a “Democrat” in Mendham is really just a moderate Republican anyway, from what I can see.  The Democratic candidates appear to be serious about service to the community and many in Mendham appears to agree.  One of them ran last year and only narrowly lost.  It’s high time to at least shake up the local machine, if not to give some fresh perspectives a try.  How could it be worse than what we have now, nefarious apparatchiks and potted plants, who clearly feel immune from accountability.

I would also like to have my simple little fence replacement application approved.  The project was already going to be an expensive one, and I don’t know how the costs of installing such a fence may have since risen, given all that’s been going on in the economy over the past couple of years, so I may need to be patient to wait for a time when the costs are reasonable again, but it’s at least a matter of principal that a completely conforming fence application should be approved by our local government, and I would like to see that happen. Set the right precedent for other community members to come.

I would like to be reimbursed by the Borough for my extraordinary de-installation / re-installation (I will need to pay to rebuild what the Borough forced me to remove) and legal out-of-pocket costs, which are quickly approaching the $75,000 mark, none of which would have been incurred had the Borough behaved responsibly and not forced me into a position of having to defend our rights as homeowners and taxpayers .  I’ve thought about suing for serious damages — well over $1 million of damages — for the ridiculous waste of a great deal of my quite valuable time they have cost me, for the emotional strain of having to deal with such persistent frustration, which has cost me sleep (which, I believe, may be welcome to at least one of these bureaucrats) — but I would still prefer to amicably settle the matter, as I would prefer not to cost our community more than necessary for the sins of its representatives.  After all, this has been the community we have loved for many decades. But, this more amiable path is only available if the community demands real change — ALL of the “bums” are “thrown out.”  A clear, public message must be sent, to prevent this from happening again to one of our residents/taxpayers.  Remember, my story is simply the “canary in the coal mine.”  Left undrained, the swamp will continue to fester for all of us.  This could happen to you.

So, I want this all “set right” in a very public way, so that it will be a long time before any future elected or appointed officials forget what such a transgression will mean for them.  They serve us, at our collective pleasure, and it’s very important that they, like any one of us, understand “who one work’s for.”  Without that, discipline is lost, accountability disappears and the bureaucrats “rule their little fiefdoms” as they so whimsically desire without fear of accountability.  Let’s please “set this right.”  If Mendham Borough collectively takes action to demonstrate that it cares about “setting this right,” that will send a clear message.  If it doesn’t really care, or just can’t be bothered (we all have many demands upon our time, of course), that will also send a clear message — to our community, to those that “govern” us and to this longstanding community member.  

I hope the local community responds.  My fingers are crossed.