Who, exactly, is the “Culprit” here?
I don’t know for sure. I’ve been trying to find out for nearly 2 years now, but it’s felt like I live in the Soviet Union — intentionally impenetrable and opaque.
Is it the former mayor?
Former Mendham Borough Mayor Christine Serrano Glassner certainly appears to have behaved most nefariously, based upon both what she told me and what we’ve learned through Open Public Records Act (“OPRA”) requests. It appears that she intentionally misled me, the Police Chief and, perhaps, the Borough Council.
Is it the Borough Council members?
The then-presiding Borough Council members, who were the only ones to actually vote — unanimously, I might add — to reject my application, appear culpable because the evidence suggests that they failed to perform their most basic duty of deliberative due diligence when this matter was before them (It is absolutely surreal to see a simple application to replace a fence, in a manner conforming to the Municipal Code in all respects, unanimously rejected without, according the Borough’s OPRA responses, even a single word spoken in discussion (or presented in writing) about the matter prior to the vote. Perhaps they engaged in mental telepathy. Sunshine laws, of course, require that any and all such deliberations, to the extent any occur, be conducted in a public forum, yet the only record the Borough claims to possess of that meeting are their individual votes of “Nay” to my application. No presentations, no discussion, just six “Nays.” Fishy, to say the least.)
Is it appointed Borough officials?
It does appear that certain full-time or contract employees of the Borough, including Paul Ferrero, the longtime Borough Engineer, Joyce Bushman, the Borough Administrator, and Fred Semrau, the Borough’s longtime outside legal counsel, may have been actively complicit in this nefarious behavior, either proactively or, perhaps, due to coercion by others. It was Mr Ferrero that first proactively intervened to start the bureaucratic circus of the “road opening permit” process that led to this unanimous rejection of my application. Mr Semrau is the one that appears to have intentionally misled me as to the reason for the Borough Council’s rejection of my application. Ms Bushman appears to have been at least privy to nearly every step the Borough has taken to prevent me from replacing my fence.
They all seem culpable at this point, given the lack of any good faith.
To make matters worse, not one of these individuals has ever, during this entire process, shown even a modicum of good faith, other than to grudgingly allowing me to speak at an empty Borough Council meeting. I have repeatedly asked two of the Borough Council members, each of whom I have known for nearly 20 years, why they voted against my application. To this day, neither has responded to my inquiries. Instead, they used your taxpayer dollars to pay the Borough’s outside counsel do so on their behalf. Never did any of those who voted against my proposed replacement fence, nor those who have raised issues with its plan, propose to me any sort of modification to my proposed plan in order to address any concern — legitimate or otherwise — their outside counsel claimed they had. They’ didn’t even have the guts to say “No” to my face. Instead, they hide behind the Borough’s hired hands — the lawyer and the engineer, both of whom bill by the hour — making a mountain our of a molehill is very profitable for them! I’m just a fellow community member, asking very simple questions. I was very friendly at first, expecting that we were all dealing in good faith with one another. These are my neighbors, after all. I assumed better of them. Instead, their constant stonewalling of friendly inquires is what made this litigious. All I wanted was an honest answer and a chance to find common ground. They stonewalled me at every turn, then had their lawyer misrepresent the truth in an effort to mislead me. This costly litigation was completely unnecessary. A total waste of time, money and goodwill built over decades. So, who’s the culprit? THEY, collectively, are the culprit. A collection of elected and appointed Borough officials all, eventually, came to have “a complicit hand in it.”