Fulop's ethics measure is not dead

Voted down at council meeting, but he wants a referendum

Ricardo Kaulessar
Reporter staff writer

The City Council voted down a resolution 6-1 on Tuesday that would have made the city's ethics code the strictest in New Jersey.

City Councilman Steven Fulop had drafted the resolution with political ally and local attorney Jim Carroll, and was the lone vote in favor of it.

The resolution bans holding more than one public office or multiple salaried and appointed public positions within Hudson County - whether elected or appointed.

The legislation would also bar a public official from using a city automobile for personal use, and ban city officials from lobbying the city or city agencies for three years after they leave office.

This bill may have hit too close to the council members, as five out of nine of them simultaneously hold positions in Hudson County government, and a sixth works for an autonomous city agency. A seventh is a retired city employee who is collecting a pension for that job.

Some council people have said that they are forced to hold two positions, as City Council is a part-time job that pays about $25,000 per year, with the City Council president earning $30,000.

Had this ethics legislation been approved, it would have been sent to the city's Ethics Board and then to the state's Local Finance Board for approval.
Public may agree

Fulop said before the meeting that he had wanted to propose the bill to follow the ethics bill passed recently by Governor Jon Corzine that also calls for a ban on dual office holding. After the meeting, he said he would pursue the resolution through a referendum, which means that if he gets enough signatures on a petition, the matter could go to a public citywide vote.

Fulop has addressed the issue of ethics before. Last September, he asked the city's Ethics Board if City Council President Mariano Vega and Councilwoman Mary Spinello's involvement in voting on the AMB Warehouse project was a conflict of interest, since both of them also work for the county, who had different ideas about the fate of the project than the city did.

The city's six-member appointed Ethics Board found there was no conflict of interest on the councilpeople's part.

Earlier this year, Fulop pushed for passage of a version of the state's "pay-to-play" laws, which ban political contributions from contractors doing business with the city. Fulop's version would have also applied to real estate developers, but it was voted down by the City Council.

After Tuesday's meeting, Fulop commented on the council's vote.

"We gave the council the opportunity to enact it and they didn't," he said.

The reasoning behind their votes

Fulop said his legislation would only go into effect on July 1, 2009 when the council begins a new, four-year term. Thus, it would only affect the current members if they were re-elected.

Of the nine council members, only Fulop and Journal Square Councilperson Steve Lipski have jobs outside county or city government.

Fulop works for the New York-based financial firm Citigroup and Lipski is the principal and founder of the CREATE Charter School, located in the Greenville section of the city.

Lipski, however, offered a simple "No" before leaving for a community meeting.

Before the council meeting, he explained why he was opposed to the legislation. He said that a legal opinion offered to the council by Assistant Corporation Counsel Joanne Monahan said the resolution violates the state's Faulkner Act, which created the current form of government under which Jersey City operates.

Some of the other council members who stayed were more vocal.

Councilman Bill Gaughan, who also voted down the legislation, said, "You cannot legislate honesty and integrity."

Councilman-at-Large Peter Brennan, who served as the acting council president in place of an absent City Council President and Councilman-at-Large Mariano Vega, accused Fulop of failing to discuss this legislation with his council colleagues in the days preceding the meeting. He said that instead, Fulop chose to speak first to the local daily newspaper.

Brennan also defended the council members' having two jobs, since their council positions are part-time and pay an average of $25,000. "I am proud to say we work very hard for the people of Jersey City, but we are not paid enough," Brennan said.

Brennan also called into question Fulop's motives for the legislation, saying he is using it as a platform for running for mayor, and that his ethics legislation would allow only for millionaires like Gov. Jon Corzine and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to serve in politics.

Fulop struck back at Brennan, saying his criticism was just to give himself an excuse to vote against the proposal. He also said the council job was about serving the public, not earning another salary.

While other council members did not vote for the ethics legislation, some did show an open mind towards its purpose. Richardson did not like the idea that the legislation put her integrity into question. She noted that she was the only council member and county employee who supported late Mayor Glenn D. Cunningham's policies while he was immersed in political infighting, thus showing that she doesn't always follow the party line.

But she did say she agreed with various elements of the resolution.

Richardson and Brennan both called for the council positions to be made full-time.

Spinello agreed there should be an ethics bill, but said she abstained because she was subjected to Fulop's inquiry into her conflict of interest over voting on the AMB Warehouse project last year.

The next step

Fulop announced on Thursday he will start the process of gathering signatures and initiating two ballot referendums.

The first ballot initiative will force elected members of the City Council who hold more than one government position to collect only one taxpayer salary, similar to the ethics legislation that was voted down last week that banned dual office holding.

The second ballot initiative would resurrect the developer pay-to-play ban similar to the one that the council rejected earlier this year.

Fulop said he is confident the public will vote for these measures if the council does not do so.

"I am certain the public will see it as an issue and I guarantee these initiatives will be successful," Fulop said.

He continued, "This action will quell any thoughts that I am doing it for the headlines."

City Clerk Robert Byrne said Fulop would have to collect the amount of petitions equal to 15 percent of the total voter turnout in Jersey City from the 2005 November general election. That number of petitions, which Byrne estimates would range from 6,000 to 7,000, would determine whether the initiatives are placed on the ballot.

Specifics on the ethics law

Besides the facets of the resolution that were mentioned, it also defines and regulates the following: personal use of city property, business arrangements between city employees and elected officials, the employment/appointments of relatives or household members to paid positions, inappropriate financial benefits and gifts, definition of permissible representation, post-public service employment activities, and public disclosure mandates of political activities and municipal real estate transactions.

For comments on this story, contact Ricardo Kaulessar at rkaulessar@hudsonreporter.com.

SIDEBAR

Who has which job

Here are the public jobs held by six of the nine members of the Jersey City Council.

City Council President and Councilman-at-Large Mariano Vega is the director of the Hudson County Director of Parks, Engineering and Planning.

Heights Councilperson Bill Gaughan is Chief of Staff for Hudson County Executive Tom DeGise.

City Councilman-at-Large Peter Brennan is a confidential aide to DeGise.

City Councilwoman-at-Large Willie Flood currently serves as the Hudson County registrar.

City Councilwoman Viola Richardson works for the county, dealing with juvenile offenders and with people previously incarcerated to help them settle within the county.

West Side City Councilwoman Mary Spinello works for the Jersey City Incinerator Authority - an autonomous agency - but she has had to abstain on votes in the past regarding business between the city and the agency. She abstained from voting on Fulop's legislation.

Greenville Councilman Michael Sottolano is a retired city employee. - RK

A couple points per some comments here and I appreciate the perspective

Alb-
I agree about a comprehensive code of ethics however; the state legislators have gone to great extend to protect ?double-dippers? thus to change the city code of ethics in the city it actually needs to be voted on by the council, passed to the ethics board, passed to the local finance board, then officially adopted. The vote on Tuesday that was rejected would have started this process.

DanL-
Per the point earlier, I believe that no matter how many people were in that council chamber the result would have been the same with regards to the dual jobs aspect. You have seen this on many occasions with regards to the PAD, Pay to Play, different abatements, etc.. With that in mind though, I hope to work together with you on both ballot initiatives as they are in the best interest of residents

RPink -
The new code that was suggested was taken from some of the strictest municipality ethics code in the country that has been adopted. Different municipalities? ethics legislation were used as a template and then altered in order to comply with NJ law and penalties. The ethics code that was proposed would have been the most comprehensive in the state. I am open to working on a n even better ethics package however the dual jobs and potential abuse of positions are key components

Steve Fulop is right on the money. He should take it one step further: Given the conflicting power and financial relationships between the city and the county, elected officials should be banned from holding any elected office within those two entities. (Of course, this is an abridgement of First Amendment rights, but if you care about government without conflicts of interest it's a concept worth debating.)

Get rid of these dinosaur Hudson County five-finger-discount senior citizen clowns. Build a new Jersey City that wants to preserve its historical and architectural heritage. Add to that an arts, entertainment and nightlife base that isn't controlled by real estate developers who don't want to pay taxes.

Fulop for mayor.

He's the only one on the city council who "gets it."

Jim Edwards.

As a lawyer, I also concur that the Faulkner Act in no way preempts municipalities from going further than the state on ethics regulation. There would need to be an explicit preemption in the statute, or an implicit preemption by virtue of the statute proscribing detailed ethical standards that would "occupy the field" of ethics regulation. Neither is present in the Faulkner Act.

Its a simple red herring the double dippers are using to hide behind.

The council could simply get together and adopt their own code of ethics if they wanted to.They could hold a press conference and make fulop look foolish.Don't hold your breath.They just want this to go away.thats what they mean by Grandstanding.
A referendum is their worst nightmare.They cannot defend the indefensible. They will kick and scream and threaten and try to stop it behind the scenes but it will not work.

When they lose the county will just increase their pay by 30,000
to compensate. At least the theft will be in public.

To me, what R_Pinkowitz and others are saying about adopting a general overhaul of ethics rules sounds very reasonable.

It also sounds as if there are some other communities that, at least on paper, have the sorts of ethics codes we want.

Suggestion for Steve Fulop: if you're going to go to the trouble of organizing a referendum, why not find a good model ethics code somewhere, add the "double dipping" restrictions to the basic model, then have the referendum be on adopting the model as a whole, rather than just the double-dipping restriction?

That way, we would kill a bunch of unethical birds with one righteous stone.

If the answer is that it's too hard to pass a whole big long model through a referendum, well, OK, never mind. But then maybe it would be good to also give the city council as a whole a chance to vote on a comprehensive ethics code overhaul.

That way, if any council members were voting against your double-dipping proposal because of genuine procedure concerns, or a genuine belief in the need for comprehensive reform, those members would at least have a chance to vote for a comprehensive model.

I was witing for one of the JClIST lawyers to write something about this. I read the faulkner act yesterday and didnt think their arguement was valid at all , but I wasnt prepared to back myself up if someone challenged me on it. Thank you for the info.

When is Fulop going to start obtaining signatures and how many does he need?

As an attorney specializing in corporate governance law, I concur with JCLAW.

The Faulkner Act in no way would limit the City from adopting such an ordinance.

For those who may not have read the Faulkner Act, this act concerns itself almost exclusively with the various forms of government under which a municipality may choose to organize and operate itself. JC operates under the city council / corporate form of local government.

If for some reason, JC wished to change its form of government, it would be restricted to the choices appearing in the act; otherwise, an amendment to the act would be required.

The above being said, the Faulkner Act in no way restricts the form of anti-conflict of interest legislation JC could choose to adopt and apply to its own employees and council representatives.

All the best.

Geoff


P.S. On a final note, if we are truly concerned about good government, only a comprehensive piece of anti-conflict of interest legislation covering the behavior of all City employees and councilpeople would make a significant difference.

Healy stated: "The City Council made a decision for various reasons, the most important being the proposed resolution was beyond the powers of the City Council under the terms of the Faulkner Act, which governs Cities of the First Class, which Jersey City is."

This is an infuriatingly stupid argument with no merit other than it is deliberately confusing to readers who have no time or interest to actual looking up the Faulkner Act to see what it says.

The Faulkner Act does not in any even remote way prevent the City from adopting ethics standards by which its Council operates. It establishes that the City is to be run by a Council and a Mayor, but the Council ABSOLUTELY CAN self impose restrictions as to the type of jobs its members can hold after they have been elected. The Faulkner Act in no way prohibits this.

This is just absurd. Truly absurd.

Fulop aims to put ethics tightening to public vote

Friday, September 14, 2007
By KEN THORBOURNE
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Undaunted by the defeat of his ethics bill in the City Council earlier this week, Jersey City Ward E Councilman Steve Fulop now wants to take his case directly to the public.

Fulop announced yesterday plans to gather sufficient petition signatures to put two referendums on the ballot.

The first ballot item would bar a person who has a taxpayer-funded job from collecting a salary as a City Council member or receiving contributions to their pension plans based on their council salaries.

The second initiative revisits an issue Fulop had no success with in January, when he tried to pass a local pay-to-play ordinance that would have restricted when developers dealing with the city could make campaign donations to local politicians.

"I want to eliminate the conflicts of interests and at the same time create a council strictly to serve the public," Fulop said.

"I am confident that if you asked the public, 'Should council people have one publicly funded salary and one publicly funded pension, or two . or three,' they would say one is plenty," Fulop added.

To place the items on the ballot, Fulop said he needs to collect roughly 3,000 signatures of registered Jersey City voters.

Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy, along with council members William Gaughan and Peter Brennan - both of whom hold county jobs - dismissed Fulop's announcement as more "grandstanding" by a candidate for mayor. Fulop, a Citigroup trader, denies that claim.

The three officials said Fulop's proposals also run contrary to state law and discriminate against poor and working-class people.

Healy stated: "The City Council made a decision for various reasons, the most important being the proposed resolution was beyond the powers of the City Council under the terms of the Faulkner Act, which governs Cities of the First Class, which Jersey City is."

Quote:

I have no special loyalty to any of JC's current elected officials, but I don?t agree with any of this. IMO, all of this is ?a pissing match? (excuse the blunt term) between elected officials who don?t get along.
As I stated in a previous post, a well drafted, thorough and complete Code of Ethics for all Jersey City employees is needed. If we?re going to do it, let?s do it right and implement legislation that covers all.

It is not impossible to adopt such a policy...NYC did it, so has all of the NJ County Prosecutors offices (all staff members including clerical) and the NJ Department of Criminal Justice.



Quote:

BDLAW,

1) The example of your father-in-law woudlnt apply. The problem is elected officials with multiple publicly funded salaries and pensions simultaneously.

2) We had a prelim conversating with the clerk and legal dept. I will get you all the procedural info when I get back in the office on Monday

Two questions to the Councilman:

1. When you say you want to eliminate multiple pensions- what do you mean, per se? My former Father in Law drew multiple pensions because, over the course of his career, he worked (non-concurrently) for multiple state and county agencies (in a different county). Of course as I mentioned, he did not hold multiple positions at the same time- he was with the State Police for a period of time, and then with a county law enforcement body.

2. What is the process for gathering these signatures? Provided I agree with the text of the resolution (which I admittedly have not seen yet), I would be interested in at least signing.

Quote:

As Geoff points out, the Embankment Preservation Coalition and the Reservoir Preservation Alliance did a lot more than cause chatter on the web. They brought several people to turnout to events at City Hall and at the sites themselves.

The Reservoir Alliance's greatest success was getting the opportunity to showcase the site on weekends. Anytime someone stepped in there, they became a supporter.

The Embankment Preservation Coalition didn't just get people to say "Make My Park!" They helped identify and secure millions of dollars in available funding.

The Web is a good communication tool. And cyber-action has its place, just as do phone calls and handwritten letters. Many councilmembers were overwhelmed by the hundreds of e-mails they received opposing the proposed "carport" bill that would have changed R1 Zoning for the worst. But equally important were the people who actually showed up at the Planning Board and Council Meetings to speak out against the proposed bill, and to speak in support of the subsequent "R1A" zoning that protected large lots.

When people like Charlene Burke (West Bergen Neighborhood Association), Becky Hoffman (Riverview Neighborhood Association), Rosalyn Brown (Communipaw Avenue Block Association), or Sam Pesin (Friends of Liberty State Park) appear at a planning board or city council meeting to voice support for a position the Conservancy supports, I'm a happy man. Why? Because they don't just create threads on JCList. They know their neighbors, organize meetings with them, and organize actual real world events and activities. That's what impresses council people and gets things done.

This is the press release from today. I hope it is helpful as I am commited to getting both initiatives on the ballot and passed.

I already have quite a few volunteers to help but If you are interested please reach out via e-mail as the more people we can get involved the more effective we will be.

Best regards
Steven Fulop

-----------------------

Councilman Fulop To Take Reform Issue Directly To Voters

Process begins for two voter referendums -- first time in Jersey City history

(JERSEY CITY) ? On Tuesday, the Jersey City Municipal Council voted to defeat a comprehensive ethics reform package proposed by Councilman Steven Fulop.

This reform package, endorsed by the city?s newspaper of record, The Jersey Journal, and allowed under the state statute permitting municipalities and cities to adopt stricter ethics ordinances than the state?s current weak ethics legislation, would have been the strictest of its kind in the state.

The proposed resolution would have most notably covered elected officials having multiple pensions and salaries of which currently 7 of the 9 council members in Jersey City have. In addition, the reform package would cover conflicts of responsibilities of working for both the municipal government as well as the county government, personal use of municipal vehicles and included more comprehensive public disclosures. The City Council?s ?no? vote for the ethics package came on the heels of a previous developer pay-to-play rejection in March 2007.

Today, Councilman Fulop announced he will start the process of gathering signatures and initiating two ballot referendums. The first initiative will prohibit elected members of the City Council that hold more than one government position to collect only one taxpayer salary. This initiative would strengthen the legislation recently passed by state legislators.

The second initiative will be a developer pay-to-play ban similar to the one that the Jersey City Municipal Council rejected in March 2007.

?This ballot initiative would allow voters to enact much needed reform measures in light of the Council members refusal to do so,? Fulop said. ?If the Mayor and the City Council don?t want to voluntarily make our city better, the voters of Jersey City will force them to do so.?

?I am a firm believer that real change must start at the local level. That is why I hope to strengthen the recent dual office holding legislation that was recently passed by our state legislature,? added Fulop.

Both pay-to-play laws as well as City Council salaries and pensions are governed by local ordinances allowing ballot initiatives to be pursued. Councilman Fulop will be announcing more details on this historic ballot initiative in the days to come.

?When passed, these reforms will allow for only one publicly funded pension and one publicly funded salary per individual. It?s time that Jersey City takes the lead in ensuring that public service is about serving the people and not about personal gain,? Fulop concluded.
# # # # #

Mr Elkind,of course you have to do the job first.No argument there.If this is done right and it passes it can change the nature of Jersey City politics for the Better.No amount of people in that chamber was going to make them vote the right way.

The Embankment and Resevoir Coalition Groups invested much additional and significant effort to ensure significant physical turn outs at key public meetings.

Speaking generally, it doesn't matter whether you believe your governmental officials to be corrupt or on the take.

No significant public response in the form of a physical presence is interpreted as a lack of public interest or apathy, and leads to the easy dismissal of the issue as political grandstanding and something which can then be ignored.

Having the physical presence of significant numbers of people makes it less easy for other public officials to dismiss the issue and certainly raises the discomfort level when they realize that people cared enough to show up at City Hall.

Again, the basic premise these folks recognize is that if people appear, it makes it all the more difficult to dismiss the issue, even if the first attempt results in a failure.

All the best.

Geoff

P.S. for Mr. Rogers. It remains to be seen. If I actually see people turn out to vote in favor of such a referendum, (which I would personally support), and it passes, I will then be the first to say "Well Done" -- but not before.

Well according to the nj.com web site we just may get the chance to say "well done".They are reporting that Steve Fulop will put the Question on the Ballot in a Referendum.

So it should go from "well said" to "well done" No?

Quote:

Well, what about the Embankment issue and the Reservoir issue?

I think those issues have become issues because of a combination of Web promotion and green signs in people's windows.

The city still isn't taking people all of that seriously on those issues.

The question is whether the city is acting like that because city officials are still in Camden-armpit survival mode* or because of payola, or both.

Fulop's method seems to be, "Assume that the other guys are so corrupt that simply talking to them will lead you down the path to corruption, too."

If the officials are getting payola, then, clearly, Fulop is right. If they're just behind the times, then really talking to (and listening to) people might do some good.

I don't think a mob unrest would really help.

Cyberspace has its place, but the guts of all governmental decision-making takes place in the physical world -- and it's not something that's going to change in the short run.

If you want to influence decision-making, you have to be physically visible.

The calculus is that people, institutions and organizations who get bodies out to city council and other meetings have the theoretical wherewithall to translate that organizational effort into voting. To date, the conversation on JCList has never been able to effectively translate the 'talk' into truly 'visible' action that the folks in City Hall can take seriously. When and if that happens, the things might shift, but not before then.

All the best.

Geoff

Quote:

I don't think that the government here is really intentionally unresponsive. I think the problem is just that the nature of a large part of the city has pretty much changed overnight. The city council members think of themselves as running a beaten up Camden, N.J., kind of city, and instead, they're partly running a glittering mini Boston.

We think they ought to come here and talk to us in cyberspace; they think we ought to come to public meetings and hang out with them in smoke-filled rooms.

The important thing about someone like Fulop is that, in my opinion, it seems as if he understands us and also understands the smoke-filled rooms.

The possible downside is that he seems to be very skeptical about the idea that any members of the old guard are willing or able to accomplish anything good.

I guess the question that someone here like you, R_Pinkowitz, might be able to answer is whether Fulop -- whatever his other strengths and weaknesses -- has an accurate view of the establishment.

Are members of the Jersey City council, for example, either so corrupt or so set in their ways that all you can do is hold symbolic votes to show that they're bums, or is it possible to get them to do good work on certain issues?

I agree 100% with Ms. Pinkowitz...

Being able to say "Well Done" is infinitely much better than "Well Said".

We seem to excel in the latter, and come up way short in the former.

If most of the armchair conversation could ever be translated into action or direct participation, then maybe the folks in City Hall would take greater notice.

Quote:
Actually, for some people in downtown, everything, be it corrupt officials or crime awareness, is reason for a party.

It could not be so. It can't be that people were saying one on the internet and doing something else in real life, especially when it comes to attitudes and guts. No, it can't be.
I'd say that the outcome was rather predictable from the "pints afterwards" joyous phrase. This is when it started to feel like a serious matter :) .

Quote:
No way. It was for the sake of ethics. And he is not planning to run for governor in less than 10 years from now. No way. :)

Quote:
Oh, I thought so much it wasn't so. I thought the council was about to vote a resolution where they found themselves extremely corrupt and all resigned. Except those with the moral monopoly, of course. :)

But you'll see that the voters care. In the next elections, all councilwomen and -men will be replaced with little Fulops.

I start thinking that it feels less "I am the only correct person" but more and more "I have way more money than you, suckers".

What a predicable out-come - asking unethical individuals to vote on an ethical issue that directly effects them.

Fulop gets nowhere with ethics reform plan; vote is 6-1-1

Thursday, September 13, 2007
By KEN THORBOURNE
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

By a 6-1-1 vote, a proposal by Ward E Councilman Steven Fulop to bolster ethics standards for public officials in the city was shot down Tuesday by his Jersey City City Council colleagues.

For the most part, council members said they voted against the measure because parts of it ran contrary to the state law.

Councilman Peter Brennan accused Fulop of trying to "back-door" the council by first presenting his plan to The Jersey Journal and then coming to colleagues.

Fulop shot back that Brennan was using that timing of events as a "smoke screen" for voting against the measure.

Ward B Councilwoman Mary Spinello abstained from voting and Council President Mariano Vega was absent.

Fulop said after the vote he'd consult with his attorneys to explore other options for getting the measure passed.

The resolution would have directed the city's Ethical Standards Board to adopt the measures that would tighten ethics rules on a number of fronts, including the use of city cars and hiring relatives of city officials.

The most controversial element of Fulop's proposal would have disallowed county employees from holding municipal posts.

That provision alone would prevent five of Fulop's eight colleagues from running for re-election, since they hold county jobs.

Another clause, that applied to employees at "city-related" agencies, would have barred Ward B Councilwoman Mary Spinello from running for re-election since she is a director at the Jersey City Incinerator Authority.

In January, the council handed Fulop, a Citigroup trader, another loss, when they swatted down by a 7-1-1 vote a local pay-to-play bill he proposed.

They do walk on resolutions that cost millions of dollars.They pass on abatements that they never knew about before the meeting.Its either right or its wrong.Your either on the wrong side or the right side of an issue.If your not sure speak up or abstain,voting no means you could care less.