Trucks gone, but appealing $6M fines

Friday, January 18, 2008

A state appeals court has cleared the way for an out-of-business Jersey City used-truck company to appeal fines of almost $6 million handed down by city officials, who said it maintained an illegal junkyard next to the former PJP Landfill site.

The company, Trophy Trucking, saw its original appeal dismissed in 2006 by the Law Division of Superior Court because it couldn't post a bond of $11.6 million - twice the amount of the fines - as required. But a two-judge panel of the Appellate Division of Superior Court said yesterday that the Law Division didn't give sufficient reasons for dismissing the appeal.

Fire officials and the Jersey City Incinerator Authority cited Trophy Trucking several times from 2003 to 2005 for storing vast piles of truck trailers and other equipment on the property at the foot of Sip Avenue, at Routes 1 and 9.

Trophy leased the property from Edwin Siegal, who has been a long-running dispute with the city over the land he owns on an around the landfill.

Robert J. De Groot, an attorney for the company, said the fines were issued in Jersey City Municipal Court in February 2006 without a trial.

"It was just like Alice in Wonderland," he said. "First the sentence, then the trial."

De Groot said the company has shut down and is clearing the equipment from the site. "The city had a major desire to get them off (the property) as quickly as possible," he said.

An attorney for the city shares that view.

"The city's aggressive issuance of fines to Trophy Trucking, due to their improper operation of what amounted to a junkyard and hazardous dumping ground, compelled Trophy Trucking to clear the site of over a thousand rusting truck bodies and other hazardous debris," said Corporation Counsel Bill Matsikoudis.

PAUL KOEPP