By M. Emory Layne
I try to report without emotion – let the facts speak for themselves. But I have to say, this bit of reportage has me a little cheesed off.
My point goes at the beginning this time, not the end. Some people out there may be looking at November’s elections from the standpoint of a “clean slate.” Janice Allen is not seeking reelection as mayor, so they might be thinking of the candidates as independent thinkers.
I’d like to remind everyone that there’s an old saying, which I slightly modify, that goes “a person is known by the company they keep.”
Applied more succinctly to North Plainfield politics, “crooks of a feather flock together.”
Perhaps Janice Allen isn’t running for mayor; but people who willingly ran on the same ticket as her, people who supported her every move, ARE running. And, to date, they’ve said nothing that would even remotely imply anything but their fullest support for her.
At a recent Borough Council meeting, we heard Mayor Janice Allen ‘explain’ why the first – and botched – meeting with Appraisal Systems, Inc. appeared to be a last-minute, improper-use-of-labor attempt to shortsheet the NPCCR meeting. Let’s revisit her own words:
“And I will bring up the fact that we are doing this newsletter because we really have difficulty getting information into the Courier-News. It seems that every now and then they come through but we can’t count on them. And I would like to explain that is why we had people take notices around about the reval. We had two meetings prior to that for the reval. We had okay attendance at one, not such good attendance at the other. And it was brought to us by the NPCCR that, you know, not enough information was out there. So I did call the Courier-News and, ah, we did fax stuff over to them and nothing got in the paper.”
Set the wayback machine to 2006. On October 31, a week before elections, the Courier-News named its choices for candidates vying for positions in North Plainfield. Exactly one day before that, an article appeared in the Courier-News headlined “In 2004, North Plainfield Candidate was Suspended from Police Force.”
How coincidental – exactly one day before endorsements.
The article discussed a situation involving GOP candidate Frank D’Amore from over 2½ years before. More coincidences: if the Courier-News had dug up this story on its own, why did it wait so long to run with it? Why did it wait until right before endorsements?
I’ll make a couple of educated guesses about these amazing coincidences.
First, that story originated in Borough Hall.
Am I wrong? I’d enjoy hearing proof to the contrary, because it certainly seems that SOMEONE there managed to alert the Courier-News to this timely (for the democrat candidates) story. And amazingly, the very same newspaper that Janice Allen blames for being unresponsive certainly responded to this tip. A nice-sized article was written … again, right before the election.
Janice, did you know about it?
You can try for ‘plausible deniability’ all you’d like – you were quoted in the article! You said “These charges are very serious and it concerns me that someone who was supposed to be upholding the law, but didn’t, is now running for election.” It’s right there: “Allen said.” Did they misquote you? Did they make it up? There don’t appear to be any lawsuits initiated by Bernstein & Co. about it, so I have to assume that you were accurately quoted.
I have to say, at the risk of damaging credibility, I am royally steamed by this.
Allen, you had no problem whatsoever getting an article into the Courier-News exactly at the time it would best serve your interests. An article that would be important to the taxpayers, to the residents, about a revaluation meeting? ‘Well, we tried, but they didn’t come through, they let us down, waah, waah, waah.’
They came through just fine when your buddies needed every little bit of tabloid sensationalism to win an election. And I don’t have the time to go into your haughty, holier-than-thou commentary on the D’Amore issue; ‘someone who was supposed to be upholding the law?’
Doesn’t that apply to your hand-picked zoning officer (who doesn’t seem terribly interested in doing it) or, for that matter, to YOU as the top dog in the system? I literally laughed out loud when I read that … best joke I’d heard in weeks.
Another educated guess: you instructed that D’Amore leak to go out, but made sure the trail didn’t lead back to you. Am I wrong? Speak up. It’s obvious that there was an intentional attempt to undermine an opposition candidate at the precise time it would do the most damage. Yet a couple of years later, durn it all, you just can’t get that uncooperative Courier-News to help! And you tried sending a fax and everything!
I don’t like to be lied to.
If there’s anything remotely as bad as a liar, it’s the person or people who help facilitate the lies. The enablers. The people who cover up for them.
I want everyone to take a long, hard look at the candidates running in November, and if you call yourself objective thinkers, consider how many of them have ever butted heads with Janice Allen over her lies.
If any of them have ever had the guts to say “That’s not true” in public. If any of them have ever had the iron to oppose her.
They’ve shared political tickets and political agendas, and haven’t made a peep to date. They’ve got the means and they’ve got the motive; why do we hear nothing but lies or silence?
9 responses so far ↓
What was this suspension about? // April 30, 2008 at 6:35 am |
You bring this issue up, but fail to elaborate. He is an announced candidate so anything relevant to his ethics should be reviewed.
I agree that the timing was too coincidental on the news release you mentioned.
Info // April 30, 2008 at 7:30 am |
Editor’s Note: Edited to remove vague, insulting language.
Both Skip Stabile and Janice Allen were the two responsible for the article. They leaked information from Mr. D’Amore’s personnel files to the Courier News reporter. They met with the reporter and turned the information over. Basically, they violated the sanctity of an employee’s files for personal political gain.
To top it all off, the accusation was related to an administrative violation, handled administratively within the police department. Frank D’Amore retired from the Police with a full pension. In addition to being the most honest person around, Frank let the town pay him for his accrued time over a several year period to avoid the Boro having to come up with a lump sum payment. This after Stabile and Allen were such sleaze bags to him. Very Christian of him.
…The actions of Allen and Stabile and the company they keep speak volumes of their personal character.
The town would only benefit from having someone like Frank D’Amore on council. I can tell you for certain that there will be no back room deals or payoffs from developers to the mayor or council.
emory layne // April 30, 2008 at 10:27 am |
In response to the original question, Mr. D’Amore was accused of improperly accessing an individual’s records. The individual in question was John Katilas, who held the position David Hollod now holds in the Borough.
The specifics of the incident are subject to who is telling the story. If memory serves me correctly, from the mayor’s side, Mr. D’Amore was harassing Mr. Katilas by running an unauthorized background check on him without due cause, and attempting to cover it up by accessing the computer system under someone else’s ID. From the accused’s side, Mr. Katilas’ car was illegally parked, and D’Amore ran the plate as he would with any vehicle; he used an unoccupied terminal but never hid that it was him running the plate.
Of course, the issue at hand at the time was one of ethics and rule violations. IF we are to accept that Mrs. Allen was so concerned about ethical issues involved in that situation (as she herself clearly stated in comments to the media), it is puzzling why it is the only situation that can be found where any official action was taken against any employee of the Borough during Mrs. Allen’s tenure. Also, for those who were interested, Mr. Katilas died not too long after this situation, and a lawsuit was filed against Mr. D’Amore for contributing to his death by causing stress, or some similar accusation. Katilas, however, apparently had a heart condition for some time. The outcome of that civil action is not known to me. At the time of his death, there were major questions revolving around shortfalls and transfers in the municipal budget. Again, in one of those amazing coincidences addressed in a current dispatch, the action against Mr. D’Amore and the lawsuit came at a time when negative attention was being drawn to Mrs. Allen’s handpicked comptroller.
More information on these situations can be obtained by searching past Courier-News articles by way of the Somerset County Library’s online archive function.
Quiet Storm // April 30, 2008 at 4:19 pm |
Additional information and rhetorical questions about Mayor Allen’s assertion that two reval orientation meetings were held prior to 4/3/08 and 4/7/08.
She may have been referring to that fact that the borough tax assessor was made available to address resident’s concerns and answer questions when it was first announced that a reval would be taking place in the borough back in 2007.
It is unlikely that she was talking about Appraisal Systems Inc. as they would not have been under contract to provide such a service at that time.
However, having said that, if it is true, I cannot speak to what she may have been thinking. How could she believe that the information shared in 2007 would be current in this ever-changing housing/property value landscape? How could she not take into account the hundreds of new individuals and families that have moved into the borough since the mandate to re-assess properties in North plainfield was issued and that perhaps there would be an even greater need for this information? How could she assume to know what is of value to the ears and minds of borough property owners and non-owners alike?
I have it from a reliable source that she was not committed to scheduling a borough hosted reval orientation prior to NPCCR’s request to host one on April 7th. If Mayor Allen was planning for the borough to host a reval orientation would it not have been better planning to collaborate with NPCCR on dates for the reval orientations to better meet the needs of borough? Perhaps she was embarrassed that a community group, openly critical of her administration, would actually be more aware of the needs of the borough citizens than she.
Oops, I may have just answered one of my own rhetorical questions.
NPCCR went through the proper procedure, as outlined in the contract between the borough and Appraisal Systems Inc., requesting to host a reval orientation, and lo and behold, the person who authorizes such an activity is on vacation and no one else is authorized to grant permission in her place. OK, I can understand that. But if the council and Mayor, on the advice of borough attorney, were to remove themselves from the process, who gave Mayor Allen permission to organize the reval orientation for April 3rd which turned into a mess? With months and months to plan what was the reason for such a poorly organized event?
Because Mayor Allen never planned to host a borough reval orientation in the first place and at the last minute, to try and trump NPCCR, she pushed through a poorly thought out plan.
As one blogger clearly pointed out, if the Mayor is aware that there is a problem with getting local news print media covarge for importent borough events, then plan for that roadblock. Don’t use DPW staff to hand out notices of a meeting just days before the event. But she left herself little choice, she had to use other means to communicate to the borough citizens because she missed the window of opportuinity with local print media because she never planned for the borough to host a reval orientation.
One last thought, I look at the Grassroots Groundswell daily for the letter from Mayor Allen thanking NPCCR for the succsessful hosting of the April 7th reval orientation that greatly benifited the many borough citizens who were turned away from the borough hosted event due to inadequate facilities.
Quiet Storm
More Information // April 30, 2008 at 9:16 pm |
The person known as John Katilas was responsible for a missing million dollars from the municipal budget. There has never been an explanation of where the million went, but there was a huge tax increase to cover for it. The fact that Janice Allen and Skip Stabile went to such great lengths to be certain no one looked into Katilas says it all. Not only did Janice and Skip cover for a missing million, but they even allowed him to illegally park. The aura of corruption has been swirling around Allen and company for a long time. Rather than being held accountable, they accuse and malign others.
By the way, the lawsuit was thrown out of court. I am wondering how the U.S. Attorney’s investigation into team Allen is progressing. Hopefully, she and her enterprise will be held criminally accountable for their actions in destroying North Plainfield.
Emory Layne // May 1, 2008 at 9:50 am |
If we’ve gotten to the point where we have to pick nits about the definition of a “meeting” (reminds me of ‘what is the definition of ‘is’?), we’ve reached the point of no return.
There can be absolutely no doubt that the administration was going to make no effort to bring the residents and appraisers together until NPCCR did it. Bear that in mind — it’s terribly important. Mayor Allen could not be bothered with such a triviality, but when an old building might be torn down or a town’s name might be changed, or someone issued a friend a parking ticket, she was on it like stink on you-know-what. There can be no doubt that the last-minute meeting rushed through by Mayor Allen and her cohorts was an attempt at saving face and nothing else. And the commentary provided after the fact is simply the now-acceptable approach of throwing a bunch of lies out and hoping that one or two might have a modicum of plausibility, after which the liar points to those areas and says “See? See? I told you!”
Mayor Allen is approaching “retirement.” As with others in this town who have neared retirement … and made sure they did as little as possible until that point … we shouldn’t expect anything of substance from her. What we NEED to do is focus on the people who oppose her AND the people who have willingly run with her and supported her in lockstep for years. If they choose to remain silent, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that they agree with her, making them equally liable for lying to the people.
BS Detector // May 1, 2008 at 3:19 pm |
Only a million? A former resident I spoke with recently who used to be a public figure in NP told me it was more like 8 million missing and that at one point or another, the Boro did not know who paid their property taxes. Does anyone have any more info on this?
BKATILAS // June 22, 2008 at 9:52 pm |
I must ask, are you people all so ignorant that you believe this crap?
My husband was the best thing that happened to NP as well as Mayor Allen. After cleaning up the mess the republicans left the Boro in, Janice and John came in and cleaned up the financial mess. There was never a million dollars missing, there was a grant that John applied for and it came through in January for over 500,000. Mr, D’Amore did violate my husbands civil rights. My husband had NO heart condition, he died due to complications from diabetes.
Jerry Jacala // June 23, 2008 at 3:12 pm |
I think the problem here is that residents have to hear about these issues through secondary sources rather than straight from the administration, before any rumours start flying. With the absence of a local newspaper, newsletters in the mail and the Boro website could provide the medium for keeping residents informed.