SJ Citizens Wins Court Battle; Who Will Win War?

South Jersey Citizens triumphed in a court case Tuesday, but there is still no guarantee that the watchdog group’s pay-to-play petition will make it onto the November ballot.

The group faced off against Gloucester Township in Superior Court on Tuesday over whether additional signatures should be disqualified on the pay-to-play petition, which seeks a limit on how much township contractors can donate to political candidates and political action committees.

Judge Louis Meloni previously on the petition. The July 10 hearing centered on several residents who claimed their signatures were improperly collected or forged on the petition, a finding that could have struck down more signatures.

The case hinged on a New Jersey law mandating that a petition circulator’s name must be on the petition and he or she must witness each signature for the name to be valid.

Meloni was left to rule on a largely “he said, she said” case. Three Gloucester Township residents—Crystal Cooper, Ann Marie Lash and Raymond Lowe—testified that they either didn’t sign the petition, in Cooper’s case, or the person named as circulator on the petition wasn’t present when they signed. A fourth person, Kimberly Jones, made similar statements in an affidavit, but was not available to testify Tuesday.

But South Jersey Citizens members, represented by Renee Steinhagen of the New Jersey Appleseed Public Interest Law Center, refuted that testimony with their own recollections about when and where Lash and Lowe specifically signed the petition.

Timing, circulators questioned

Lash testified that she signed the pay-to-play petition at her house in early spring of 2011 at the request of a “tall, Caucasian, stocky” man canvassing the neighborhood. Robbie Traylor, who is black, is listed as the circulator on Lash’s petition.

South Jersey Citizens members testified that Lash actually signed the petition at the town’s annual pumpkin festival in October 2011, and pointed to a variety of street addresses and neighborhoods represented on the petition as proof that she didn’t sign at her home.

“The addresses are sporadic,” Traylor testified. “I wouldn’t walk from Blackwood over to Glendora, back to Clementon and then to Erial.”

Lowe similarly testified that he signed the petition at his daughter’s house at the request of a man canvassing. Beth Holzman is listed as the circulator on that petition. She told the court that Lowe signed at an August 2011 meeting and also pointed out the names on that petition had a wide geographic spread. South Jersey Citizens’ petitions from canvassing neighborhoods included many entries from the same street or development, while signatures collected at public events show consecutive home addresses that jump around the town.

With the burden on the township to show that state petition statutes had been violated, Meloni said he found the South Jersey Citizen witnesses’ accounts more credible.

Steinhagen said she was gratified that Meloni did what a “judge should do” and used logic in his ruling. Township Solicitor David Carlamere declined to comment on the case.

Crone: ‘There’s obviously a machination aspect’

While satisfied with the ruling, South Jersey Citizens’ political director Josh Berry was disgusted at the political connections of the people opposing the pay-to-play ordinance. Berry said the watchdog group has had “false allegations from the Democratic Party” slung against it, while Democrats are working behind the scenes to derail pay-to-play measures in town.

Residents testified that Kevin Piccolo, head of Gloucester Township Democratic Party, and Marianne Coyle, a Gloucester Township school board member, had approached them about signing affidavits alleging violations of petition collection laws. An attorney from Wade, Long, Wood and Kennedy law firm represented the four residents claiming violations. The firm’s lawyers represent the Gloucester Township school board, on which Coyle sits. Coyle also is the treasurer of Gloucester Township Citizens for Government Reform, an ideological political action committee that supports Democrats.

South Jersey Citizens members suggested that the residents claiming violations were pressured to sign the affidavits.

“You can see that there’s obviously a machination aspect,” said Tom Crone, South Jersey Citizens’ executive director. “This was definitely an intimidation. This was definitely disenfranchisement of the voter and an attack on personal liberty.”

What’s next: more court cases, more petitions

Even with Tuesday’s ruling, South Jersey Citizens’ pay-to-play petition may not appear on the November ballot. The group is appealing a previous ruling in favor of township clerk’s Rosemary DiJosie decision to .

South Jersey Citizens attorney Steinhagen will argue that DiJosie acted “arbitrarily and capriciously” in coming up with only one way to address problems she identified with the original petition.

The appeal isn’t scheduled yet, but the matter is time sensitive, with upcoming deadlines for getting a question on the ballot. Any ruling against it could set back South Jersey Citizens.

Members have already started another petition drive as Plan B. With a fresh petition, all of the current legal issues would be moot. Berry declined to say how many signatures the group has so far.

Meanwhile, Gloucester Township Council made the . The versions differ, and Berry sneered at the introduction, calling it a political move and an attempt to confuse residents. South Jersey Citizens’ version is stricter, he said, and closes loopholes that the Council version does not.

Still, the introduced ordinance could be a setback for South Jersey Citizens. The group’s canvassers now must explain both the concept of pay to play and why the township’s ordinance is lacking in their eyes to an electorate perhaps not at all familiar with the nuances of pay-to-play laws.

Read more about Gloucester Township Patch’s coverage of the pay-to-play issue:

Do you have something to say about pay to play? Do you support South Jersey Citizens, the Township Council or neither? Consider writing a letter to the editor. Send it to sean.mccullen@patch.com.