UPDATE: South Jersey Citizens Faces Setback in Pay-to-Play Fight; Dent Made in Signature Goal

UPDATE, 3/7 7:05 p.m.: South Jersey Citizens is now 33 signatures short of its goal of 1,047 verified signatures for its pay-to-play ban petition.

SJC Political Director Josh Berry reported the updated count total to Patch at around 5 p.m. Wednesday.

The watchdog group was short by 56 signatures as of Monday evening, according to Township Clerk Rosemary DiJosie's count.

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The township has notified South Jersey Citizens of several "deficiencies" with the petition it submitted last month seeking to place on the November ballot an ordinance that would ban campaign contributions from municipal vendors, officials said during Monday night's Council meeting.

The watchdog group has until 5:45 p.m. Friday to correct the deficiencies, as identified by township officials, Solicitor David Carlamere said.

A total of 991 signatures had been ruled valid as of Monday night, according to Township Clerk Rosemary DiJosie.

SJC collected 1,268 signatures before submitting the petition to the clerk at Council's Feb. 13 meeting. It needs the clerk to certify 1,047 signatures to achieve its goal of having the pay-to-play question put to township voters in November.

The Clerk's Office notified the SJC petition committee of the deficiencies last Tuesday evening, starting the 10-day period for petitioners to take corrective action under the so-called Faulkner Act form of government last Wednesday.

SJC Political Director Josh Berry told Patch Tuesday afternoon that the watchdog group had made progress remedying two of the three noted deficiencies, but also noted it disputes any corrective action must be taken on one deficiency Carlamere pointed to Monday night.

The solicitor suggested SJC violated Faulkner's rules governing the initiative-and-referendum process by using four petition circulators who are not part of SJC's five-member pay-to-play petition committee, which consists of Berry, SJC Executive Director Tom Crone, SJC Membership Director Beth Holzman, and SJC members Robbie Traylor and Don Choyce.

He also raised the issue that two of the four non-committee circulators live outside of the township's borders.

"Two of the circulators that signed were not township residents, so we raised that also. We raised that for them to respond to. One was from Haddon Township and one was from Washington Township," Carlamere said.

SJC contends there are no residency requirements for circulators.

"This has been confirmed by multiple sources—anybody, even someone who lives out of state, can circulate a petition under Faulkner," Berry said. "We can use whatever agents we want to circulate the petition. Carlamere is dead wrong on this issue under Faulkner."

DiJosie ruled 277 of the 1,268 signatures invalid for a number of reasons—individuals who signed were not registered voters or they had failed to sign the forms, print their name, or print their address. SJC was not provided that list until Monday morning, Berry said.

SJC has collected new signatures, according to Berry, and on Tuesday submitted information to the Clerk's Office it feels verifies more than 50 of the previously collected signatures DiJosie invalidated.

Berry said 32 petition signers were invalidated but should not have been—about half due to legal name changes since they registered to vote—and that 24 or 25 signatures specifically deemed invalid by the clerk should be counted.

Of the 991 signatures DiJosie had validated as of Monday, 147 were on petition forms impacted by another deficiency—one that SJC acknowledges must be corrected.

"We had used a notary that we know from Philadelphia, not realizing it had to be a Camden County notary. We will be correcting that mistake this week," Berry said.

Berry indicated SJC will also be correcting petition forms on which a notary signed on the line where a circulator should have signed.

The question, as it appeared on the petition circulated by SJC and as it would appear on ballots in November, is below:

Shall the "pay-to-play" reform ordinance, duly submitted by petition to the Township of Gloucester, which includes, among other provisions, (a) limitations on contributions to Camden County and local political parties from firms receiving professional, banking, insurance, and other consultant contracts in the Township of Gloucester; (b) prohibitions on political contributions by firms receiving professional, banking, insurance, and other consultant contracts during the negotiation and performance of such contracts, and (c) limitations on political contributions by partners and certain owners of firms receiving professional, banking, insurance, and other consultant contracts and certain persons affiliated with it to $300 each per year to local candidates, $500 each per year to local and county political parties, and $2500 per year in aggregate from a firm and its affiliates, be approved?