South Jersey Citizens One Step from Filing Lawsuit Against Township

In what it labeled its "final step" to avoid a potentially costly legal battle as it continues its push for a pay-to-play ban in Democrat-controlled Gloucester Township, a petition committee made up of South Jersey Citizens (SJC) members on Tuesday night sent a letter to the township Clerk's Office asking the clerk to reconsider her decision to not certify its petition.

The conservative watchdog group has given Clerk Rosemary DiJosie until the end of business on Friday, April 13, to respond before it will proceed with a lawsuit.

Asked about the letter on Wednesday, DiJosie declined to comment to Patch.

SJC has enlisted New Jersey Appleseed Public Interest Law Center in its fight to have its pay-to-play petition certified. The non-profit law center supports grassroots reforms through the initiative and referendum process.

In an April 2 letter to the SJC petition committee—Joshua Berry, Donald Choyce, Tom Crone, Elizabeth Holzman and Robbie Traylor—NJ Appleseed Executive Director Renée Steinhagen encouraged the group to move forward with its threat of legal action.

DiJosie in mid-March informed the committee by letter that she had validated 1,091 signatures as those of registered township voters—44 more than was required for the pay-to-play ordinance to advance to Council and, if necessary, to the November ballot.

However, she rejected a total of 504 of those 1,091 signatures from the count based on township Solicitor David Carlamere's opinion that they were obtained and submitted through "deficient" means.

NJ Appleseed disagrees with Carlamere's opinion, and has suggested SJC proceed with a lawsuit if DiJosie does not reverse her earlier decision to not certify the petition.

"It is my opinion that the clerk’s certification of your petition as insufficient is wrong as a matter of law and would be overturned by the Superior Court of New Jersey," Steinhagen wrote in her letter to the petition committee.

Among other arguments, Steinhagen disputed Carlamere's assertion that petitions circulated by anyone other than the five members of the committee should be invalidated. That opinion resulted in DiJosie striking down 299 signatures.

"When approaching the relevant statutory scheme, one must be mindful that numerous courts have found as a generally accepted principle that the initiative and referendum statute in the Faulkner Act should be liberally construed to promote the 'beneficial effects' of voter participation," she wrote.

(Read both Steinbach's April 2 letter to the petition committee and DiJosie's March 14 letter to the committee, including Carlamere's memo to the clerk, by clicking on the PDFs to the right.)

In addition to the challenges to Carlamere's legal opinion, SJC is calling for the township to respect what it believes is the right of 1,091 residents to have the question put to the entire electorate.

"The 1,091 voters of the township who support this initiative through their signatures should not be disenfranchised by a solicitor using narrowly constructed arguments and incorrect facts," SJC said in a statement issued Thursday morning. "SJC does not want to burden the taxpayers of Gloucester Township with the cost of defending these arguments but is fully prepared to litigate this matter."

If certified, the township Council would have 20 days to take action on the proposed ordinace. Should the governing body reject the ordinance or adopt a substantially altered version of it, the measure as proposed by the SJC petition committee would be put to township voters in November.

To view the SJC pay-to-play ordinance, click here.

SJC began pushing for pay-to-play reform in the township last May. It initiated its petition drive in the summer of 2011 and submitted its petition, with a total of 1,268 signatures, to the clerk on Feb. 13.

The township first rejected the petition on Feb. 28.