The Independent’s top 10 stories of 2006

Raymond O’Grady

1. O’Greedy One by one, the targets of the FBI’s Monmouth County corruption investigations cashed in their chips for lighter sentences this year, but Raymond O’Grady was the first to gamble on a trial. The former Middletown mayor and Monmouth County Central Motor Pool director’s June trial offered the public a fascinating, and disturbing, look at how corruption starts, functions and thrives in local government.

O’Grady’s defense strategy was aimed not so much at proving his innocence, but casting enough doubt on the evidence to avoid a conviction. The success or failure of that strategy hinged largely on star witness Anthony Palughi, who offered colorful testimony about his no-show job as the county superintendent of bridges, a job that actually consisted of little more than being former Freeholder Director Harry Larrison’s chauffeur. O’Grady almost caught a major break when Palughi was hospitalized due to a suicide attempt on the eve of the trial. Despite the defense’s motions, Palughi was allowed to take the stand days later.

John Merla

O’Grady was found guilty and sentenced to 43 months in prison. While administering the sentence in October, U.S. District Judge William Martini admonished O’Grady and his attorney, saying he “took great offense in the seeming cavalier attitude of the defendant.”

What’s next: O’Grady’s term is expected to last through early 2010. However, his attorney has said he will continue to try to appeal the ruling.

2. Dawn of the DemsThe Democrats swept every local race in November, including in some of the county’s most reliable Republican strongholds. In Matawan, a measure of local history was made when Joseph Mullaney (with running mate Michael Cannon) won the chance to serve on the Borough Council with his daughter Meghan. Hazlet’s majority balance tipped to the Democrats for the first time in several years with the election of Joseph Belasco and Kevin Lavan.

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Newcomers Ezra Hill and Christian Bolte won seats on the Borough Council, and Robert Bergen won the mayor’s race, giving the Democrats full control in Keyport. Incumbent Larry Fink held on as the sole Democrat on the Holmdel Township Committee. But the biggest story on Election Night may have been the election of Patrick Short, the first Democrat to win a Township Committee in Middletown in ages.

What’s next: The candidates will begin their work in local government this week as they’re sworn in at the reorganization meetings.

3. John Merla The year began with more bad legal news for Keyport Mayor John Merla, already facing federal corruption charges as part of the FBI’s Operation Bid Rig sting in Monmouth County. In February, a grand jury indicted him on an eighth, unrelated count, which alleged that he extorted a trash hauling company for money and favors, such as making pickups for businesses and “good voters” at the borough’s expense. Merla rebuffed new calls for his resignation, and instead embarked on a wild year of political highs and lows.

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Chief among them was a nasty feud he had with borough police, and Detective Capt. Thomas Mitchell in particular. In April, Merla heckled Mitchell as he testified in a liquor license hearing for the Uptown Bar & Grille, a pub owned by the mayor’s family. Later explaining foul language he used that night, Merla said he accidentally cursed when he stood up and split his pants, and was also mad at Mitchell because of a smirk he made at the mention of Merla’s recently deceased mother. Police from Keyport and other area towns packed the council chambers months later when Merla let it be known that he opposed a promotion for Mitchell.

Despite these and other controversies, Merla maintained a loyal following who often showed up in his support when the going got rough. He even planned to run for re-election as an independent, but changed his mind and withdrew on the day of the primary. The youngest man ever elected mayor of Keyport will now step away from a two-decade career in local politics.

Paul Coughlin

What’s next: Merla’s trial has been postponed several times, but he has adamantly maintained his innocence and vowed to fight the charges against him.

4. Bell Labs closure Lucent Technologies announced in March that it planned to close its 2 million-square-foot Holmdel office and research complex and reassign the remaining workers to another site by September 2007. The announcement was not a shock to many — the workforce had dwindled from some 6,500 in its heyday under Bell Labs’ ownership to about 1,000 today — but it was still seen as a major disappointment. The sprawling 472-acre facility was the home of numerous technological innovations during its 44-year life, and its mirror-sided building was designed by legendary architect Eero Saarinen.

The property’s future carries enormous long-term ramifications for Holmdel. The Bell Labs tract has long been the township’s largest ratable, paying some $3.2 million in local taxes, or what amounts to about 20 percent of the total township budget. The property was purchased by a Pennsylvania-based developer, which held a few public hearings to gauge residents’ opinions on what should be built there. Although no plans were made definite, the new owners expressed interest in preserving part of the Saarinen building and constructing a commercial campus and age-restricted homes on the land.

Barbara Duncan

What’s next: Expect a lengthy process of Township Committee and Planning Board hearings to decide what will be permitted on the tract, one of the last major undeveloped properties in this part of the county.

5. Same-sex marriage An Aberdeen couple was one of seven plaintiffs in a suit that achieved legal history by forcing the creation of civil unions for same-sex partners in New Jersey. Karen and Marcye Nicholson-McFadden and Lambda Legal originally filed their discrimination suit in June of 2002. After a handful of rejections and appeals, the case made its way to the state Supreme Court.

On Oct. 25, with throngs of pro- and anti-gay marriage demonstrations outside a Trenton courthouse, the court sided with the McFaddens. The Legislature was ordered to expand the state’s domestic partnership laws to afford gay couples the same rights as married heterosexual couples. In December, it passed a bill to allow civil unions, which essentially offer all the same rights as marriage except the right to call it marriage.

What’s next: The state’s gay couples viewed the ruling and new law as an incomplete victory, and have vowed to continue pressing for full marriage equality.

6. Coughlin sentenced A federal judge sentenced former Hazlet Mayor Paul Coughlin to two years in prison for accepting a $3,000 bribe for the promise to deliver the town hall demolition job to an FBI witness posing as a corrupt contractor. Coughlin planned to fight the charges — and his lawyer later expressed confidence they could have beat the case — but he pleaded guilty on May 30 to one count of accepting corrupt payments.

Seeking leniency from the judge at his Sept. 22 sentencing, Coughlin’s attorney claimed his client was drunk when he accepted the bribe from pushy, unscrupulous agents at a party, and he regretted the decision almost immediately. He portrayed Coughlin as a fantastic mayor who made one mistake, largely caused by an alcohol problem that he was working hard to fight. The judge said he did not accept this explanation, since Coughlin could have contacted the authorities the next day and let them know what happened. U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie applauded the judge for the stiff sentence as a message to corrupt officials.

What’s next: Coughlin is being held in a federal prison in Morgantown, W.Va. He is scheduled for release in the summer of 2008, but his lawyer hopes he will be released after serving about a year’s time.

7. Illegal rental ban Keyport briefly became a battleground in the national immigration debate when it considered an ordinance that would prohibit landlords from renting to illegal aliens. Councilman Joseph Wedick proposed the controversial measure at an October meeting, when he noted that many were living in overcrowded and dangerous conditions. Tempers flared between a few residents who argued whether the borough’s Mexican population were hard workers and good people or drunkards and vandals who were ruining neighborhoods.

On Oct. 13, the National Coalition of Latino Clergy & Christian Leaders sent the borough a letter threatening to sue if the ordinance passed. Days later, at a meeting packed with a standing-room crowd with many Latinos, the council decided to abandon the measure. The borough’s attorney advised the council that Keyport would have been pre-empting federal jurisdiction with the ordinance, and could have accomplished many of its goals with laws already on the books.

What’s next: With all of the strong feelings shown in the argument, if nothing changes, it would seem the issue has a strong chance of flaring up at a later time.

8. “Slam Dunc” New Holmdel Superintendent Barbara Duncan stepped into a chaotic situation and restored order in the district through a few bold, decisive actions. A nasty rift between the teachers union and administration reached new heights in 2005 when the school board overturned the high school football coach’s dismissal of a player for disciplinary reasons, and the coaches resigned in protest. The resentment carried over into 2006, when the board agreed to transfer some 40 district employees, including members of that coaching staff, in a move many insisted was done out of retribution.

The decision led to a minor revolt among students, and the high school at times seemed to be functioning in a lawless atmosphere. About a half-dozen students were suspended for their part in staging a walkout to protest the transfers. A security monitor who was once on the coaching staff was suspended and barred from the campus; he claimed the administration blamed him for inciting the walkout, but they offered no proof. Several instances of vandalism and a small fire in a bathroom garbage can were reported on the day of the walkout. Police would return to the high school many times in the weeks ahead, responding to reports of bomb threats, fires, a suspicious powder found in the school, a fight that caused the hospitalization of a teacher, and a number of other incidents.

It didn’t look like an attractive job at the time, but Duncan said she saw “the magic” in Holmdel. Just over two weeks into the job, after investigating for herself, Duncan told the board the only “educationally sound” thing to do was to reverse the transfers, which it agreed to do. Duncan also saw to the termination of the athletic director, high school principal and other administrators who were widely blamed for the transfers.

What’s next: The district has been quiet since the transfers were overturned. With a new AD, field and football coach, the high school football team seems to be moving on from a time when it made headlines for all the wrong reasons.

9. Bomb threat trend With 9/11 and the war on terror still well entrenched in the public’s consciousness, lawmakers throughout the region were not amused by a sudden trend of prank bomb threats interrupting schools. School districts like Holmdel, South Brunswick and Colts Neck struggled with the problem, but nowhere near on the scale of Middletown, especially Middletown High School North.

At an April press conference, Middletown Mayor Thomas Hall estimated that there had been 17 bomb threats made in the district to date that school year, costing tens of thousands of dollars in police man hours to investigate, as well as lost educational time. In July, police even found what appeared to be a real pipe bomb in a baseball dugout at North. With much local support, Assemblywoman Amy Handlin (R-Monmouth/Middlesex) proposed a new state law that would mandate much tougher punishments for those caught making phony bomb threats.

What’s next: Handlin’s bill was referred to the Assembly Law and Public Safety Committee in May, but has not moved since.

10. Witmer canned Initially offering no reason why, the Middletown Board of Education suspended Superintendent David Witmer for 120 days without pay on Jan. 31. That reason was revealed not long after, in charges against him filed with the state alleging that he misappropriated about $23,000 in vacation and personal days and changed information about himself in administrative reports. In a 15-page rebuttal, Witmer denied all the accusations against him and claimed his suspension was retaliatory, partially because he didn’t rehire a school board member’s daughter for a district job due to a lack of certification.

Both sides continued to attack the other’s credibility in a series of administrative hearings in Hamilton. District officials painted Witmer as something of a no-show superintendent who took off without notifying anyone and could not be reached in times of crisis, such as during a bomb threat that cleared a district school. Witmer and his attorney portrayed the superintendent as a hard worker who put in long hours, and chalked many of the board’s accusations up to misunderstandings.

What’s next: A year after his suspension, the Witmer hearings have not concluded, and he is still being paid under contract by Middletown. When the situation is resolved, the board will then have to decide whether to permanently hire interim Superintendent Karen Bilbao, or find someone new.