The Herald-News du lieu suivant : Passaic, New Jersey • 13

I' ESSEX EDITION The Herald-Ne73 FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1973 7 0 MS CamQ)(ElDlP rvJi LOWE CARODAVIS Herald-News Staff Writer JldNf CLAIR Serious question are being raised about the legality of the in-vpjvement of Town Hall employes and one of the 'Town Commissioners in the anftrchange Of government campaign here. An investigation was started yesterday by, the State Attorney General's office and the Essex County Supervisor of Elections to determine if certain practices, of the town clerk and Commissioner Theodore MacLachlan are in vio- lation of state election and campaign laws. Focus of the probe, which was instigated by The Herald-News and the chairman of a pro-change citizens' group, Alliance, is a memo from the town clerk, Mrs. Constance Amot, which was circulated on Sept. 25 to all town department heads and posted for all employes to read.

The investigation also is centering on a statement written by Commissioner Mac-L a 1 a and mailed to Montclair voters, which endorses a "No" vote in possibly constitute a violation of the state statutes governing election and campaign practices. Also under examination now by the investigators is the memo from the town clerk, which is printed on official Town of Montclair stationery and bears the name and office of the town clerk beneath the official town seal. Mrs. Arriot told The Herald-News yesterday that the same memorandum was printed and circulated to all town de-. partment offices each election year.

She stated that she was certain that it was the Nov. 6 referendum choice between changing to council-manager form or keeping the; present town commission form of local government. MacLachlan's full-page statement was included in a town-wide mailing last week of campaign literature by the Citizens' Committee for Montclair, a group which is urging defeat of the change proposal. Investigators from the office of William F. Yeomans, county superintendent of elections, indicated yesterday that such participation in the campaign may not a' violation of any election -law, and she referred the reporter the town's law department, which upheld her position.

A significant difference between the memo for this year and those of past years was revealed, however, upon comparison. Where the 1973 memo has in- eluded a bold underline for the portion pertaining to public employes contribution to a referendum campaign, the memos for previous years do not carry such underlining. The memo in question quotes the state 1 1 '7 AsJl 'court to restrain 1 $Mif ter study politics i plpllllili: I iiJ lif 1 11 n' si: )i5i 1- jE If! By JOHN MOLNAR J-News Stafr Writer Two Cpunty Charter Study Com- mis in candidates yesterday won an injunction that temporarily restrains the county Democratic Committee from cir-icufcttijig handbills that tout a party-backed slate of charter commission can-rf I The restraining order, naming Essex County Democratic Chairman Harry Lerner as defendant, was signed yesterday by Superior Court Judge Joseph Harrison. The restraints were sought by David Wi. Conrad, a Montclair attorney and a charter commission candidate, and Mrs.

Bernice Bertrand. Harrison will hear arguments on the order at 11 a.m. today. Meanwhile, the Republicans and Dem-; ocrats continued their wrangling over a each others' selection of candidates for the charter study commission. The Republicans charged the Demo-Cf'ats with promoting a "monolithic study slate" that has its first loyalties to Lerner.

The Democrats, in return, charged that the Republicans have waited until the "last minute" in the campaign to an issue designed to confuse the voter." The handbill mentioned in Conrad's suit names the eight Democratic charter Study candidates on one side and asks the voters to 'Vote Line 'A' All The Way!" on the other. 't Printing of the handbills was financed the Essex County Democratic Com-t mittee and last night Conrad said Demos' cratic workers were given bunches of the handbills to distribute before Tuesday's election. The attorney said he and Mrs. Ber-v trand are challenging the circulation of the handbills because they "violate the intent and spirit" of the Optional County Charter Law. He said he also is questioning the right of theDemocratic County Committee to pay for the printing because state election' laws "do 'not permit (political) party organizations to expend money for candidates, except for candidates or their own organization." FACE LIFT Painter Jules Donate puts the finishing touches on a new paint -part of $190,000 worth of renovations to Caldwell's municipal building which job for the building inspector's office in Caldwell's borough hall.

The work is was built in 1936. law governing contributions and payments by public office holders to political campaigns, and it then offers a paragraph of explanation about which municipal employes are barred by the law, and which ones are exempt from making contributions to a political party or to candidates running for office. The paragraph in question in the current investigation appears at the. bottom of the memo and states: "While public employes make contributions to a particular candidate or party, they may make campaign contributions for the promotion or defeat of a public issue such as may be put forward by referendum or constitutional plebiscite." The entire paragraph is in bold underline. The change of government referendum was not placed on the ballot by an ordii nance from the commissioners, who are all on record as opposing the change.

It was, instead, put before the voters by a petition signed by more than 6,000 of Montclair's nearly 25,000 registered voters. The referendum asks whether the voter favors a change from commission form of government to Plan LL-4 (b) of the Faulkner Act, which provides for a five member council, to include three councilmen elected from wards and two elected at-large, and a professional manager, to be hired by the council majority as chief administrator of local governmental functions. Mrs. Davis again tech board chief Mrs. Bernice Davis was elected to her fourth term as president of the Essex County Vocational and Technical Board of Education during that board's annual reorganization yesterday.

A short while later, Anthony Galante was eleeted to his fourth term as vice president of the county board of education. Other officers are Joseph Rus-soman, who was appointed to a job as treasurer, and Simeon F. Moss, county superintendent of schools, who was named to an $8500-a-year job as coordination secretary. Mrs. Davis and Galente were elected as members of the Board of Estimate, which meets with two members of the Essex County Board of Freeholders and the county supervisor to set the vocational board's budget Yesterday's meeting also saw the seating of Jack Gold, who was named to a four-year term on the board of education by Supervisor Philip C.

Rotondo earlier thisweek. Gold replaces Dr. John R. Fitzgerald who had completed a four-year term on the board. Do-it-yourselfer skipped a step BLOOMINGDALE Construction on a Highland Avenue resident's garage will remain halted until a' building permit is issued and variances are granted, building inspector Fred Bauer said last night Work was halted by the borough Saturday when it was learned that Donald Cole of 27 Highland Ave.

began expanding his one-car garage to a two-story three-car garage without borough ap- proval. Bauer said he wouldn't issue a building permit until it was determined that the garage had a sufficient sized foundation and a sagging roof was repaired. According to Bauer, Cole opened a rug cleaning business in a residential zone in 1966 without obtaining borough approval. Cole said last night he began construction without borough approval because "they gave me a rough time the last time I came to them." Ukrainian group to honor Wagner NEWARK New Jersey Compensation Court Judge Marcel E. Wagner will be feted Nov.

10 at a banquet in his honor by the Jersey City Ukrainian Community Center at the center. Wagner.who recently retired from the Compensation Court, is a founder and lifetime member of the Ukrainian Com- munity Center. He was also the first vice president and legal counsel of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America and was responsible for incorporating the UCCA more than 40 years ago. hearing adjourned get too confusing Heller land, now. used as a supplementary parking space, if developed, would force those who park therft to leave their vehicles on Jeorg Street.

Heller insisted that even if all the land is finally sub Montclair blacks seem to favor local change Essex park commission defers action on TV tower request literature promoting a monolithic charter study slate whose first loyalty is to Democratic County Chairman Harry Lerner," the three went on. "This slate represents the very forces that benefit most from our present archaic system of county government. 'This slate represents those Democrats who tried to scuttle an Essex County charter study referendum and who are even now waging a court fight, to kill charter study in Essex," they went on. ''If elected, this slate would surely sabotage the cause of genuine charter reform." Cooke, speaking for himself and candidates Martin G. Scaturo and Peter G.

Stewart, said the Republicans are trying to confuse the voters on the main campaign issue: "Who is best qualified to be freeholder? "The Republicans started the political input on charter reform and now that the Democats have responded, the Republicans begin their fault-finding," Cooke's statement reads. "On the very day that Republican chairman Fred Remington insisted that the Republicans were not making a party endorsement, the Essex County Young Republicans were grabbing headlines making such an endorsement. Subdivision NUTLEY-What might have been a simple hearing on a major subdivision got rather tangled last night, with even the applicant finding he was unsure of what was up. The hearing was adjourned on an application by Harry I. Heller of Verona for approval of plans to take a 50-by-140 foot parcel from a 50-by 340-foot strip of land he owns behind the businesses along Darling Avenue.

Heller explained that be sought to subdivide the piece and sell it for parking to Doctors Milton and Rose Prystowski, 562 Kinsland Ave. It a after the Planning Board members started asking questions about the location of new lot lines that Heller realized he was about to get more than he wanted. Heller's surveyor had included in his plans a reshuffling which would have cut up the remaining 200 feet of the ribbon, subdividing two larger and one small section onto the lots of the businesses on Darling Avenue. The owner actually only wanted to subdivide the 140 feet from the medical office. William Carew, board chairman, told Heller the board would hear arguments only on the plan as submitted and later gave Heller the option, written in the law, of changing the plan before a ruling was made.

Carew said that since only the plan submitted had been subject to public scrutiny, only that plan could be voted on. Heller agreed that he would rather alter the plans and the hearing was ad- journed to Nov. 15. Several Joerg Street residents, whose rear yards abut the Heller land, showed up in case they wanted to object. The residents apparently! fell into the trap that has been frustrating the planning board for years.

The homeowners wanted to be sure that no zone change or use change was going to be effected for the lots. Carew, as patiently as possible, told the residents that the planning board does not handle such matters, that that is the function of the Board of Adjustment. He repeatedly reassured one man that the zoning board would be required to hold a hearing and advertise any proposed use changed. The residents were afraid that the MacLachlan hired police employes MONTCLAIR Commissioner Theodore. MacLachlan was incorrectly reported in Wednesday's edition as having stated that in either the fire department or police department no one has been hired while he has been public safety commissioner.

The correct statement by MacLachlan was "I have not made a promotion in either the police or the fire department or put a man on the fire department." MacLachlan has hired employes for the police department, and The Herald-News regrets any confusion resulting from the ertbr. when maiis He said that because the candidates on the ballot in the charter study commission referendum cannot be bracketed together as a slate of candidates, the eight Democratic charter study candidates "are npt people of the Democratic party." "The Optional County Charter Law in-, tends this election to be non-partisan, there's to be no slates on the Conrad said. "Running a slate of can-didates violates the intent and spirit of this law." The political sparring over the selection of candidates by the major political parties has served to heat up the election campaign that had previously' been lackluster. Round one in the battle was joined on Tu a when the Democrats an-n their slate selection and charged the Republicans with injecting politics into the election. The Republicans countered, saying the slate they had endorsed was a bipartisan group of candidates that had been picked by the Essex County Conference of Mayors and that partisan politics should be kept out of the election.

Yesterday, the Republicans struck first, as the GOP's three candidates for the Essex County Board of Freeholders asked voters to "disavow" candidates that are 1 1 identified" with Lerner. The Democrats responded with a statement from Freeholder Thomas H. Cook Jr. a candidate for re-election. Cooke said the Republicans are "waving the wind.

"There is nothing to criticize," he said. The Republican candidates, Joseph V. Melillo, the Rev. James Pindar and Verona Mayor Walter D. McKinley, said state legislation discourages partisan involvement in the "critical" charter study process.

"Because we value good government more than short-term political advantage, we have endorsed the bipartisan slate put forward by the Essex County Mayors' the three Republicans said. contrast, the Essex Democratic machine has recently begun to distribute Iannuzzi asked Francis P. McQuade for a legal opinion on whether the commission can sell or lease the land to Blonder-Tongue and McQuade ruled that the commission cannot sell or lease commission property without first consulting the board of freeholders. Meanwhile, the Verona Jaycees has passed a resolution "demanding" that the commission deny the application and it asked other county Jaycee organizations to join in opposing the application. The Jaycees, in its resolution, said recreational facilities for residents of Essex County are limited, that recre? ational land in its natural state is ir-replacable and that the commission would be setting a "dangerous precedent" if it permts a commercial use of park lands.

"We urge that, unless you are prepared at this time to deny the application of Blonder-Tongue, that you refrain from aeting upon their application until such time as responsible citizen groups have an opportunity to be heard," read a letter containing the resolution. It was signed by James T. Foran, a vice president of the Verona Jaycees. tified wage increases to help us meet the cost of living. We have no reason to doubt the such 'fairness will continue.

In all other areas where one-man dictatorship has been established, public employes wind up being the scapegoat with lower pay and false security." Crawley's letter said the officers of the organization recommend that the employes vote for the eight charter study commission candidates who are supported by the county's Democratic Organization to "insure the impact of the 'no' vote." "They are committed to honesty and fairness in government on which we employes and our families and all the citizens of Essex must depend, and while you're voting on election day, remember those who have treated us well," Crawley's letter closes. Herald-News Photo divided, the use will remain the same. The strip itself is in an R-l zone and Heller recently lost an appeal to change it to commercial for erection of a restaurant. high-school education wouldn't be police commissioner," he said. Soaries explained the provision that calls for three of the five councilmen to be elected 6y wards, and he recommended this to the Community Fellowship as a first step in the direction of black participation.

He noted that now, with five commissioners each heading an independent department "If you. have one single problem, you have to call three different commissioners, and even then you don't get satisfaction." Soaries stated, "You should be able to communicate about problems with someone who lives where you live, someone who won't have to look on a map to find out where you are. We need representation based on where we live." The proposed change provides that the council would hire a professional manag-- er and Soaries commended this, also, to the audience, noting that problems could be taken to just one administrator, rather than to five. "In the history of Montclair, there has only been one blacft commissioner," Soaries remarked. "But we've been here all along.

Don't think that we win the big battle if we win this election. We will still have to fight for what we need, because you always have to fight any-. thing you don't control." cle counts were much higher than th witness indicated. During last night's hearing, the final witness, Daniel Levy, another traffic and planning consultant, testified that additional surveys taken on Oct. 10 indicated that traffic on Passaic Avenue was 30 to 40 per cent heavier than was stated last month.

Complimented by a slide presentation, Levy showed that during peak hours, northbound traffic" was backed up only as far as the Shop-Rite. However, Richard Turton of 510 Passaic offered his own photographs of traffic also taken on Oct. 10 in which it was shown traffic was backed up considerably past the supermarket. After seeing Turton's evidence, Herbert Login, 43 Aldom Circle, questioned the credibility of the traffic consultant's report because both the original survey and the slides were shown to be in error- MONTCLAIR Members of the black community here appear to Joe favoring a change in the form of local government, a question that will be decided by referendum in the general election 6. Approval of the proposed change from commission council-manager form was expressed Sunday, both during and after the second session of the Community Fellowship, a church-based fusion of the black community aimed at development of political, economic, social, and spiritual potential among local black res-.

idents. Buster Soaries, founder and leader of the newly-formed Community Fellowship', called for a "yes" vote on the change question, and told the audience -that a change to council-manager form would provide more representation and communication for blacks in the municipal government. "The fundamental question is, are we going to participate in the scheme of things, or sit at home and complain," said "We now have a system where a few people get together and who is going to run, and then when these persons are elected, they decide among themselves who is going to be commissioner of what. The people don't get" to decide. If they did, a janitor with a pre The Essex County Park Commission put off until next month a decision on the request of a commercial UHF television station to erect a transmitting tower on park commission property.

The commissioners agreed to put off a decision with little comment. Commis-: sion President Robert Peacock said "ad- ditional information" has to be gathered and that a final decision will be held up until then. Jhe Blonder-Tongue Broadcasting which has Federal Communications Commission approval to operate Channel 68 out of Ncwark'asked the commission for space on Eagle Rock Reservation, 'which spans the borders: between West Orange and Montclair, The request was made at sion meeting late last month and public i sentiment seems to be running against releasing the land to the broadcasting company. Sfest Orange officials! recently passed an ordinance that severely limits "the height of any towers in that municipality and Essex County Freeholder Joseph L. Iannuzzi has taken the commission to task for even considering the applica-i tion.

Zoners refuse townhouse request County em ployes rou against referendum on charter study WES CALETWELL A round of applause from about 30 residents greeted the Board of Adjustment last night following its refusal to allow the construc- ion of 38 townhouses in a residential The applicant, Edward D. Rabin, sought to erect the townhouses on a 3.2 acre site off Passaic Avenue, to the rear of the Shop-Rite property. The hearing began last month with testimony by six consultants in the areas of real estate, landscaping, architecture and traffic, all of whom stated the proj-ec would be beneficial to the area. However, objections to the proposal also surfaced last month from residents in the Martin Roal-Aldom Circle area. Armed with traffic surveys from the Essex County Highway they contested the data presented by the applicant's traffic witness, stating vehi "How can we accept the validity, of their testimony?" Login asked.

In its resolution of denial, the board stated that the existence of townhouses "would aggrevate an already overburdened traffic situation" and that there was "no adequate demonstration" by the -applicant that the property was ble for single family dwellings. The board also noted that the completion of Eisenhower Parkway "will relieve the traffic problem and thus prove the picture for one family dwellings." In other business the" board granted approval to Jerome Blevih, owner of the Exxon station, 1104 Bloomfield to add a third bay to his station. The station already constitutes a non-conforming use because it is within 500 feet of residential dwellings. No residents appeared to voice any ob- jections. The officers of the Essex County Employes' Association which represents the largest grpup of county: employes, yesterday urged members of the association to'Jvote; t'No" in Tuesday's county charter study referendum.

In a letter signed by Milton Crawley, ECEA president, the employes were told the pfficers of the association "distrust the motives" of the sponsors of the ief-erendum "because we feel it is an attempt to change our present form of direct representative government at the county level into a one-man dictatorship through authorization of an all-powertul county executive. "We like, the present form of govern- ment with the nine freeholders-at-large," Crawley's letter reads. "We have been treated fairly by this system. In each and every year weiave received jus.