L.B. council introduces pay-to-play ordinance
Residents question effectiveness of the ordinance
BY CHRISTINE VARNO
Staff Writer

After months of discussions, the Long Branch City Council finally introduced a pay-to-play ordinance at last week’s council meeting.

“The pay-to-play ordinance has to [be adopted] and has to be [written] in a manner that you understand,” Bill McLaughlin, Ocean Avenue, who has been advocating for the ordinance for the past year, said at the April 26 meeting.

“Citizens are looking for policy-minded politicians who make decisions for the citizens,” he said.

The public hearing and adoption of the ordinance are scheduled for Tuesday’s municipal meeting at city hall on Broadway at 8 p.m.

Council President John Zambrano said after the April 12 council meeting that the ordinance took longer than expected to introduce because he wanted one written that was fair to both incumbents and newcomers.

Zambrano and the other four council members asked City Attorney James Aaron to include specific information in the ordinance at the workshop meeting on April 12.

But one resident disagreed with the fairness of the ordinance that was introduced last week.

“You wanted [the ordinance] to be fair to incumbents and newcomers,” Kevin Brown, Broadway, said to the council at the meeting.

“Council, you have collected $46,000 for the 2006 campaign to date, and Mayor [Adam Schneider], you have collected $48,000 in the campaign,” Brown said. “If any one of us [citizens] in this room wanted to run against you, do you have any idea how hard it would be to raise that kind of money [for the campaign]?”

He asked the mayor if a pay-to-play ordinance had been enacted three years ago, “how would that affect your $48,000?”

“Probably not much,” Schneider responded.

The ordinance, number 13-05, states, “The city of Long Branch shall not enter into an agreement for professional services with any individual and/or professional business entity if that individual has solicited or made any contribution of money or pledge of a contribution including in-kind contributions to a campaign of a city of Long Branch candidate or council or mayor, in excess of ... $500 per candidate ... on an annual basis ... to the maximum extent of $3,000 per annum per business entity.”

It also prohibits professional business entities who are in negotiations with, or who have agreed to perform services in, the city to make a contribution to any Long Branch candidate.

A business entity is defined as any individual seeking a public contract, which includes the individual’s spouse, child living in the home, firm and corporation.

If an individual owns less than 10 percent of a professional business entity which contracts with the city, they will not be treated as part of that entity, according to the ordinance.

All contributions by a business entity made prior to the adoption of a pay-to-play ordinance will be grandfathered and will not be deemed in violation, according to the ordinance.

If a business entity violates the pay-to-play law, they will be subject to a $2,500 fine on the first offense and on a second offense, will be disqualified from eligibility for contracts in the city for four years from the date of the violation, according to the ordinance.

But, there will be no breach of contract if a contribution by a business is questioned and as a result the contribution is returned to the business to whom made the contribution.

In the event of any disputes as to whether or not a campaign contribution is proper, the matter shall be submitted to arbitration, according to the ordinance.

But residents felt the council left out a major issue in the ordinance.

“Do you have, in this pay-to-play, a section against wheeling?,” Harold Bobrow, Ocean Boulevard, asked the city attorney.

Wheeling is referred to as the process when money is sent to one place with the intent to “wheel” it to another place, so you never know where the money came from, according to Brown, who said it is a way to “hide where the money comes from.”

“That way the money is not easy to track and not easy to be fully understood,” Brown said.

“The answer is no,” Aaron said. “Wheeling does not apply to the city.”

Bobrow said, for that reason, this ordinance “is not very good.”

“Without wheeling, you might as well throw it out,” he said. “You know how money moves around the state.”