Lyndhurst GOP, nearly all of them, switching parties

More spin from people who don't know Lyndhurst.

Lyndhurst is nonpartisan and is about personalities, not political parties.

They have commission form of government and both political parties are extremely weak with no following or organization.

The change in party registration are basically Dilascio allies at the Board of Education.

Another example of Sarlo being more interested in hacks like Benedetto, et al than building a real Democratic presence in the township.

Sarlo lost Lyndhurst four years ago 1,907 to 1,690. Guarino will carry it again.

His real problem is Rutherford where McPherson will lose by at least 1,000 votes.

Keep in mind Kelly was in the hospital most of the election and still beat Sarlo in Lyndhurst..

How pissed are the people who actually vote for the Republican that are on the council. The Republican in Lyndhurst should pull together and recall all of them! This is a complete joke.

I believe Mike is doing and polling well - imagine what a little money and support might actually do or has more than Lyndhurst sold out? Mike you should get together with the Guys in 38 and 37 and try and combine some resources to get something out.

Chairman - you should throw the bums out before they get a chance to resign - they are what's wrong with Bergen Politics - deal cutting, pension padding pay to playing

DiLascio is the most self serving person around. How many times has he switched parties? When one party no longer has anything to offer him, he'll switch. If the GOP ever regains control in Bergen, he'll switch back again looking for something.

lowlifes with no principles

lowlifes with no principles

This is almost like when that cult followed the Hale-Bopp comet in unison in 1997. Watch out new Lyndhurst Democrats if somethingappears in the skies over EnCap.

Boss Joe Ferriero and the multi-job holding, pay-to-play court jester, Senator Paul Sarlo have been working hand in hand with Lyndhurst Republican Mayor Richard DiLascio for quite a while now.

When Sarlo and Ferriero wanted to get rid of Democratic County Committee people who were loyal to the rival Real Bergen Democrats faction, they turned to DiLascio for help.

DiLascio got his GOP friends to switch parties before the 2006 primary and had them vote out the anti-Ferriero/Sarlo Democrats from the committee.

This DiLascio-Ferriero-Sarlo Axis of Evil has been operating for a few years already. This time they're going public. I think there is a law against that kind of public lewdness.

On The Waterfront since 1954

The will all have cushy ferriero county jobs. HEY ORTIZ. You gonna stand there and take this. This is a own of sellouts. They sold the town to the highest bidder(ENCAP),now they sold it for 30 pieces of silver and cushy jobs from the county.

He can't return those funds, they'll will be used to help his "ED Fund" problems.

because in Lyndhurst hoes aren't just used for gardening!

"follow the money" for NJ pols, is not related to investigations of crime, it relates to- switch to the party where the money is or will be.

(I suppose the Record was in on this too...you're all nuts...or paid to spread sleeze)

 Lemons into lemonade - Editorial Monday, November 20, 2006 THE RECORD EDITORIAL Too often when municipalities approve new developments, local officials give away too much and get too little in return. But in Lyndhurst, elected leaders are showing through their dealings with a big developer how municipal officials can use creativity and political will to wring as much community good from a builder as possible. The developer is EnCap Golf Holdings Inc., which is building a massive project of nearly 1,800 new homes, a large hotel and conference center and two golf courses. Now, thanks to the efforts of township officials, it is also paying for a new school. The elected leader who has done the most to wrangle concessions from EnCap is Republican Mayor Richard DiLascio. He was among a slate of township commissioners swept into office last year on a wave of voter anger about overdevelopment. DiLascio would redo the EnCap deal entirely if he could. He likes the fact that EnCap is capping old landfills in the town as part of its project. But DiLascio is frustrated that previous township leaders relieved EnCap of any responsibility for the hundreds of new schoolchildren its project is expected to bring in. DiLascio, a former school board member and school board attorney, knows schools are overcrowded. He knows Lyndhurst hasn't had the money to build a new school in decades. He knows the town's taxpayers are too stretched to finance costly school construction. And he knows the EnCap development will only exacerbate these problems. The township's previous Democratic mayor and commissioners should have known all this too. The difference is DiLascio and his allies are doing something to change the equation that put EnCap and dollars on one side and Lyndhurst on the other side with the costs of hundreds of new students and 1,780 new homes. DiLascio's most recent accomplishment is to get EnCap's agreement to build a new middle school that could cost between $30 million and $40 million. The deal is yet to be finalized. But if it is, it looks good for Lyndhurst taxpayers. EnCap will build the new school at no cost to the town. The developer in return will get the right to build 250 additional housing units, bringing the total to slightly more than 2,000. These new luxury condos will be built above the hotel. DiLascio's hope is that this location wouldn't appeal to families with children, thereby reducing the possibility of still more new students in Lyndhurst schools. Lyndhurst wouldn't get off scot-free. Even if the additional homes don't bring in a single new student, they will still increase the cost for police and other emergency services. The residents of those new homes will still drive cars that will increase traffic, pollution and the wear and tear on township streets. But the benefit of the new school could likely outweigh these costs. EnCap has made other concessions. It is building a new Board of Education office and community center on the grounds of the high school. And it is converting an old bus depot into a $3 million recreation and education center. Good for them. Good for the township's voters for having the sense to change leadership. Other towns faced with massive development projects could learn something from Lyndhurst.

When the smoke clears after Election Day and the GOP is one seat short of a tie, they can cast eyes on the tainted swamps of ENCAP and rue what might have been.

God bless Mike Guarino. For years he cried out into the wilderness about what a total fiasco the ENCAP project has turned out to be. He also carried the fight when nobody -- NOBODY -- on the so-called Republican side was willing to do so. In an ideal world he would win, but we know that is unlikely.

If Republicans were going to find an opportunity, District 36 was it. Combine the ENCAP disaster in South Bergen with ever escalating property tax issues to carry Nutley, there aren't enough votes (legal and otherwise) in Passaic to churn out. From what I understand, Sammy Rivera is a little busy right now.

We don't have a coherent opposition party. We have the NJGOP. What might have been.

Here is the very recent -- September 20, 2007 -- 13-page Administrative Order & Penalty Assessment in the amount of $1.2 million dollars assessed against Cherokee and EnCap with regard to the Lyndhurst & Rutherford tract violations, the list of EnCap violations linked in the Jeff Pillets story we noted in our post, above.

In the days and weeks above, the emerging story will likely be -- or damn well should be -- who were the specific political employees working for the DEP, and even more importantly, who were their specific bosses serving in the Governor's Office, epecially during the McGreevey/Codey Administration, who were directing them to circumvent or sidestep dozens of DEP health and safety standards and requirements in this outrageous wholesale end run around the legal process?

Jeff Pillets story about EnCap in the Record, begins:

Political appointees running the state's environmental watchdog agency routinely overruled top staffers and approved stripped-down safeguards for the EnCap Golf project in the Meadowlands, a Record investigation shows.

State documents reveal that the staff scientists and leading specialists inside the Department of Environmental Protection were often surprised and frustrated to learn that their bosses had already green-lighted the developer's proposals, sometimes in separate meetings with the developer's attorneys.

Those high-level approvals often flew against longtime policies and standards that DEP staffers had spent their careers upholding.

(and later in the story, emphasis added)

Everything, it seemed, was up for negotiation with EnCap's team of lawyers from the Teaneck-based DeCotiis, Fitzpatrick, Cole & Wisler firm. Basic standards for testing and closing the old landfills, for safely bottling up and disposing of the toxic stuff inside, all became grist for compromise.

More often than not, the documents show, the negotiations began with a discussion of money or, more specifically, EnCap's lack of it. And more often than not, the negotiations ended with the state approving a stripped-down version of the original safeguards.

It should also be noted that several top level staff appointeesin the Governor's Office at the time had very specific and long-term ties to the DeCotis law firm, or had specific high level ties to the Department of Environmental Protection (in addition to Commissioner Brad Campell, of Lambertville).

For example, the 2004 Fitzgerald's Manual lists Michael R. DeCotiis as the Chief Counsel to former Governor McGreevey.

Various aspects of environmental law, including "planning and obtaining various regulatory approvals including environmental permits for manufacturing facilities, solid waste and recycling facilities and wastewater and sludge treatment facilities" were the professionalty specialties of Michael R. Decotiis, along with, as stated on their website, the highly refined area of redevelopment law, a virtual blueprint for the brownfields initiatives Cherokee and EnCap were pursuing.

According to their website, Michael was the Chief Counsel to Governor McGreevey from March of 2003 until October of 2004. Mr. DeCotiis is now back in business as the managing partner of the DeCotiis law firm.

And the 2005 Fitzgerald's Manual also lists Karen J. Kominsky of Lambertville, a professional planner, as having been a Deputy Commissioner of DEP at the beginning of the McGreevey Administration, who then moved over to the Governor's Office as the Deputy Chief of Staff in late December of that year. She remained in that position through the McGreevey resignation, and held the job throughout the Codey portion of the Administration.

These two and probably others should be specifically asked whether they were aware of any of the machinations the Record detailed to completely circumvent the the health and safety requirements and long-term policies of the DEP, as were detailed in Jeff Pillets story in the Record.

This is not to say or imply that either one or both of them did anything improper, but the obvious connections to subject matter areas, and high level bureaucratic connections, at least raise a basis on which to begin ferreting out the full story of this sordid tale of "negotiations" to circumvent DEP standards and regulations that are intended to protect the public health and safety.

by Trochilus

In great measure, there is but one single political etablishment in NJ that plays good cop vs bad cop with the taxpayers; each taking turns robbing us all blind in different ways.

From Frederick Douglass

If there is no struggle there is no progress......Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.