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Ed Corrigan |
Township Attorney Ed Corrigan
Retires December 31st
Will The Great Thinkers On The
Township Committee Scrap Full Time Law Department And Hire Politically
Connected Law Firm To Bill By The Hour?
Dover Township: Attorney Ed Corrigan, a fixture at town
hall for nearly 17 years, is retiring as of December 31.
The full time law department was established in the late 1970's, and
was one of very few genuine accomplishments of the old Democratic
administration that went out of business December 31, 1979.
Corrigan is only the third full time township attorney since the
department was established, and he received many plaudits from current
and former members of the township committee for his service.
But the department under Corrigan has not been an unqualified triumph.
Let Mt. Laurel-Affordable Housing Disaster Get Out Of Control
The law department let the Mt. Laurel-Affordable Housing situation get
totally out of control and sat by while the attorney daughter of
Former Mayor Clarence Aldrich was hired to contend unsuccessfully with
Mt. Laurel legal challenges.
Under Corrigan, the law department allowed the open space acquisition
program to drift into irrelevancy while over-development turned into
the current disaster, and traffic gridlock accelerated.
Law Department Costs Skyrocketed, Including
$160,000 For “Labor Relations”
Corrigan allowed his department to become a patronage dispensing
agency for deserving lawyers who contribute to Republican campaigns.
A prime example is the $160,000 appropriation in the current budget
for “labor relations”, a stipend that includes a monthly check for
$6667 sent to the law firm of land baron Joseph Citta and Assemblyman
James Holzapfel, for services which the firm apparently does not have
to detail.
The bulk of the “labor relations” services should be provided by the
full time township attorney, but they are not.
And the cost of the department, its budget bloated by numerous
Republican attorneys hired to supplement its “full time” functions,
increased exponentially over the years.
Instead Of Fixing It, Township Committee Decided To Kill It
But instead of fixing it by eliminating the additional expense for
services that should have been provided in-house, the great thinkers
on the township committee decided to scrap the law department and hire
a politically connected firm of attorneys who would bill by the hour.
GOP Tabled Ordinance To Kill Law Department
This plan is up in the air at the moment, best laid plans having gone
astray, because the Republicans, having let the recent election get
away from them, decided to think about the full time law department
instead of approving final passage of the ordinance they introduced to
do away with it.
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George Gilmore |
If the election had gone the other way, the Republicans were prepared
to make County Chairman George Gilmore the township attorney, a
political payoff that would have been the mother of all political
payoffs in a local government where political payoffs are a GOP
religion.
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"Doctor" Moriarty |
The Moriarty Democrats, who will now supposedly control the local
government until the big Mayor and Council elections next year, are
interested in making Municipal Chairman Jeffrey J. Horn township
attorney. Horn's chief
qualification for the job appears to be his enthusiastic support for the little charade that handed “Doctor” Jack Moriarty $51,000 in
“consulting fees” paid out of four different political funds (count
‘em) for the 2001 Larsen campaign.
Lacey Budget For Part Time Legal
Services Up 30% - To $334,000 In One Year
Either way, if the Law Department is destroyed instead of fixed, you
can add another disaster to the long list of disasters produced by the
current crowd at town hall.
The Lacey Township budget was increased by nearly 30% this year to pay
for part time legal services, from $258,000 to $334,000 for a part
time job in a town one third the size of Dover Township.
Costs Could Escalate To $1 Million For Part Time Work
How about $1,000,000 in Dover Township in a few years if township
committee members, eager to pay off campaign contributors, succumb to
pressure to destroy the law department instead of repairing the
problem in favor of the taxpayers for a change??
More on this very soon on OCPolitics•Com in Part II of the Law
Department saga.
(for 12/29/02)
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