Mahwah Council President: 'It's Time For Laforet To Finally Go'

MAHWAH, NJ — Council President Robert Hermansen has issued a lengthly statement regarding lawsuits brought against the township and Mayor Bill Laforet's alleged role in the issues surrounding them.

Hermansen, who has previously defended the Township Council regarding two ordinances, issued a lengthy statement regarding the lawsuits and the embattled Laforet. The ordinances banned non-New Jersey residents from using township parks and required peddlers to get permits before they went to residents' homes soliciting. The ordinances were proposed during a controversy regarding a Jewish religious boundary in town commonly called an eruv. They have since been repealed.

Laforet, a seven-year mayor, is in the middle of a recall election brought against him by residents.

Here is Hermansen's statement:

While the Mayor has decided to put his fate in the hands of the taxpayers, we the taxpayers and the voters need to remind the mayor that his version of the facts and ours are two different versions. So we need to get the facts out. This starts with all of you. The mayor will use money and propaganda to get his distorted facts to the people. He is going to blame everyone but himself. So here are the facts about the lawsuits and their cost. The first major lawsuit that has been brought against the town was the Sinclair lawsuit, which was against the Township and the mayor. This was started due to improper firing of a township employee, Ed Sinclair, due to his running for mayor against Mr. Laforet, the lawsuit claims. That had nothing to do with the Township Council.

The next major suit was brought by former New Jersey Attorney General Christopher Porrino over the eruv and our parks. The mayor has repeatedly tried to tell everyone he was not named in this suit. This is another false statement. The mayor asked us to move an ordinance, he called it the most important of the year. He then never gave us an email that was addressed to him from the Police Chief James Batelli telling us that he had an issue with enforcement of the park ordinance. The mayor had already signed off on the park ordinance. He then tried to tact and say it was our fault. Again, a false statement, had the mayor done his job of properly forwarding the email there would never have been a lawsuit against this town. He failed to complete his mayoral responsibilities and by doing so put our town in jeopardy. He has then tried to blame this on the Town Council. How can the Town Council do their job when the mayor withholds pertinent information from the Council? This lawsuit falls squarely on his lap and he is named as the part of the Township of Mahwah as he is the chief executive for now of this town.

Now the newest false comment is about the cell tower. He has been the Mayor for 7 years and never did anything about this issue and poor cell service up by Secor Farms and several of our condo associations. Seeing the mayor was dragging his feet, the Town Council got involved and would not take no for an answer to sit down and talk to the companies involved. We sat with the companies and went over the best potential sites. The companies picked two sites: The Board of Education property and the Nielsen water tank. The decision was the Board of Education property would be best. The companies all spent their time, due diligence and their money, and agreed that this was a viable and excellent site to solve the townships problem. The Council then recommended to the Board of Education to move forward with the plan for the best site for the tower. At the time we stated publicly the best sites. We also stated that if there was an issue with the Board of Education property we would revisit the Nielsen water tank. Well, surprisingly the state Department of Environmental Protection all of a sudden says this is not a good site. We will be putting out a request for proposals on the Nielsen water tank as soon as possible. Now there has been an attack levied by the president of the Apple Ridge Condo Association, who eats dinner weekly with Senator Bob Menendez, that the council didn’t do their job. This is not the case, In fact quite quite contrary. The council did the job that the mayor for six years wouldn’t. Now he’s trying to claim that this is again somehow our fault. What we have here is the Council again cleaning up another one of the messes that was created by the mayor and the state of New Jersey.

The mayor wants you to forget about the fiasco of the Crossroads property and what he did there seven years ago. The mayor told you that no mall should be built there. He said the council did not listen to what the people wanted. I was not on the council at the time, but I did say that if we did not go forward with the mall project we would end up with housing on that site. The mayor did not care, he continued to push the issue for him and his friends just like you did at Mahwah town center and just like he did at Mahwah Department of Public Works. He tried to do a Payment In Lieu OfTaxes program at the Township DPW property. This would cost taxpayers millions over the next 25 years. This would also mean no tax money from this property going to our great schools for the next 25 years or any of the initial payment to our schools. It is basically a way to circumvent the payment to the Board of Education. This is a disgrace. The mayor continues to not take responsibility for the failures he has created. We now have housing where we should not have and if the mayor gets his way we will have housing on every build-able lot in our town.

Lastly, the mayor has told you he was the one who attained AAA ratings for the town. In order to receive AAA status you must have multiple years in a row of quality numbers for the township. Seeing Mayor Laforet was only in office for less than four months with the AAA status was applied for it shows that those numbers were due to the prior mayor Dick Martel and John Da Puzzo and the Town Council that were sitting at the time. As for the crime rates in the township Mahwah, this has nothing to do with the mayor but has everything to do with the great jobs that the men and women of our Police Department do on a day-in, day-out basis. The mayor will send out flyers, take out newspaper ads, take campaign funds primarily from Hudson County and continue to put out false truths and the town and the Town Council.

It is now up to the people of Mahwah to tell this Mayor enough is enough. It is time for you to go door to door tell your friends the truth of what is happening in our town and when these problems of outside influence started in our town. It is time to go back to a more peaceful time in this town. It is time for Mayor Laforet to finally go. See you at the polls in November. It is time to stop the lies.

Related:

• Mahwah Council President 'Baffled' By State Lawsuit
  
• Mahwah Mayor Not Fighting Recall In Court, Will Proceed With Vote
  
• Mahwah DPW Director Suspended for Claims of 'Inappropriate Material' Viewed on Computers

Email: daniel.hubbard@patch.com

Photo: Mayor William Laforet, Patch file photo