Ethics Hearing Monday For New Brunswick Parking Authority Officials

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ — Two powerful New Brunswick Parking Authority officials have been summoned to appear in front of the New Brunswick Ethics Board Monday night after a complaint was filed against them by the editor of a local newspaper.

Charlie Kratovil, the editor of New Brunswick Today, filed the complaint against Parking Authority commissioner Andrea Eato-White and Parking Authority lawyer Leonard Bier for failing to properly disclose their public pensions, according to an article on MyCentralJersey.

Bier and Eato-White both hold multiple public jobs: In addition to working as an attorney for the New Brunswick Parking Authority, Bier is also the director and general counsel of the Rahway Parking Authority, executive director and general counsel for the New Jersey Parking Institute, and a development and parking consultant for the Miami, FL parking authority. He is also the director of the Urban Redevelopment Agency in Rahway.

According to Kratovil's complaint, Bier failed to disclose on a financial disclosure statement that he receives a $106,000 public pension.

Kratovil's allegation are "correct," Bier said through his attorney, James Burns. Bier will be at the ethics hearing tonight, he confirmed.

"He retired from government service in 2008 and receives a pension," his attorney said. "He did not think that pensions or retirement accounts were a reportable source of income required to be listed in the FDS (financial disclosure statement)."

Read New Brunswick Today's full report on Biers here.

Eato-White is also a longtime manager at New Brunswick's Housing Authority and sits on the Board of Commissioners at the Parking Authority. According to Kratovil, she failed to submit a financial disclosure form when she became a commissioner at the Parking Authority.

The hearing will be Monday, July 24 at 5:30 p.m. in front of the New Brunswick Ethics Board. The hearing will be held in the New Brunswick Free Public Library, Community Room (60 Livingston Av., New Brunswick, NJ). The hearing is open to the public.

"Financial disclosure statements are an important resource for reporters and other citizens to be able to discern if their public officials are susceptible to conflicts of interest," Kratovil said in a news release. "Failing to file these forms, or omitting items from these forms, can make it much harder to hold officials accountable."