Toms River Council Demands Rodrick Resign Over Information Leak

TOMS RIVER, NJ — The Toms River Township Council censured Councilman Daniel Rodrick Tuesday night, and demanded he resign over accusations he leaked information from a council executive session to a commissioner on the Toms River Municipal Utilities Authority.

Rodrick, who frequently has been at odds with the rest of the council since his election in 2017, rejected the call to resign, calling the censure and investigation a politically motivated witch hunt.

"I'm not going anywhere," Rodrick said as the council discussed the resolution demanding his resignation. "You have no authority and you’re all conflicted."

The resolution accuses Rodrick of leaking information discussed at the Feb. 11 executive session of the council, specifically regarding the Toms River MUA commissioners.

Council President Maria Maruca said Township Attorney KenFitzsimmons, who was not in attendance at the Feb. 11 council meeting or its executive session, was asked to investigate the source of the leak to save the township the cost of an outside investigator. The council had hired Howard Mankoff, from the Marshall Dennehey law firm, March 31 at $300 per hour to search for the source of the leak.

Fitzsimmons said it wasn't difficult to trace the source of the leak to Rodrick. At the request of Councilman Terrance Turnbach, Fitzsimmons detailed a series of four phone calls, to Mayor Maurice Hill, Maruca, Toms River MUA Commissioner Al Manforti and MUA Commissioner Carmine Memoli. He said it was Memoli who said Rodrick called him about a possible plan to dissolve the MUA and remove health benefits from the MUA's commissioners.

At several points during the discussion of the resolution Rodrick denied he was the source of the leak. He also repeated a claim he made at the April 28 council meeting that 10th District Assemblyman Greg McGuckin had discussed MUA health benefits with Memoli days before the Feb. 11 council executive session.

Rodrick said the investigation was political retribution, because McGuckin was an ally of Toms River Mayor Maurice Hill. Rodrick lost a bitter mayoral primary to Hill and former Ocean County Prosecutor Joseph Coronato in June 2019, coming in third among the three candidates for the Republican nomination.

Rodrick, who repeatedly interrupted other council members drawing a gavel from Maruca, additionally claimed the investigation and the resolution to censure him were a diversion from the council's appointment of McGuckin as head of the township's new law department, and questioned the legality of the council appointing McGuckin to the post when he is attorney for the township's planning and zoning boards.

McGuckin, reached Tuesday night, said he would be resigning those positions immediately.

"I didn't resign them sooner because I wasn't going to be presumptuous that the council would appoint me" as the director of the law department, McGuckin said.

He called Rodrick's allegation that he was the source of the MUA benefits information a diversion.

"I have nothing to do with the council," McGuckin said. "I wasn't in that executive sesssion. Typical of Dan, he tries to divert attention from what he has done."

McGuckin said he has breakfast with Memoli, who also serves as his campaign treasurer, five or six times a year.

"This is the second time you have been censured," said Councilwoman Laurie Huryk, who along with fellow Democrat Terrance Turnbach ran for council with Rodrick in 2017. "The second time was a legal violation that jeopardized our ability to negotiate. This is not retribution from the mayor and assemblyman."

Rodrick, who switched to the Republican Party six months into his council term, was censured in March 2019 over claims he made during the Republican mayoral primary alleging plans for a 6,400-home development at the former Ciba-Geigy site were in the works. The planning board approved a solar farm on the site in October 2019.

Turnbach, who had introduced the original resolution to hire outside counsel to investigate the executive session leak, said Rodrick had the opportunity to be forthcoming about the leak before the investigation.

"You had an opportunity to be honest," Turnbach said.

Rodrick said he has filed an ethics complaint with the state, over both the investigation by Fitzsimmons, and the appointment of McGuckin, which he alleged was a violation of the township's pay-to-play ordinance governing campaign donations.

"It troubles me we have to spend this much time on this," Councilman Kevin Geoghegan said, adding that if he had been found to be lying during his years as a police officer "not even in court" it would have cost him his job.

"If there’s allegations of wrongdoing, I’ll drive you to the prosecutor’s office, the attorney general’s office, come on, let's go," Geoghegan said. "Everyone on this council is here because we want to do the right things for the residents."

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