West Orange Residents' Petition Against Bond Ordinance Thrown Out: NJ Supreme Court

West Orange, NJ – The NJ Supreme Court ruled against several West Orange residents’ legal challenge to a $6.3 million bond ordinance for downtown redevelopment last week.

According to the court’s published decision, the legal wrangling revolved around a 2012 municipal resolution which declared the township’s downtown area to be an “area in need of redevelopment.” As a result, the township adopted a subsequent ordinance that issued $6.3 million in redevelopment bonds to fund the rehabilitation effort.

However, a committee formed by several West Orange residents challenged the ordinance via referendum and filed a referendum petition with the township clerk.

The township clerk then rejected the petition because it reportedly contained an insufficient number of valid signatures and because the Local Redevelopment and Housing Law precluded the submission of a bond ordinance for voter approval, court documents state.

According to the court’s Dec. 21 decision:

“The [NJ State] Legislature has provided that the voters of Faulkner Act municipalities, such as West Orange, shall ‘have the power of referendum which is the power to approve or reject at the polls any ordinance’ passed by the council.”

However, although the right to referendum generally applies to “any ordinance,” the Legislature has authority to exempt specific categories of ordinances from the reach of ballot approval, according to the NJ Supreme Court decision.

The NJ Supreme Court Office of the Clerk published a statement about the trial court and appellate court rulings, which a panel of judges upheld on Dec. 21:

“Fifty-three days after final publication of the ordinance, plaintiffs commenced this action by verified complaint in lieu of prerogative writs challenging both the validity of the ordinance and the rejection of the referendum petition. The trial court determined that because the ordinance was a redevelopment bond ordinance, the Redevelopment Law prohibited public approval by referendum. Although the court also suggested that plaintiffs had not established the invalidity of the ordinance based on the absence of review by the Local Finance Board, the court did not reach that issue because it held the action untimely under N.J.S.A. 40A:2-49 and Rule 4:69-6(b)(11), and dismissed the complaint.”

The Office of the Clerk continued:

“The Appellate Division affirmed the dismissal in an unpublished opinion. The panel found that the complaint was not filed within twenty days of the publication date of the ordinance, as required by Rule 4:69-6(b)(11), and that the plaintiffs did not seek an enlargement of that period under Rule 4:69-6(c). The panel rejected plaintiffs’ argument that the time for filing an action did not begin to run until after the Township Clerk’s second rejection of the referendum petition. The panel therefore concluded that plaintiffs’ challenge to the ordinance was time-barred, and was properly dismissed.”

See the full court decision here.

File photo via Wikimedia