Ted Mattox will not be muzzled and Montclair's council meetings (yes, there's one tonight) are thisclose to becoming reality TV. Baristanet has learned that Mattox filed a lawsuit against the Township of Montclair on Friday. The suit, which names Mayor Remsen and all the other council members as individual defendants, was brought by Mattox and a group of concerned citizens including anti-wayfinding activist Pegi Adams.
The suit takes specific aim at the MEDC and the Montclair Arts Council. Mattox, who has been questioning the town’s funding process for months, has called for an independent review to determine if either the MEDC or the Montclair Arts Council meet the criteria under the local public contracts law to be considered an "extraordinary and unspecifiable services contractor."
Mattox also wants the selection process for the recent Wayfinding Project investigated, which he claims was flawed, taking seven months, instead of the required 60 days. "They say they received 11 bids," says Mattox. "Well, no one's seen any of them. Clearly citizens have voiced opposition. I wonder what is driving this project."
The injunction would not affect many of the current contracts because there is a 45-day limit in which to contest the award. It may, however, impact the MEDC and the MAC contracts renewed in July, as well as any payments scheduled for Cloud Gesham Consulting, the consultants involved with the Wayfinding Project debacle.
"I hope this legal action will serve as a wake-up call to the council and prevent any future contracts from being handed out before undergoing thorough scrutiny," says Mattox. "I will challenge every contract that comes up for renewal, and systematically weed out the bad ones. Montclair now has 20 contracts with outside agencies, but I can only find paperwork on nine. This is only a starting point, but I believe it can save taxpayers up to 1.5 million dollars."
[Yes, but what will the lawsuit cost...?]
Just how taxpayers' money flows from the town to these contractors is unclear, says Mattox, and the answers are not forthcoming.
"I don't know if the council is just playing dumb, or if they are knowingly breaking the law," he says. "The goal of this legal action is to make sure the groups receiving funds are legitimate in the eyes of the state. The victory will be a tax savings for Montclair residents, because every contract will be subject to the laws of the state, not the whims of our local government."
Township manager Joe Hartnett has described the funding process to The Montclair Times.
According to Hartnett, nonprofits seeking funds from the municipality submit their requests to the manager and council at budget time, similar to municipal departments. The manager then makes funding recommendations to the council and the council decides appropriations.“The township only provides funding to nonprofit organizations for the performance of public services that benefit the taxpayers and citizens of Montclair,” Hartnett stated in his e-mail to The Times. “Naturally, there may be some disagreement on this issue, which is certainly normal in a democracy, but the elected officials make the final determination.”
Text of the lawsuit (as a Word file) is here.
So, who pays for the lawsuit?