Elwell co-defendant pleads guilty
Ron Manzo, a Bayonne businessman and longtime associate of former Secaucus Mayor Dennis Elwell, pleaded guilty Thursday in U.S. District court to conspiring with Elwell and former Jersey City Housing Authority Commissioner Ed Cheatam to obtain a corrupt cash payment of $10,000 in exchange for Mayor Elwell’s alleged help with a real estate deal in Secaucus.
Cheatam pleaded guilty in September 2009. Elwell has pleaded not guilty of the charges and has maintained his innocence. Elwell and Manzo were scheduled to go on trial together next month.
The charge to which Manzo pleaded guilty carries a maximum potential penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 7.
In exchange for his plea, two other charges against Manzo, 67, were dropped.
Elwell and Manzo were among 46 public officials and religious leaders in New Jersey and New York who were arrested in a massive public corruption sting operation in 2009.
Elwell stands accused of allegedly taking a $10,000 cash bribe from Solomon Dwek, a cooperating government witness who posed as a developer and who claimed he wanted to build a hotel in Secaucus. The hotel project was invented by the government, along with other phony development projects throughout Hudson County, as part of a statewide sting operation to catch public officials who may have been tempted to take cash bribes in the months leading up to the 2009 election season.
According to government prosecutors, Elwell and his alleged co-conspirators, Manzo and Cheatam, allegedly planned to extort $20,000 from Dwek in exchange for expediting permits needed for the hotel.
Guilty pleas from Elwell’s two co-defendants could have major implications for the former mayor’s upcoming trial.
County budget introduced with tax increase
County Executive Tom De DeGise introduced a $480 million 2011 fiscal year budget at Wednesday’s freeholder caucus meeting, saying that the tax levy will rise by 4.57 percent to $281.65 million. This is an increase of approximately $12.3 million over 2010.
“The tax rate will rise from $4.10 to $4.64 per $1000 of equalized value. But this is only our third tax rate increase in eight years,” DeGise noted.
Property owners in Hudson County pay an overall tax rate that comes from adding the county tax rate, municipal taxes, and school taxes. The school and city tax rates are approved by those entities.
“Hudson County continues to endure aftershocks from the financial earthquake of 2008-2009,” DeGise said. This has caused the equalized valuation of all properties within the county’s 12 municipalities to significantly decline again this year. The total amount of decline was $4.75 billion, a loss of more than 7 percent.
Revenues that were derived from a once-robust property market continue to fall. DeGise also said that fees from the Register’s Office continue to decline, as do returns from our interest on investments.
Communities divide up the increase based on assessed values in each community. It is uncertain yet which towns will feel the greatest impact. Last year, which saw a similar increase, impacted Jersey City and Hoboken the most.
A public hearing on the budget will be held on Friday, June 24, in the Hudson County Annex Building at 6 p.m.
Light rail extension approved
On Wednesday, NJ Transit’s Board of Directors approved a plan to extend the Hudson-Bergen Light rail from its station at West Side and Claremont Avenues to the Society Hill area and future 100-acre Bayfront development on the Hackensack River waterfront.
This will be a huge boost for the future Bayfront site, which is slated by the city’s redevelopment agency to “become a new community with public waterfront access, 20 acres of parks and open space, new businesses, housing opportunities and access to mass transit.” The project is being built by Bayfront Redevelopment, LLC, a subsidiary of Honeywell International.
Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy said, “This extension would not only connect our city from east to west, but it would also further our administration’s goal of creating Smart Growth urban communities, more mass transit, and a cleaner environment by reducing congestion.”
NJ Transit has been considering the extension for two years.
Gov. Christie seeks to overturn waterfront access rules
The state Department of Environmental Protection held a public hearing on May 12 at Liberty Park at 11 a.m. at the Visitor’s Center about proposed changes to rules governing public access to the state’s waterways.
Captain Bill Sheehan, a spokesman for the group Hackensack Riverkeeper, opposing the changes, said that if the Christie administration overturns former Gov. Jon Corzine’s ruling on waterway access, it will cause residents to have less access to waterways in Hudson, Bergen, Passaic and Essex counties.
“The waterways belong to the people. People have a right to the air we breathe, and the water we drink. And overturning the waterways to industries without them compensating for loss of access to waterways for fishing, recreation, or just walking is not acceptable,” Sheehan said.
Under the former Corzine administration, the state DEP adopted public access regulations for waterways, mandating that those owning property on the waterfront compensate the town so the town can build portions of a waterfront walkway.
For example, according to Sheehan, IMTT, International Matex Tank Terminal, in Bayonne, provided the municipality with funding to open a park for residents when they expanded their petrochemical facility. The park was opened in fall 2010.
June 3 is the DEP deadline for public comments and on May 12, oral testimony will be accepted for those wanting to comment on the waterfront access rules.
For more information about Hackensack Riverkeeper, visit www.hackensackriverkeeper.org.