The political grudge match between Councilman Charles Morgan and Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh continues to brew in West Windsor, and has moved to a new arena — the courts.
Morgan last month filed a civil suit in Mercer County Superior Court claiming that the mayor failed to provide a report that the councilman believes he is entitled to under the township’s Faulkner Act form of government.
And Morgan also plans to file a complaint soon in West Windsor municipal court, bringing what he says is additional evidence to a complaint he filed last year with the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office, relating to Hsueh’s use of Township staff during the municipal election.
The most recent lawsuit alleges that Hsueh failed to comply with a statute that states “any council member may, at any time, require a report on any aspect of the government of the municipality by making a written request to the mayor.”
In the complaint, received by the Township Clerk’s office on January 28, Morgan submitted a copy of a written request he filed on October 27 asking for information about the 2010 municipal budget. The missive “requires a report whether you will receive zero-based budget submittals, as well as the alternative scenarios discussed at the October 21 council meeting that should accompany a zero-based budget submittal.”
In the request to the mayor, Morgan goes on to say that “in the event that no alternatives will be presented at that time, this request requires that your report list the zero-based and other budget alternatives that will accompany your recommended budget for 2010 when you submit it to council.” Morgan asks for the report to be submitted on or before November 4 so that he can use it as a reference for discussion of the “proposed zero-based budget policy scheduled for the November 9 council meeting.” Morgan says he never received the report.
During the November 9 meeting, Morgan’s council colleagues rejected his proposal to mandate that the mayor and administration submit a budget with no increase, and also include options outlining various percentage increases.
The intent behind Morgan’s proposal was to guarantee the administration was serious in preventing a tax increase in the upcoming budget. He said he wanted to establish an official policy to get the administration to show the council the implications of the alternatives.
Morgan said he thought there was 100 percent agreement on council in May that it wanted to see options for increases in one percent increments, all the way down to a zero percent increase in the 2010 municipal budget. Under his proposed policy, the administration would have been required to show the implications of a zero percent increase — including the areas in the budget that would have to be cut to have a zero percent increase — followed by the implications of a 1 percent increase, and so on.
Other council members expressed faith in the system, saying they had expressed their concerns to the mayor and administration about wanting to prevent tax increases. They pointed to the budget procedure outlined in the Faulkner Act, the statute that governs the council-mayor form of government in West Windsor, saying it clearly stated that the mayor is required to deliver one budget to council After the budget is submitted, his colleagues said, council can conduct a line-by-line review.
In his lawsuit, Morgan also alleges that the mayor has not yet submitted a budget to council. He is asking that the court declare that the mayor violated the state statute and require him to provide the report.
This is not the only legal action Morgan has taken against Hsueh over the course of the past year. A week before the May election, in which Morgan ran against Hsueh for the mayoral seat, Morgan filed a complaint with the county prosecutor’s office, alleging that the mayor and Councilwoman Linda Geevers “illegally used West Windsor Township administrative staff, and hence the public money, in furtherance of their political campaign.”
He said that his opponents used township staff to defeat the political arguments he made in his own campaign. He alleged that they coerced then-business administrator Chris Marion and Chief Financial Officer Joanne Louth to perform an analysis of his proposal — that the township use more of its fund balance, or surplus, to offset taxes in the municipal budget — ridden with “factual errors.”
Morgan also charged that Geevers illegally asked Township Attorney Michael Herbert for a legal opinion as to whether it was a violation of the law in publicly using the materials put forth by the township professionals in response to council requests, saying Geevers was using the township attorney for campaign advice. He also alleged that Herbert was paid for a conference call with the mayor and Russell Schenkman about the West Windsor Community Foundation, which he alleged was a personal use of township staff by the mayor.
The prosecutor’s office cleared the mayor and Geevers, as well as Herbert, saying Morgan’s allegations had “no basis in fact under the law.”
Hsueh called Morgan’s most recent move a “waste of taxpayers’ money.”
Hsueh emphasized that a council majority agreed to keep the budget process the way it has been in the past in which the mayor and administration come up with one budget and present it to the council, who can then review it and make changes.
“The consensus is we are going to give one budget that is mandated by the state statute,” Hsueh said. “Then, item-by-item, we will identify items that can be cut along with the implications.” Those implications will show how much residents will have to pay by themselves if the item is cut from the budget.
Hsueh also said the administration has not yet submitted a budget to council because the state recently extended the deadline from January 15 to March 19 to account for the gubernatorial transition. It still has not provided further direction, figures, or information to the township, Hsueh said.
Hsueh said he told the council it would receive the budget earlier than March 19, “as soon as we have state direction.” Hsueh reiterated the process during the council’s meeting on February 1.
Since September, Business Administrator Robert Hary and Chief Financial Officer Joanne Louth have been communicating with council members during meetings and have been available one-on-one for council members who have requested it, which Hary put in writing to Morgan, Hsueh said.
Hsueh said Morgan is “talking about cutting property taxes, and on the other hand, he’s wasting taxpayers’ money.”
In order to defend the lawsuit, which Hsueh said is a lawsuit against the entire administration, with the mayor being the representative, the township will have to foot the costs for hiring an attorney.
Hsueh said Township Attorney Michael Herbert will be making a recommendation for another attorney to defend the administration, so as to avoid questions of a conflict of interest. Hsueh said he cannot represent himself in the matter. “I’m not a lawyer; I cannot act like a lawyer,” he said.
In addition to hurting taxpayers, Hsueh said “he really hurt the morale here.”
Morgan, on the other hand, said his lawsuit is partly related to the budget, but “this has everything to do with a mayor who says he likes to work together but, in fact, would like to be adversarial. He’s the guy who’s not working with us.”
Added Morgan: “A councilman deserves to have a mayor who complies with the law. We’ve got a mayor who runs fast or loose with the law. This is intended to address that, in part, in a very narrow context. The context just happens to be an important context, which happens to be the budget.”
Morgan said his request “did not dictate that he had to provide a detailed budget.” Instead, it had to specify whether the mayor was going to provide budget scenarios or not. “He could have very simply responded by saying, ‘We’re not going to do that.’”
Morgan pointed to a message in new Governor Christopher Christie’s inauguration address. He said that “government at all levels, including local government, really needs to get serious in restraining costs. We have a mayor who just doesn’t get it.”
He pointed to the appointment of Robert Hary as business administrator and the salary he was given, which was $20,000 more than former business administrator Christopher Marion. The mayor said the salary increase was to compensate for Hary’s handling of his work as both an administrator and for the health department.
Still, “we have a mayor who had the temerity to give a $20,000 increase to an administrator and did not bother to get resumes,” avoiding the “possibility, if not probability, of hiring a very well-qualified person at a lower salary than what we’re giving Mr. Hary.”
