Editor’s note: See page 16 for an article on the recently released Grover Committee Report, referenced below. The report will be presented to West Windsor Township Council at its regular meting on Tuesday, April 2.
Keep in mind that our committee has served as volunteers from July, 2012, until the present. We have tried to save the boyhood home of a decorated — two Purple Hearts and a Silver Star — Vietnam War veteran who paid the ultimate sacrifice.
Portions of the home have withstood the Civil War, two World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and countless other skirmishes. What was the West Windsor mayor and his administration’s urgent agenda for putting this house into a dumpster with $60,000 of taxpayer money?
By contrast, the directly elected mayor, his $37 million municipal budget and administration, plus three of five elected Council members have had more than four full years to develop a plan of their own.
As promised, I have referred the sealed investigation to Paul Fishman, the Federal Attorney for the District of New Jersey; the FBI, which handles Federal investigations for the Federal Attorney; the NJ Office of the Attorney General; the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office; the Internal Revenue Service; among other media outlets and venues.
The 3.5 month West Windsor Police Department investigation (ending in mid-December, 2012) came only after our sustained lobbying for a local investigation into wrong-doing. Is it a coincidence that the West Windsor detective reports to the West Windsor police chief, who reports to the West Windsor director of public safety, who is the presiding mayor, involved as a West Windsor politician since 1992? Maybe.
The coincidence is the detective received a promotion and a $10,000 salary increase after a formal public police department promotion ceremony had concluded. It just doesn’t look proper as it creates the appearance of a prospective quid pro quo. This same detective who conducted an earlier investigation in which a former West Windsor public employee was discharged (resignation in lieu of prosecution) for grand theft without mention to taxpayers or the media. Is this yet another coincidence?
Once the 3.5 month “investigation” was concluded, the $286,000 part-time Township Attorney, police chief (see public records for salary and benefits), and investigating detective ran (?) to the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office to seal the results. There is precedent for unsealing records under Common Law.
I am tired of this matter as we volunteer committee members have been played like a discarded fiddle while a high-powered, well-funded administration buries the investigation as “a misunderstanding.”
We could utilize the media’s assistance in heralding this matter by airing the entire matter in the public domain and demand a public vetting of this matter. Our taxpayers deserve no less.
Pete Weae
Vice Chairman, Grover Homestead Restoration Committee
Fisher Place, West Windsor
