February 2004

Garage hearings tainted due to Stevens hiring brother of Zoning Board Chair

Land use attorney Michael Garofalo has represented the Fund for a Better Waterfront in Stevens garage application before the Hoboken Zoning Board.

In a January 30th news story, George Crimmins told the Jersey Journal that his year-long consulting job with Stevens Institute included work on the university's 725-car waterfront parking garage. George Crimmins, the former Business Administrator for the City of Hoboken during the Russo administration, is the brother of Zoning Board Chair Joe Crimmins who has presided over the first three hearings on this garage application. Joe Crimmins recused himself prior to the fourth hearing held on January 26, 2004 after FBW attorney Michael Garofalo of Laddey Clark & Ryan wrote to the Board, arguing that Joe Crimmins' participation in the hearings has tainted the deliberations, causing any action by the Board to be voidable.

At the January 26th hearing, Zoning Board attorney Douglas Bern disagreed, offering his legal opinion that the record on this case is untainted since Joe Crimmins rendered no rulings or any points of view that would prejudice the Board members. Bern ruled that the hearing on the garage could proceed and Board Vice Chair Morris Fusco took over. Stevens spent the remainder of the evening presenting its final two witnesses, a traffic engineer and a planner. The planner began testimony attempting to justify the granting of over 15 variances for this project.

Attorney Michael Garofalo cited the Appellate Court decision of Care of Tenafly v. the Zoning Board of Adjustment, 307 N.J. Super, 362 (App. Div. 1998) to support his argument. The lower Court found that a Zoning Board member whose mother and sister owned property fifty feet from the applicant's site had an absolute, disqualifying and impermissible conflict of interest. In the Appellate Court decision, the judges found that the decisive factor is not actual conflict but whether there is potential for conflict. The potential for psychological influence could not be ignored, according to the ruling, and the Board's approvals had to be invalidated.

Although Stevens had knowledge of this conflict at the start of the hearings in October of 2003, it chose not to provide prompt and full public disclosure. At the January 26th hearing, the attorney representing Stevens, Charles Liebling, remained silent throughout the discussion of this issue. Attorney Michael Garofalo has advised FBW that the nature of the conflict involving the Crimmins brothers is far more serious than the one in Care of Tenafly v. the Zoning Board of Adjustment. Garofalo declared to the Zoning Board that if they approved this project, FBW would use the conflict issue to appeal their decision.

Despite the assertion by FBW's attorney that the hearing process must begin anew without the participation of Zoning Board member Joe Crimmins, the Zoning Board has determined that it will continue. The final hearing is scheduled for Monday, February 23 in the Hoboken City Council chambers. Stevens will finish with the testimony of its last witness, planner Elizabeth McKenzie after which FBW will produce its own planning expert.