Common Sense For New Hampshire

COMMON SENSE FOR BELMAR’S TAKE

In the editorial staff’s words:

Our endorsement goes to Hanlon, 47, of Ocean Township, who during her short tenure has made the office’s services more convenient to the community through satellite offices and a mobile facility. She also has improved the clerk’s website and more widely disseminated information about the clerk’s role. She deserves a full term.

The responsibilities of the clerk’s office, which has a $3 million budget and 60 employees, include recording mortgages, land title deeds, liens, trade names and many other documents. The office also manages the county’s electronic records archives and the open public records system.

In addition, the clerk’s office prepares the election ballots, processes vote-by-mail applications, tabulates election totals and certifies election results to the Secretary of State. It also assists people seeking passports, provides resident and veteran identification cards to county residents and administers oaths to notaries and public officials.

Before becoming acting county clerk, Hanlon was an attorney for more than 20 years with Archer & Greiner in Middletown, specializing in government affairs and municipal law. She is a former commissioner on the Monmouth County Board of Elections, where she served as secretary for two years.

Hanlon is a graduate of Barnard College and Fordham University Law School. Before entering private practice as an attorney, she served as an assistant district attorney in The Bronx, New York, from 1993 to 1997, prosecuting white-collar, narcotics and violent felony cases…….

I don’t doubt that the above is all true.  Obviously she’s been very, very busy and apparently is doing a pretty good job with all that stuff.  And she’s certainly accomplished.  But she still won’t be getting my vote.*

You see I had been under the false impression that the fiasco over the “explanatory” statement was entirely the fault of the Doherty administration.  I thought that it was solely the Borough’s responsibility to pass a resolution, in public, authorizing the statement to be submitted to the Board of Elections.  I thought it was the Borough’s exclusive responsibility to do this in time for anyone who objects to the wording to air their complaint and, if necessary, seek redress in the courts.  I also thought that if an explanatory statement was submitted to the county that was found in court to be “misleading”, that it would be the administration’s fault and no one else’s.

I was mistaken.

At the 36:45 mark of the October 6 Council meeting, before voting to add a resolution appointing William Northgrave as Borough Attorney, Council President Magovern explains how the County Clerk’s office in Freehold bears ultimate responsibility:

Just before I answer that, in defense of Mike, I believe he made a mistake, but I can’t understand why the county Board of Elections would have printed our interpretive statement instead of using that as a neutral…instead of writing their own neutral interpretive statement.  They should have picked up on that also. I mean that’s their job, they should have gone to Mr. DuPont and said there’s no resolution here, and they should have written it themselves so it wouldn’t have had to go to court.  I mean, yeah, Mike made a mistake but there was other mistakes made by the people on the Freehold Board of Elections end of it and I’m sure they’re still going to work tomorrow and Mike is taking the beating for this but I agree with you that it’s a tough decision to make, I applaud you for making that tough decision, but I will vote yes on appointing Mr. Northgrave.

Hanlon’s office should have known better than to trust Belmar to do anything right.  They should have checked the meeting minutes to make sure a resolution was passed.  If the minutes weren’t published yet then they should have called down here to confirm it.  They also should have read the bond ordinance, found Judge Lawson’s directives from last year regarding the proper use of beach utility funds, they should have noticed that the “explanatory” statement said nothing about the Mayor’s “opinions” that it would be “free” or Borough Administrator Connolly’s admission that it was going to be anything but.  They should have learned all the details about the bond and then substituted their own “neutral” (i.e. true) explanatory statement.

Hanlon must take responsibility for these failures on the part of her staff.  I’m going to have to vote for the other guy, what’s his name.  He would have prevented all this.

*(By the way, I’m only kidding.  I will be voting for Hanlon, I think she’s doing a great job and I hope she wins.  Besides, I need the excuse to run her photo here from time to time.)