file photo by Boyd Loving
November 28,2017
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, On November 13, 2017, the New Jersey Local Finance Board (LFB) issued Notices of Violation to the Village of Ridgewood’s former Mayor and former Village manager for authorizing and appearing in a video that advocated only one side of a referendum question that was pending before Village voters.
The ethics complaint was filed on June 13,2016 by the New Jersey Libertarian Party’s Open Government Advocacy Project with the Local Finance Board–the agency that enforces the Local Government Ethics Law.
The complaint alleged , “Mayor Aronsohn’s statement in the video that its purpose is to educate and inform the public about this issue, the video goes well beyond providing neutral facts. Rather, the video is clearly an advocacy piece intended to persuade Village residents to vote “yes” on the proposal. For example Mayor Aronsohn made the following statements at the noted times in the video.”
The Notices of Violation, issued against former Mayor Paul Arohnson and former Village Manager Roberta Sonenfeld, both arose out of a June 21, 2016 referendum question which sought $11,500,000 in bonds or notes to finance the cost of constructing a new parking deck. Under New Jersey law, government officials may use public resources to educate ,but not to persuade voters on public issues.
The LFB concurred and found that the one sided video was persuasive and not purely educational because it advocated only one side of the question and “urg[ed] citizens to vote ‘yes.'” Using public resources to persuade voters to vote “yes” on a referendum is unfair because the referendum’s opponents do not have access to those resources and have to use private resources to distribute their message.
Arohnson and Sonenfeld, by supporting and appearing in the video, were found to have “attempt[ed] to use [their] official position[s] to secure unwarranted privileges or advantages for [themselves] or others in violation of N.J.S.A. 40A:9-22.5(c).”
