"No person shall keep or maintain a disorderly house or a house of ill fame ... to be frequented or resorted to by riotous or disorderly persons, prostitutes, gamblers or vagrants."
"No person shall go about from door to door, or place himself or herself in the street, to beg or gather alms."
"No person shall appear in any
street or public place ... in a dress not belonging to his or her sex
... or exhibit, sell or offer for sale any indecent or lewd book,
picture or thing."
Really? Lord save us from
well-intentioned but seriously misguided officials in New Jersey's small
towns. Actually, John Paff, of the New Jersey Libertarian Party,
already has. He - and several Mullica Township residents - convinced
Township Committee to pull a "Peace and Good Order" ordinance that
included those prohibitions quoted above.
It's not clear who wrote the
ordinance. The township solicitor said she had not read it. Mayor Jim
Brown said the Police Department had requested it. The idea, apparently,
was to create a municipal ordinance that people could plead down to
when charged with violations of state statutes.
But where on Earth did they come up with this language? A time machine?
Certainly, we're glad Township
Committee tabled the ordinance. But like a lot of Mullica residents, we
do wonder how it got so far. Did anyone read the proposed ordinance before giving it initial approval Nov. 25?
Brown said it was adapted from
ordinances in other towns. If it's true that other local municipalities
have similar ordinances, they might want to give them a second look.
Small-town officials are part-timers. We get that. You can't expect them to know every nuance and subtlety of lawmaking.
But that still doesn't explain
why anyone in Mullica was able to convince themselves and others on
Township Committee that this was a good idea. No one thought that a ban
on wearing clothes "not belonging to his or her sex" might be just a
little unconstitutional?
By the way, the now-pulled
ordinance also said, "No person or entity shall behave in a manner which
has a negative impact on the quality of life for the citizens,
employees, or visitors of Mullica Township."
If the members of Township Committee had approved this ordinance, they'd sure be guilty of that violation.
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/opinion/editorials/peace-and-good-order-misguided-in-mullica/article_1d32d057-75e9-5642-a629-d68ddc5bce77.html
Related posts at
http://gadfly01.blogspot.com/2014/11/new-behavior-ordinance-for-mullicans.html
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/opinion/editorials/peace-and-good-order-misguided-in-mullica/article_1d32d057-75e9-5642-a629-d68ddc5bce77.html
Related posts at
http://gadfly01.blogspot.com/2014/11/new-behavior-ordinance-for-mullicans.html
11 comments:
The stupidity that goes on in Mullica is always more entertaining to read about in the Press than the national stuff.
Hopefully our elected officials have learned a lesson. The unanswered questions remain unanswered regarding who wrote this thing, who placed it on the agenda and why did the Mayor approve it for the agenda Hopefully they'll do a better job reading and reviewing out next budget.
The budget is set with fixed expenses,such as salaries,county taxes,school taxes,estimated expenses,etc. It's the mistakes that our officials make that run up costs. I heard that the Whitetail farms law suit cost us over $100,000 in lawyer's fees because of a planning board mistake which we lost. There have been other suits that ran up lawyers fees.
We pay top dollars to be protected by town lawyers who seem to be dropping the ball a lot.
Not to even review an ordinance that could have exposed us severe financial damage shows total incompetence on their part.
Look how much money and pain the Mascio case cost. Maybe if the board had better legal advice, none of that would have even happened.
We pinch our pennys,houses are being foreclosed,jobs are being lost but the lawyers seem to be fat,happy and smiling as they drive away in their fancy cars.
The county taxes have gone thru the roof these past 4 years. What does the county do with all of money being extracted from the local governments in Atlantic County?
It is getting ridiculous and unaffordable. No jobs and highest taxes ever will continue to hurt our community.
Township committee is an embarrassment and a disgrace. What a bunch of pea
brains
I went to the meeting.The lawyer was taking all kinds of notes about what the people were saying. She never saw that ordinance before that night. A woman asked her why the town lawyers can be Mascio's lawyers. A big conflict in my eyes,too. The lawyer couldn't answer the question. When asked who could answer-she was silent. Some guy in the audiance said to ask the attorney general.
Something strange is going on with that case. That frim is being fed at both ends.
A perfect storm. A different lawyer sat in for the 25th meeting and never bothered to glance at the ordinance. You would think that the normal lawyer could have ran in at the last moment on the 9th, reviewed the agenda and taken a quick pick at it. It got past 2 of them who couldn't be bothered.
To 12:25pm
Connecting the dots from other posts, I am assuming that Carol Goloff is the planning board lawyer who seemed to err in judgement which resulted in a lost case and a monstrous bill.
In a typical Mullica manner, she will now be rewarded & considered for a promotion to Municipal Judge?
Someone tell me that this is just a bad rumor.
Regarding the township lawyers and this stupid ordinance lets remember with all the lawsuits that would hit, it wouldn't be the law firm that would be sued but the township and the law firm of course would bill out committee and ultimately us to defend Mr Brown and company.In effect they would benefit from the fact Town Hall didn't read or review it.Does anybody really think at the reorganization meeting this law firm would be dropped ?
I agree that taxes are going to skyrocket. Talk is since AC was supposedly carrying us with the past windfalls from Casinos that we now"must pay our fair share" We're going to take a big hit and lets not forget our upcoming reval.Look to AC and Mayor Guardian who has been in office a year and hasn't made the cuts but raised taxes . How many public officials actually hold the line in taxes? We can expect to see more "For sale " signs in Mullica.
5:37pm, you asked if anyone thinks the law firm would be dropped. Well,I think political loyalty will trump any concerns for the people of Mullica.
Keith Davis is the Chairman of the Republican Party. He's partners in Nehmad,Perillo & Davis,our solicitors.
Why do you think the county gets so involved with the politics of Mullica? Why did the Chris Brown & Amodeo campaign pay for Brown & Riffle's glossy expensive campaign ads? Why did Silva's actually look like a ad for Chris Brown.
County politicians feed the egos and coffers of small town candidates then laugh at them behind their backs. They use the locals to bring their firms and contracts into a town.
The whole Repub.-Dem. fight is all about who controls the money, not concern about the people.
I have noticed that the Dems in this town run by themselves and on local issues,which make it difficult against a well funded county machine.
As a followup to 153pm and 537pm post. In todays Press{17th Dec) there was an article of how the tax breaks for the Casinos will affect the 23 other municpalities in Atlantic County. In cutting the casino tax as propsed by Vince Mazzio and Senator Whelan the other towns will have to bear a tax increase proposed by Board of Taxation which although decides County tax rate it is STATE appointed and not under the control of the County executive who has stated on WOND that he opposes this bill as unfair to property owners. Mayor McCullough of EHT also called in as opposing this and suggests that Atlantic City go into bankruptcy to get them out of this huge hole they dug themselves into. Chris Brown also strongly opposes the bill. Seems Whelan created the bill still strongly supports it an feels we should start carrying the load. My recommendation to our government is to have them draw a resolution which they can do to oppose this bill to put a flat tax on the casinos and create a tax hike on us which by the way get no CRDA money for things like policing the AC bike runs last summer.
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