Judge: Authority must accept connection fees
BY VICTORIA HURLEY-SCHUBERT
Staff Writer

MARLBORO - Work on the Marlboro Grande project will advance.

State Superior Court Judge Lawrence M. Lawson, sitting in Freehold, has ordered the Western Monmouth Utilities Authority (WMUA) to accept sewer connection fees from Meiterman Holdings Inc.

In his ruling, Lawson laid out numerous reasons why the WMUA can not decline the fees and must permit the developer to proceed.

Representatives of the two sides appeared in court on April 24 in Freehold to discuss the legal action filed by the developers after the WMUA refused to accept connection fees for a projects it had previously approved.

Marlboro Grande is a 90-unit senior apartment complex being built on Route 9 north near Union Hill Road by Bernard Meiterman, Steve Meiterman and Edward Kay. The property is between Route 9 and Clayton Road.

Commissioners from the WMUA, which is based in Manalapan and provides sewer service to area municipalities including Marlboro, said they did not want to accept connection fees from the Meitermans and Kay because of pending federal indictments against those three individuals and because of their failure to appear, citing Fifth Amendment rights, at a WMUA session regarding their application.

The Meitermans and Kay have been indicted on multiple corruption and bribery charges in connection with other local development projects.

"We recognize and acknowledge the seriousness of the indictments," said attorney Steven Tripp, of the firm Wilentz, Goldman and Spitzer, of Woodbridge, who is representing the developers. "The WMUA and Marlboro are using the indictments to take arbitrary action and do the politically advantageous thing."

The Marlboro Grande application has no technical faults based on multiple engineering reports assembled by independent firms, said Tripp.

After a favorable report during a WMUA hearing, the utility authority's commissioners went into closed session to discuss the application and decided to let the approvals sit, which effectively brings the construction of the apartment complex to a halt.

Waiting to approve the connection is the best option for the township from a public policy standpoint so Marlboro is not "stuck with a tainted development" if the indicted parties are eventually found guilty, said attorney Kenneth R. Ebner Jr., of the firm Wisniewski and Associates, of East Brunswick, who is representing the WMUA.

The indictments do not mean the developers are guilty, Superior Court Judge Lawrence Lawson said during last week's court proceedings.

"The fact that they don't come to a hearing to exercise their Fifth Amendment rights and didn't make a special trip (to the WMUA) is what I'm supposed to hang my hat on?" Lawson said. "Everyone knew they weren't coming to testify, it's 'Law & Order' and 'CSI.' Where does an agency get the authority to hold someone exercising their Fifth Amendment rights against them?"

Lawson backed up his comments in court with the ruling he issued three days later in which he ordered the WMUA to accept the connection fees for Marlboro Grande.

In an e-mail to the News Transcript, Kay said, "just because one is indicted (as they say, 'a ham sandwich can be indicted'), the indicted parties do not give up their constitutional rights."