Crossing Paths in Red Bank Approvals

The Federal Election Commission fined Amboy Bank and its CEO George Scharpf in 2003 for campaign donation violations. George Scharpf and Amboy Bank had a very close relationship with former Governor McGreevey and former NJ State Senator John Lynch.  Lynch was sent to jail for fraud along with Red Bank resident Jack Westlake. Here is an excerpt from the book The Jersey Sting related to Amboy Bank. John Lynch was a major supporter of former Red Bank Mayor Ed McKenna. Here is an excerpt from an article in the bayshore courier news from a few years ago. Also, a 2000 race for the Monmouth County Democratic chairmanship pitted Red Bank Mayor Ed McKenna against Scudiery. McKenna received $5,000 from the New Directions PAC for the ultimately unsuccessful attempt. Lynch’s PAC has continued to support McKenna’s role as a Democratic leader in Monmouth County, contributing $9,700 to the Red Bank Democratic Party and $2,500 to the Monmouth County Council of Democrat Leaders PAC, a committee McKenna is affiliated with, since 2002. Below is a link to  a campaign donation list for John Lynch’s New Directions PAC from 2002. The list is very lengthy and includes an executive with Amboy Bank and the McKenna Law Firm.

new directions pac 2002

 Is this possible Lynch connection more than a coincidence and could the idea of a Red Bank Transit Village come from Lynch.  Ed McKenna has been supporting Amboy Bank to obtain higher than allowed density at the property located at Monmouth/West/Oakland Streets in Red Bank. Next week Amboy Bank goes before the zoning board to subdivide the affordable housing from the market units. Ed McKenna has a non-profit affordable housing corporation and is just finishing the cedar crossings project.  The zoning was changed while Amboy Bank was in the process of foreclosing on the property formerly owned by George Coffenberg. Arguments by the borough engineer against the Coffenberg development was that it was too dense even though it followed the existing zoning laws. If they did not like 16 units per acre why would they change the zoning to 35 units per acre a year later? If you look at the original Coffenberg Courtyard approval process and compare what happened after Coffenberg gave the property back to Amboy Bank you will notice different treatments of the same property.  Ed McKenna was appointed to the Red Bank Rivercenter at the same time that an approval by the zoning board was received to allow Amboy Bank to not follow the required special district zoning promoting street level retail from the train station to Broad Street.  Amboy Bank also funded around $1 million in repairs to the 51 Monmouth Street Red Bank property which was the former Red Bank Police Station sold to Ed McKenna’s Kid’s Bridge charity for $1. Amboy Bank located at 36 Monmouth Street was listed as the address to make donations on behalf of the charity. The former police station building was transferred a year later to the Red Bank YMCA and now the Red Bank YMCA is selling the property to Red Bank Catholic for over $1 million. Interestingly enough is that George Scharpf CEO of Amboy Bank was in charge of the planned capital campaign to fund a new YMCA in Old Bridge which would be under the control of the Red Bank YMCA.   Red Bank’s borough engineer, T & M of Middletown, was also the engineer for the YMCA project in Old Bridge. Even though Ed McKenna is no longer the Mayor of Red Bank he seems to have a lot of involvement in the way the town is run. Here he is celebrating last November’s election

After he wrote the last figures from the local districts on a running tally board, former Mayor Ed McKenna, who frequently taunts his opponents, jabbed his middle finger into the air. In a surprise move a week before the hearing to subdivide the affordable housing units from the market units, the Red Bank Council without the Mayor met in closed session to create a developers agreement for the affordable housing so that GS Realty which is part of Amboy bank can subdivide the land and obtain easier financing. It would seem a bank that owns all of the land would not need to subdivide the land nor find financing.

Red Bank Affordable Housing Members

There is an interesting group of people involved with the Red Bank Affordable Housing. The members are Reverend Porter of the Pilgrim Baptist Church in Red Bank which would seem to make sense. A church located on Shrewsbury Avenue in Red Bank trying to create low-income housing and allow lower-income people to remain in the town. Other members are William Katchen from Cliffside Park in Bergen County NJ and Frank Borin of the Decotiis Law Firm in Bergen County NJ as well. There is also former Red Bank Mayor Ed McKenna as Vice President. William Katchen was suspended in the 1990 for 1 year by the Federal Government from participating in public housing due to the misappropriation of approximately 1.7 million dollars in public housing funds. The Decotiis Law Firm is a very politically connected law firm with direct access to many of New Jersey’s past governors. They also represented Encap, the largest waste of taxpayer dollars in the history of the state. Why would a local church group be involved with politically connected accountants and lawyers from North Jersey? If this was done solely for charity why would the Decotiis law firm charge the Red Bank Affordable Housing Corporation fees when they were also members of the corporation? Why did Ed McKenna as Mayor of Red Bank push for the town to acquire the property for more than fair market value as well as zoning changes only to become one of the developers? Why did Mayor Menna and Mayor McKenna claim that the Red Bank Housing Authority would develop the property when it was actually the Red Bank Affordable Housing Corporation that received the property for $1 and is a separate corporation from the town and the authority. The state taxpayers paid 2.45 million and the rationale was that the local taxpayers did not pay for it, so even if the property was over valued, it did not matter because this was “free money.” Here is an article outlining very similar parallels between Red Bank Affordable Housing Corporation and the Paramus Affordable Housing Corporation:

Another subpoena for mayor’s non-profit
Friday, August 22, 2008
Last updated: Friday August 22, 2008, EDT 10:41 PM
BY MICHAEL GARTLAND
Staff Writer
PARAMUS – A borough affordable housing corporation has received a subpoena from federal agents, municipal spokesman Keith Furlong confirmed today.

The subpoena, which was served Thursday, is the second in two months regarding the Paramus Affordable Housing Corp., a non-profit for which Mayor James Tedesco serves as president.

Dennis Oury, who served as the borough attorney from 2001 to 2007, is listed as the non-profit’s agent, according to state records. He also serves as counsel for the Bergen County Democratic Organization.

Federal agents served search warrants at his law offices Thursday, along with those of Joseph Ferriero, the BCDO chief. The agents seized at least 18 boxes of documents and computer hard drives.

Attorneys for both men confirmed that agents searched the offices for information about Governmental Grants Consulting, a firm in which Ferriero and Oury were partners with two other men – David Spatz, its president, and Leonard Kaiser, who also serves as Bergen County Utilities Authority Chairman.

Sean Quinn, a spokesman for the FBI, would not confirm today whether the subpoena and the search warrants were connected.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office served the borough with a subpoena in July, seeking records about Paramus Affordable Housing Corp.

According to 2007 tax records, Paramus Affordable Housing Corp. has assets worth about $2.4 million, although property tax records put the total at $3 million.

Tedesco, who has been mayor since 2003, and the non-profit’s accountant, William Katchen, have not responded to repeated requests for comment since the first subpoena was received.

Katchen, who once served as director of the Edgewater Municipal Utility Authority, also has worked for the housing authorities of Garfield, Cliffside Park, Edgewater, Englewood and the city of Passaic.

In 1990, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development slapped him with a one-year suspension after the Passaic Housing Authority misspent $1.7 million in taxpayer money. Katchen was the housing authority’s accountant.

Tedesco and Katchen’s aren’t the only names that appear on the non-profit’s tax forms.

Former Paramus Councilman Richard Lambert was listed as the non-profit’s secretary on its 2004 tax form, but Lambert said he ended his ties with the group after stepping down as a councilman in 2000.

“That’s crazy,” he said. “My name shouldn’t be there. I didn’t go to any meetings after I left.”

John Tashjian was listed as a trustee in 2004, but said he never attended any of the non-profit’s meetings.

Louis Romano appears on the form next to the designation of vice president. Romano, who has served on the borough’s Planning Board and Board of Adjustment, said he, too, was surprised his name appeared on the 2004 tax document.

“The mayor appointed me in ’05,” he said. “I was there a couple of months, and I resigned. It just wasn’t my bag.”

U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie has executed more than 30 subpoenas in North Jersey since May. Many of those have sought information related to Oury and Governmental Grants Consulting.

Federal authorities appear to be looking into how that firm’s principals used their political influence to obtain business for it.

Oury, who also is counsel for the Bergen County Improvement Authority, has held jobs in several towns, including Ridgefield and Bergenfield, both of which employed Governmental Grants Consulting.

In Bergen County, his public work generated $760,000 to $1.1 million in annual income for his law firm in each of the three previous calendar years. Oury has given at least $105,000 to Democratic candidates since 1999, most of it going to the BCDO.

Bergenfield fired Oury as its borough attorney in January, and Paramus reassigned him to a labor attorney position

It seems that William Katchen and the Decotiis Law Firm like to work on projects together:

The breakdown of sums paid to contractors for the Edgewater ferry/marina/park project through Jan. 16. In addition, the borough paid $6.1 million for the land, which was acquired through eminent domain.

Austin Helle, construction: $6,700,695

DeCotiis, Fitzpatrick, Cole & Wisler, attorneys: $450,296

Malcolm Pirnie, on-site construction manager: $439,451

Gruzen Samton, contract administrator: $207,330

Schoor DePalma, engineers: $196,045

Vollmer Associates, traffic study: $40,823

William Katchen, financial adviser: $32,381

Robert Regan, attorney: $24,142

Burgis Associates, planners: $1,498

Source: Borough of Edgewater

Is it one building, two buildings, a structure, or five buildings?

The property at the corners of Monmouth, West, and Oakland streets had 8 building lots. I wanted to have the buildings close together to avoid dangerous alley ways and maintain the urban feel of any city shopping district. By only creating 5 buildings when we could have created 8 buildings, we did not feel that we were in violation of the zoning requirements for the BR-1 and BR-2 zones. (the br-1 zone can be found starting on page 2072 and the br-2 zone can be found starting on page 3022) I only asked for 20 condos over retail when technically I could have asked for 32 condos over retail. The reason for the lower amount of buildings and units was for access to the on-site parking and lessen the impact on the neighborhood. Our original plan would have created a lot of underground parking and avoided a parking variance. The borough officials would not allow the buildings or parking structure to touch, otherwise they would consider it one building and thus you could only have 4 condos over retail and then the project does not make financial sense to build. Various documents disputing Red BankIn the code book link above for the br-1 zone and br-2 zone the town has towards the beginning of the document,  the definitions of what a building is which goes against their argument that the parking garage was a building.

Red Bank Fund Raiser

In April of 2007 I was invited to a Red Bank Democratic Fund Raiser. Invitation to Red Bank Democratic Fund Raiser. This is where I met Rich Kosenski of T & M Engineering the Red Bank Borough Engineer. I was introduced to him by Mayor Menna to speak about my project going before the Red Bank Planning Board. Rich said “What’s your problem why won’t you just go to the zoning board?” I said I was concerned about the amount of projects before the zoning board which would delay the approval and that the monthly carrying costs were very expensive. He said with a laugh “I know it is”. He said he would see what he could do and also said “Why did you drop the original project (BLT) we would have approved that”.  BLT was a very controversal project with double  the amount of units permitted in the zone.  Danny Murphy and Pat Nulle were principals in the BLT project. I was told if I was approved by the zoning board for the old approval it could be again appealed in the courts as it exceeded the zoning density requirements. I had also been blocked by the town on the original rehearing and thought they wanted residential over retail as per Rivercenter requirements. It is also interesting to note that on the one hand he is telling me that they would re-approve a double density project but at the same time he was telling me that the new project was exceeding the density allowed and why they were concerned with the new plans. As we later find out what started out as the original 17 condos in one building became 20 condos in 5 buildings that conformed to the zoning requirements, so density was never really the issue. The most recent approvals now have 57 units in two buildings.

Coffenberg Designs a New Plan

Inorder to follow the newly created River Center Special Business Zone guidelines of creating residential units above street level retail, I eliminated the original BLT project in an attempt to honor the town’s wishes. After some back and forth adjustments to the plan, we created a plan that met the zoning requirements and would therefore be heard by the planning board. The planning board  listens to C variances which in this case was related to some setback issues. We also created a plan that did not require a parking variance. The town representatives did not like that the buildings were close together but it would only create a C variance for the distance between buildings variance where 15 feet are required and I was only providing 1 inch. The town representatives said that is there is only a 1 inch separation, between buildings you only have one building. I am not aware of any buildings that do not touch that are considered one building nor do the building codes.

Original Plan to follow River Center

Revised plan to follow River Center

buildings over garage

The definition of a building is that it is to provide shelter to humans. and a parking structure can never be considered a building as it cannot be used for continuous human occupancy. The town respresentatives then claimed that an underground parking structure was a building and since the above grade buildings sat on top of the parking structure they claimed it to all be one building which goes against their own building code regulations as they follow the International Building Code which follows the above definitions. My professionals began to argue these various points. We eventually had to eliminate the parking under the buildings to move  the project forward and thus created a small parking variance.

Red Bank Creates Special Business District

At the end of 2006 and beginning of 2007 Red Bank began to change their zoning ordinace to expand the Red Bank River Center over towards the westside of town including the train station area. Red Bank River Center is an agency that promotes business and the downtown in Red Bank, NJ. They are also responsible for making sure developers and businesses create a look that is in keeping with the shopping area.

rivercenter ordinance

Red Bank goes to Court

In December of 2006 a court hearing took place at the Monmouth County Court House before Judge Lawson. Here is part of the transcripts and attorney letters related to the property located at the corner of Monmouth St and West St in Red Bank, NJ

rb judge lawson-kevin kennedy