Ethics panel recommends removal of board member

MARLBORO — The Marlboro Ethics Board has recommended that an alternate member of the township’s Zoning Board of Adjustment be removed from his position.

Members of the ethics board unanimously passed a resolution which recommends that Paul Schlaflin be removed from his position on the zoning board.

An alternate member participates in hearing applications that come before the zoning board, but only votes if enough regular members are not present when an application before the board is decided.

The ethics board’s June 9 decision stemmed from an email Schlaflin submitted to an Internet website. The website’s anonymous operator had promised anonymity to anyone submitting rumors or messages.

The website was in operation during the 2009 campaign season and published vile rumors about residents and elected officials, naming certain individuals.

Schlaflin said he wrote an equally vile email, packed it with rumors and sent it to the website’s operator, believing he knew the op- erator’s identity. Schlaflin testified that he emailed his message to the website to give the website’s operator a taste of his own medicine. He told the ethics board that he wanted the website’s operator to see how hurtful rumors could be.

The rumors Schlaflin submitted were never posted on the Internet website, but instead of keeping the email private as advertised online, the website’s operator forwarded the email to various individuals in Marlboro. Some of the people who received the email filed ethics charges against Schlaflin.

As the hearing on the matter wrapped up on June 9, Schlaflin again stated his belief that Marlboro resident Mike Fishman, one of the complainants in the matter, was the operator of the Internet website.

Fishman, who was present, denied the allegation.

At a previous hearing on the matter it was mentioned by one witness that Marlboro residentAl Rosenthal had been told by Fishman that he (Fishman) was the owner of the website in question. A subpoena had been issued to have Rosenthal present at the June 9 hearing, but it was not served in time for the hearing.

The ethics board’s attorney, Andrew Hamelsky, said attempts had been made to deliver the subpoena, the most recent attempt being on June 8, but there had been no success in issuing the subpoena.

Therefore, the comments that were made which claimed Rosenthal had been privy to information identifying Fishman as the operator of the website were considered hearsay.

Schlaflin also called zoning code enforcement officer Sarah Paris to testify during the hearing.

The board’s chairman, Michael Cali, asked Paris if she, after having read the contents of Schlaflin’s email, felt uncomfortable with Schlaflin or if she thought it would impair his duties as a zoning board member.

Paris said she was not uncomfortable with Schlaflin and said she did not think his authorship of the email would impair his duties as a member of the zoning board.

Robert Knight, the Marlboro Republican Club president and former member of the zoning board who was one of the complainants, asked Paris if she thought it was possible for the zoning board to be opened up to litigation as a result of Schlaflin’s email to the website.

The possibility of litigation ensuing if an application was denied by the zoning board has been a point argued by a few of the complainants in the case against Schlaflin. They have argued that if an application is denied, that person could file an appeal and based it on prejudices they said Schlaflin displayed in the email.

Paris acknowledged that anything is possible.

Fishman asked Schlaflin why he mentioned members of Fishman’s family in the email to the website.

Schlaflin responded, “Because of the horrible, rotten, terrible things you were saying and posting about (other) people.”

Fishman again denied posting anything on the website.

Schlaflin responded by saying he did not believe Fishman had any credibility.

Fishman asked Schlaflin if his (Fishman’s) family had done anything to provoke the email or if comments posted on the website had been directed at Schlaflin.

Schlaflin said he was defending the people and their families who had been attacked on the website.

Fishman questioned how Schlaflin would feel if he had written comments about his (Schlaflin’s) family, such as the ones Schlaflin had written about Fishman’s family.

Schlaflin responded by saying that he would not have cared because of the source (Fishman) of the comments.

Fishman said he, too, would not have minded if the email Schlaflin submitted to the website had been directed at only him. It was the comments made about family members that upset him, Fishman said.

Schlaflin has maintained that the comments contained in his email were nothing he would publicly state or post to an Internet website. He said he sent the email to the website operator because he suspected the operator was Fishman and knowing its contents would never be published online since it pertained to Fishman.

“You will not find anybody of minority status in this town or any other who will tell you I treated them with anything other than respect,” Schlaflin said.

In his closing comments Schlaflin maintained that the content of the email he submitted to the website operator was supposed to have remained private and was not something he would have said publicly. He described the matter as petty politics.

Fishman and Knight both said in their closing statements that the content of Schlaflin’s email could lead to lawsuits if it was ever released to the public. Fishman described the email as being hurtful toward various people.

The members of the ethics board subsequently found Schlaflin to be in violation of Section IIb of the Marlboro Ethics Code, which states, “The vitality and stability of representative democracy depend upon the public’s confidence in the integrity of its elected and appointed representatives.”

Reading the resolution for the board, Rabbi Donald Weber said the board found that the email Schlaflin submitted to the operator of the Internet website in late 2009 diminishes the confidence the public would have for Schlaflin in his position on the zoning board.

Board members recommended the removal of Schlaflin from his position.

According to the township clerk’s office on June 14, it was unclear whether the ethics board’s decision means Schlaflin is off the zoning board or whether the Township Council has to act on the board’s recommendation.

Schlaflin has indicated that he will appeal the ethics board’s decision to the state Department of Community Affairs.

“It seems good doesn’t always triumph over evil. Somehow the ethics board was able to discount perjury, submission of fraudulent documents and testimony of illegal activity by my accusers. A president can have extramarital affairs in the Oval office and remain president, a sitting mayor of a major New Jersey city can get in a drunken altercation with police and remain mayor, but I send an admittedly nasty email to the operator of a vile and malicious website and a group of rabid partisans can have a dedicated member of the community removed from the zoning board by an ethics board with whom they are on a firstname basis. My appeal will follow,” Schlaflin said.