According to the ninth page of its March 12, 2012 minutes, the Lavallette Borough Council (Ocean County) voted to have its Borough attorney “investigate the non-profit, non-partisan status” of the Lavallette Voters & Taxpayers Association.
The decision came after Mayor Walter G. LaCicero received the Association’s recent newsletter and found it “pretty disturbing and filled with a lot of inaccuracies.” Mayor LaCicero said that he investigated the Association and found it to be run by a cabal of Democrats who “commandeered” the Association in order to mount “a partisan attack against the Republican Council.”
As evidence of the Association’s evil intent, Mayor LaCicero noted that the Association “brought in” an open government advocate from Somerset County which “resulted in thousands of dollars in costs to the Borough to comply” with the Open Public Records Act. (The Government Records Council (GRC) decision, which found that Lavallette failed to abide by OPRA as well as the GRC’s December 18, 2008 Interim Order is on-line here.)
When Joseph Ardito, a member of the Association, attempted to address the mayor’s comments and the council’s action, Mayor LaCicero did not permit him to speak.
