06/27/13 Update: The Manville Council will discuss my repeal request at its July 15, 2013 meeting. Click here.
June 17, 2013
Hon. Angelo Corradino, Mayor and members of the
Manville Borough Council
325 North Main Street
Manville, NJ 08835 (via e-mail only to [email protected])
RE: Ordinance #396
Dear Mayor Corradino and Council members:
The object of this letter is to get the Borough Council to finally repeal the captioned ordinance, on-line here, which seeks to prohibit various types of “vice, immorality, drunkenness and disorderly conduct.” I have checked the “New Ordinances” page on your web site and it appears that Ord #396 has yet to be repealed.
On-line here is former Borough Attorney C. Douglas Reina’s June 16, 2003 letter in which he opines that “there is no question but that [Ord. #396] has been preempted by the provisions of Title 2C of the New Jersey Statutes.” In the same letter, Mr. Reina promises that Ord. #396 will not be included within the upcoming ordinance codification. It appears now–10 years later–that neither the repeal nor the codification ever occurred.
On-line here is an August 5, 2011 letter from the Somerset County Prosecutor’s Office warning Manville Municipal Prosecutor Matthew C. Dorsi that he might face an “ethical complaint and/or a supercession by this office” if he was again caught improperly downgrading statutory charges to Ord. #396 violations.
Given that a) the Borough’s own attorney has deemed Ord. #396 invalid and b) that the County Prosecutor won’t let your local prosecutor downgrade statutory charges to it, do you agree with me that it’s high time that Manville repealed this relic from the books?
I ask that you please discuss this during the June 24, 2013 Council meeting.
Very truly yours,
John Paff, Chairman
New Jersey Libertarian Party’s
Preempted Ordinance Repeal Project
P.O. Box 5424
Somerset, NJ 08875-5424
Voice: 732-873-1251
