In a case echoing an earlier one against Ocean Gate’s mayor, a state ethics panel found that a borough councilwoman improperly accepted a paid position as a consultant to a municipal anti-drug program, and then took more than $8,600 in payments and reimbursements for the work.
Councilwoman Joella Nicastro of Ocean Gate was fined $600 by the New Jersey Local Finance Board, which found that she violated various articles of state law for the conduct, which occurred in 2014 and 2015, the board’s chair said in a letter to Nicastro’s lawyer.
A copy of the July 10 letter to Nicastro’s lawyer, Daniel G. Leone, was obtained by NJ Advance Media through a request under the state Open Public Records Act, or OPRA.
In the letter, the chair of the Local Finance Board, Melanie Walter, stated that in 2014 the borough established the Municipal Alliance to provide matching funds for anti-drug education grants from the state Drug Education Demand Reduction Fund, a program of the Governor’s Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse. The council also created a paid consultant position for the Municipal Alliance.
While Nicastro did not vote with her council colleagues to hire herself into the unadvertised position, she nonetheless broke ethics laws by holding herself up as qualified, and then accepted the position and pay while continuing to serve on the council, “thus supervising herself,” the finance board chair’s letter stated.
The council again appointed Nicastro to the position in 2015, and she again accepted the position, payments and reimbursements, the letter stated, adding that Nicastro accepted $3,341 in pay and $445 in reimbursements in 2014, and an additional $3,225.25 in pay and $1,636 in reimbursements in 2015, for a total of $8,647.25.
Leone said the councilwoman had appealed the board’s conclusion and the fine, and she looked forward to clearing her name.
“The only comment that we have at this time is that Ms. NiCastro disputes the charges and she looks forward to defending herself at the hearing,” said Leone, who declined to elaborate.
Nicastro did not respond to requests for comment made through Leone and borough hall.
Ocean Gate is a small Ocean County community of about 2,000 residents, located along the south bank of the Toms River, near Barnegat Bay. Nicastro, who is seeking re-election to a 3-year term on Nov. 5, is one of six members of the All-Republican council, which has a regular meeting scheduled for Wednesday night.
The Nicastro case is similar to one against the borough’s Republican mayor, Paul Kennedy, in which the Local Finance Board found that Kennedy had violated ethics laws in 2012 and 2013, when he offered his services and accepted the council’s appointment to a total of four part-time borough jobs paying a total of $50,000 a year, including borough administrator, while he served as mayor.
Kennedy appealed the board’s 2014 findings, but they were upheld by an administrative law judge, who ordered him to pay a $500 fine. Kennedy continued to appeal, and in March 2018 a state appellate panel issued a mixed decision.
On the one hand, the appellate panel upheld the board’s findings that Kennedy had violated multiple ethics codes by using his mayoral influence to act as, “the moving force in his own hiring,” and that he compromised his veto authority over actions of the council, which after having hired him to the paying jobs was then in a position to fire him. However, the appellate panel dismissed the fine against Kennedy, citing his reliance on the advice of counsel — the borough attorney — in accepting the paying jobs.
A spokeswoman for the Local Finance Board, LIsa Ryan, said the board had imposed on a separate $200 fine on Kennedy for financial disclosure statement violations, which the mayor paid in August 2018.
Kennedy did not respond to requests for comment on his own or Nicastro’s ethical troubles. Nor did the borough attorney, identified on Ocean Gate’s web site as James Gluck, who held the position when both Kennedy and Nicastro were cited for ethics violations.
Leone, who was specified by the Local Finance Board as Nicastro’s lawyer, is an associate of Gluck’s firm, Gluck & Allen, which has offices in Toms River and Manhattan.
NJ Advance Media Staff Writer Chris Franklin contributed to this article.
Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveStrunsky. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips.
Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.com’s newsletters.