Shame on the Times! Shame on Dion Clark!

It’s two days before a major election in the State of New Jersey – be sure to Vote on Tuesday, by the way – and the Trenton Times sees nothing more important to put on the front page today than a non-story by Alex Zdan. The Times this morning essentially handed over half of its front page to a Republican Freeholder candidate here in Mercer County – a half page of Free Publicity! – to allow Dion Clark to make a thinly-based charge against four Trenton City Council Members.

Based on no other factor in common than their ownership of residential rental properties in the City of Trenton, the Times allows CANDIDATE Clark to charge that these Council members should recuse themselves from any issues coming before City Council involving rental properties in this City. To bolster these charges, Mr. Zdan includes some quotes from Seton Hall Law Professor and governmental ethics expert Paula Franzese. But the effect of her quotes don’t exactly make Clark’s case.

Her first words quoted are “The recusal standards on the local level are governed by the local government ethics laws. And those are terribly vague as to when a recusal must actually proceed.” And after declaring that the law and local standards are in fact “terribly vague,” Zdan takes another 487 words on the subject before he says,

In the end, it is up to voters and citizens to decide where their elected officials’ interests lie.

Really? That’s the big payoff? OK, then. That took a lot of words to say, in essence, nothing.

So, what exactly are these four council members being accused of? Have they concealed their ownership of these properties? No!  According to the article,  “During the public comment portion of a council meeting this summer where the ordinance [affecting the annual inspection of resi dential rental properties]was being debated, Clark said he asked the council members for a show of hands to see who owned rental property. Four members raised their hands – Alex Bethea, Phyllis Holly-Ward, Kathy McBride and Reynolds-Jackson.”

Do Clark or Zdan believe that these Council members personally and unethically profited by their votes on the ordinance? Not one word in the article suggests that!

So, what is this article charging? About the best that Zdan can suggest is to say “What started out as more sweeping regulation of the city’s landlords ended up watered down, [Clark] says, mostly due to resistance from rental property owners on the government body {City Council].”

How did they do this? We don’t know. Neither Clark nor Zdan offer any evidence of this “watering down!” Not one shred! Not one inkling! We don’t know what constituted “watering down,” nor are there any specific actions attributed to the Council Members in question. Mr. Zdan is content to report Clark’s charges, to accept them as given, without challenge, without evidence. So where are we left, as far as ANY charge of substance in this article? Nowhere.

Now, I have often criticized these council members and their colleagues for their performance in office, but today I think they have been treated unfairly by both the Times and Mr. Clark.

What the Times has done is to allow partisan Republican Freeholder Candidate Dion Clark to make direct, personal and unsubstantiated charges against four individual members of Trenton’s City Council on the front page of its newspaper TWO DAYS before the election in which Mr. Clark is running. Shame on the Trenton Times!

As for Mr. Clark, what are we to make of his suggestion that, because they may own a single rental property in the City, these four Members should recuse themselves from any votes on matters involving rentals and landlords? How widely would he extend this rule?

If Council members own their homes, should they recuse themselves from voting on property tax increases? If they have children in public school, should they recuse themselves on any school matters? If they have their trash picked up, or if they fill a glass of water from their taps, should they decline to participate in matters involving Public Works?

Mr. Clark’s charges, as they do not allege individual and unfair gain from their votes, nor undisclosed personal interests, are empty and without merit. If he truly believes that this kind of very limited connection to an issue is in this case enough for an elected official to recuse himself or herself from a public vote, then he demonstrates clearly that he has no claim to elected office himself; he has a selective and impractical view about conflict of interest.

If he is using the Trenton Times to make this kind of cynical personal claim without merit against four Council members to aid his own campaign two days before his election, then shame on him!