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Reaching over 100,000 voters in New Jersey

March 27, 2019

Green New Deal gets ZERO votes in the U.S. Senate

March 27, 2019/ Jersey Conservative

Does this make Congressman Bill Pascrell an idiot?

Perhaps it does. And what does it say about the Pascrell lobbying empire?

It took the Democrats no time to shit the bed… to make President Donald Trump appear mild-mannered in comparison. But shit it they have. The signature proposal of the Democrats’ most well-known personality from 2018 got shut-out in the U.S. Senate.

And what does this mean to all those A.O.C. wannabees like Darcy Draeger and Lisa Bhimani in LD25, Deana Lykins in LD24, Stacey Gunderman and Lisa Mandelblatt in LD21, and Laura Fortgang in LD26? Bed-shitters one and all?

Here is an existential explanation of what the Green New Deal is, given by the redoubtable Senator Mike Lee.

June 15, 2017

Webber's clone lost in LD26, spin won't change that.

June 15, 2017/ Jersey Conservative

There has been a big effort to re-write the history of what just happened in the Republican primary in Legislative District 26. The origins of the battle just concluded there go back a few years, to when Daryn Iwicki was running Americans for Prosperity (AFP) in New Jersey.

Then, things were well on the way to securing AFP's support for increasing the users tax on gasoline in order to end the disastrous cycle of debt and borrowing to fund basic repair and maintenance for the state's transportation system. After 28 years without an adjustment for inflation -- and 25 years since the revenue from the gas tax produced enough to fund the state's transportation needs -- by 2015, the state was collecting just $750 million from the gas tax while incurring an annual debt cost of $1.1 billion. Something had to be done.

Senator Steve Oroho (LD24) and others had the idea of getting rid of the estate tax as part of a deal to address the imminent bankruptcy of the state's Transportation Trust Fund (TTF), which funds most of the state's transportation needs. One of those others was Assemblyman Jay Webber (LD26), who famously advocated such a deal in an opinion piece published in the Star-Ledger on October 14, 2014. Its title was "Fixing transportation and taxes together."

Assemblyman Webber advocated raising the gas tax to end the debt cycle and fund the TTF, while offsetting that tax increase with cuts to other taxes. He zeroed in on the estate tax:

"NEW JERSEY leaders are grappling with three major problems: First, New Jersey has the worst tax burden in the nation. Two, New Jersey's economy suffers from sluggish growth. And third, our state's Transportation Trust Fund is out of money. There is a potential principled compromise that can help solve all of them.

Of the three problems, the Transportation Trust Fund has been getting the most attention lately, and for good reason: It's broke. There is just no money in it to maintain and improve our vital infrastructure. Without finding a solution, we risk watching our roads and bridges grow unsafe and unusable and hinder movement of people and goods throughout the state. That, of course, will exacerbate our state's slow economic growth.

...we should insist that if any tax is raised to restore the TTF, it be coupled with the elimination of a tax that is one of our state's biggest obstacles to economic growth: the death tax. By any measure, New Jersey is the most extreme outlier on the death tax, with worst-in-the-nation status...

New Jersey's death tax is not a concern for the wealthy alone, as many misperceive. We are one of only two states with both an estate and inheritance tax. New Jersey's estate-tax threshold of $675,000, combined with a tax rate as high as 16 percent, means that middle-class families with average-sized homes and small retirement savings are hit hard by the tax.

It also means the tax affects small businesses or family farms of virtually any size, discouraging investment and growth among our private-sector job creators. Compounding the inequity is that government already has taxed the assets subject to the death tax when the money was earned. Because of our onerous estate and inheritance taxes, Forbes magazine lists New Jersey as a place "Not to Die" in 2014.

That's a problem, and it's one our sister states are trying hard not to duplicate. A recent study by Connecticut determined that states with no estate tax created twice as many jobs and saw their economies grow 50 percent more than states with estate taxes. That research prompted Connecticut and many states to reform their death taxes. New York just lowered its death tax, and several other states have eliminated theirs.

The good news is that New Jersey's leaders finally are realizing that our confiscatory death tax is a big deal. A bipartisan coalition of legislators has shown its support for reforming New Jersey's death tax..."

Unfortunately, the leadership at AFP changed and decided to become part of a political strategy advocated by some GOP Senators. This strategy argued that the gas tax was a game-changer that would result in a backlash that the GOP could harness to achieve power, much in the way they had in 1991-93. Extensive polling by a well-respected survey research firm was produced in support of what by now had become a certainty in their minds. The gas tax was a "third rail" (they said) that would end the career of any Republican foolish enough to vote for it and that would propel the GOP into majority status.

When the time came for Jay Webber to be counted as part of a bipartisan coalition to get the deal done, he couldn't be counted on. Jay got scared off by AFP and people like NJ101.5's Bill Spadea. Webber began to enthusiastically attack those who did what he advocated doing only a short time before. One of those was his running mate, Assemblywoman BettyLou DeCroce.

DeCroce found herself cut off from Webber and running alone -- facing two "anti-gas tax" opponents who made no bones about who they were targeting: Assemblywoman BettyLou DeCroce. Both opponents were Morris County Freeholders with generally conservative records. One, Freeholder Hank Lyon, specifically identified with Assemblyman Webber and shared many of the same supporters, in addition to the same issues-grid and talking points. Like Webber, Lyon billed himself a "movement conservative" despite the fact that the father of the modern conservative movement, Ronald Reagan, had not only endorsed the gas tax as a user tax -- he had doubled it as President.

In the end, Freeholder Lyon -- Assemblyman Webber's "clone" -- came up short.

While some have noted the involvement of non-public, blue-collar, union money in the LD26 race, they neglect to mention the hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of prime radio time spent driving up the negatives of the "gas tax" and building momentum to specifically turn out of office legislators who voted for it. The FCC is currently doing an analysis of the time spent on this campaign and its fair market value. Add to this the cost of the petroleum lobby's efforts -- in particular AFP -- and we soon see that the working men and women were once again out-spent by corporate interests.

In closing, let us remind our readers that the most effective advertisement used against the Republican ticket in 2008 wasn't reported on any campaign finance or disclosure report. It was simply a series of commercial broadcasts -- political attack ads, masquerading as comedy.

June 05, 2017

Better Not Call Slippin’ Johnny Cesaro Until You Check the List

June 05, 2017/ Jersey Conservative

By Scott St. Clair

The “lawyer with baggage” theme is a staple of TV crime dramas. The Law & Order franchise used it as a plot twist a couple times – here and here – to juice up stories where bogus legal credentials threatened convictions. And the current hit series Better Call Saul has strip mall lawyer protagonist Jimmy McGill aka Slippin’ Jimmy aka Saul Goodman suffering a suspension of his law license for engaging in off-center and dubious shenanigans against his brother.

So it’s hardly surprising that New Jersey politics, always looking to sink to new depths, has gotten into the act with its own slippin’ character, LD-26 Assembly hopeful and current Morris County Freeholder John “Slippin’ Johnny” Cesaro.

You see, it turns out that ol’ Slippin’ Johnny ran afoul of the rules and became “administratively ineligible” to practice law after he failed to comply with state bar association reporting requirements having to do with the Interest on Lawyer Trust Accounts program. As one report described it:

Cesaro was listed as administratively ineligible due to non-compliance with the IOLTA program, a non-profit program that helps disabled and low-income people resolve civil legal matters.

Slippin’ Johnny’s name first appeared on the IOLTA Ineligible List on October 21, 2016. According to Mary Waldman, the newly appointed executive director of the IOLTA Fund of the Bar of New Jersey, attorneys in the state are notified of their filing obligations in December, but those who fail to comply don’t have their names placed on the list until October of the following year, 10 months later. He remained on the list for seven months, not rectifying the situation until just recently.

Waldman said there are close to 90,000 attorneys in New Jersey. The most recent IOLTA Ineligible List had approximately 1,300 names, or 1.45 percent of the total, one of which was Slippin’ Johnny’s who was, per the list, originally admitted to practice in 2001.

It’s not like annual registration and IOLTA reporting requirements are rocket science, especially for someone who was admitted to the bar almost an entire generation ago. So what was it about Slippin’ Johnny that made him…slip?

Media reports appear to have Slippin’ Johnny talking out of both sides of his mouth on whether he did or did not file his paper work in a timely manner. One quoted him as saying he did – “’This was a clerical error on my part,’ said Cesaro. ‘I send my paperwork in every year, and I sent them in this year,’” – while another has him saying he didn’t – “John Cesaro told Parsippany Focus he registers every year but he apparently failed to do so last year.”

How slippin’ is that, Johnny?

There’s enough slip sliddin’ away already in Trenton, so should Slippin’ Johnny slip down the slippery slope to sloppy legislative details? After all, the devil is always in them, and it’s a pretty significant detail that Slippin’ Johnny botched.

But what exactly does it mean to be “administratively ineligible”? Admittedly, it’s a far cry from being disbarred or even suspended for an infraction of the rules of ethics. But it does make an attorney who’s on that list legally unable to practice law.

“Administratively ineligible” is defined by the state bar as:

“The attorney is not currently eligible to practice law in New Jersey for one or more reasons, including failure to pay the annual attorney assessment to the New Jersey Lawyers’ Fund for Client Protection, failure to register with IOLTA or maintain IOLTA accounts, or otherwise failing to meet the requirements of Rule 1:21-1(a).Administrative ineligibility is not the result of discipline, but attorneys who are administratively ineligible are not allowed to practice law in New Jersey.” (emphasis added)

In other words, if you don’t comply with the IOLTA reporting requirements, you may not pass Go, you may not offer legal advice, you may not collect fees, you may not practice law. If you continue to practice law while ineligible for whatever reason, the state bar association can pile on additional sanctions, as it has done to other attorneys in the past.

Ineligible by any other name – disbarred, suspended or administratively -- is still ineligible. Again, this ain’t rocket science.

Yet for months Slippin’ Johnny did practice law, which arguably also means he violated the legal canons of ethics for the state bar association, which state:

“RPC 5.5 Lawyers Not Admitted to the Bar of This State and the Lawful Practice of Law

(a) A lawyer shall not:

(1) practice law in a jurisdiction where doing so violates the regulation of the legal profession in that jurisdiction…”

And he did so as a prosecutor or public defender for several townships. Elected officials in jurisdictions for which he provided legal services have expressed concerns over the consequences of Slippin’ Johnny’s ineligibility on criminal and other matters he might have handled for them as well as cases that were strictly within his own private law practice. It just gets curiouser and curiouser.

A call to the state’s Office of Attorney Ethics to ascertain the full ethical ramifications of Slippin’ Johnny’s bungling of his paperwork resulting in being placed on the Administratively Ineligible list had not been returned as of late Thursday, June 1.

For someone who promotes himself on the Morris County Freeholder’s website as a strong proponent of transparency, when it comes to his eligibility to practice law it looks like Slippin’ Johnny has been as transparent as mud.

According to reports, Slippin’ Johnny squared himself away with the state bar association so his name was recently removed from the Administratively Ineligible list. That removal, however, is not retroactive – whatever legal work he did between the deadline for filing his paperwork and his removal from the list he did while ineligible to practice law.

May 31, 2017

Hank Lyon: I lied, I didn't move from my parents' house

May 31, 2017/ Jersey Conservative

Freeholder Hank Lyon recently found himself before a judge again, accused -- once again -- of violating New Jersey election law. Lyon, who is a candidate for the state Legislature in next week's Republican primary election, could face serious ethical and legal issues in the weeks and months ahead -- and could endanger the seat (even handing it over to a liberal Democrat) if a court finds that, as in 2011, he violated the law.

At issue is Freeholder Lyon's residency and the honesty and integrity of the voting process itself.

We all remember how Hank Lyon won a seat on the Morris County Freeholder Board in 2011. A late infusion of cash from a corporation controlled by his father -- an infusion allowed only because of an election law loophole that says if a candidate still lives at home with his parents, their money is treated as if it was the candidate's own money.

D. Use of Personal Funds Use of a candidate’s personal funds on behalf of his or her campaign must be deposited into the campaign depository and must be reported as either contributions or loans to the campaign in the same manner as all other contributions or loans. If the candidate intends to be reimbursed fully or partially for personal funds used on behalf of his or her campaign, then the funds must be reported both as a loan and as an outstanding obligation to the campaign if still outstanding at the end of the reporting period. Once a candidate’s personal funds are reported as contributions, the funds cannot be later characterized as loans and be repaid to the candidate. There is no limit to the amount of personal funds a candidate may contribute or lend to his or her own campaign (except for publicly funded gubernatorial candidates). See Gubernatorial Public Financing Program Manual for more information. Also, a corporation, of which one hundred percent of the stock is owned by the candidate, or by the candidate’s spouse, child, parent, or sibling residing in the candidate’s household, may make contributions without limit to a candidate committee established by that candidate, or to a joint candidates committee established by that candidate.

That infusion of corporate cash was improperly reported. A judge overturned a close election, a lawsuit followed, another judge overturned the first decision, while an appeal wasn't pursued after the opposing candidate received a gubernatorial appointment. Lyon's campaign still owes a huge amount of money to this corporation -- $75,966.66 -- according to the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (NJELEC).

Per the NJ election law loophole, this large infusion of corporate cash is only legal while Freeholder Hank Lyon and his father reside in the same household (according to corporate records, Lyon's mother resides in Texas). Here's where the story gets interesting.

Hank Lyon has long chaffed at the idea of his political career simply depending on "daddy's money." He's worked to appear to be outside his father's shadow, going as far as lying on his official Freeholder biography:

"He is a lifelong resident of Morris County, specifically the Towaco section of Montville Township, where he was a member of the Montville Housing Committee. He now lives in Parsippany."

Lyon even pictured his new home in his legislative campaign's advertising, with the words: "Recently bought his first house, pictured above." But if Hank Lyon no longer lived at home with his father, then how is he still using his dad's corporate money and keeping to the law?

In February 2016, Freeholder Lyon did purchase a residential property in the Lake Hiawatha section of Parsippany-Troy Hills. However, Lyon never occupied the property. Neighbors claim to have no idea who lives at 45 Manito Avenue. Mail has piled up and apparently gone unanswered. Repairs and renovations have been pursued in a more or less desultory manner. Then, on April 3, 2017, Lyon executed a mortgage on this property -- borrowing $125,000.

According to the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (NJELEC), Freeholder Hank Lyon loaned his legislative campaign $35,000 on May 12th and $83,000 on May 16th. His campaign then purchased $99,997 in cable television advertising that began airing on May 19th.

The mortgage stipulates that the borrower (Freeholder Lyon) "shall occupy, establish, and use the Property as Borrower's principal residence within 60 days after the execution of this Security Instrument." This Saturday, June 3rd, those 60 days are up.

When Freeholder Hank Lyon moves, in three days' time, the loan his father's corporation has with him will go sour. It was only allowed while the candidate made his father's home his principle residence. Freeholder Lyon should have paid off the corporate loan that will clearly place him outside normal, ethical, campaign finance limits. Instead, he borrowed more to finance another campaign for political office.

Little wonder then that as a candidate for the Legislature, Hank Lyon supported borrowing and debt to pay for basic road and bridge maintenance. He opposed adjusting the revenue source of the Transportation Trust Fund (TTF) for inflation, despite it having failed to produce enough revenue to fund the state's transportation needs since 1990. Because of this "credit card" policy -- endorsed by Lyon -- by 2015, the revenue source (the tax on gasoline) brought in just $750 million annually, but the interest on the debt to fund all that borrowing cost taxpayers $1.1 billion annually.

Borrowing, paying your bills with a credit card, is not the way of the fiscal conservative... it is madness.

May 23, 2017

Cesaro (after 7 mos. ineligible): Glad somebody caught it?

May 23, 2017/ Jersey Conservative

Are you kidding us?

The people who run a whole bunch of towns hire an attorney who is on the ineligible list, that attorney handles a bunch of cases while officially "ineligible," and the best that attorney can come up with is a variation of that classic Bill Clinton line: "Mistakes were made."

Wikipedia has a whole entry on this example of political doubletalk:

"Mistakes were made" is an expression that is commonly used as a rhetorical device, whereby a speaker acknowledges that a situation was handled poorly or inappropriately but seeks to evade any direct admission or accusation of responsibility by not specifying the person who made the mistakes. The acknowledgement of "mistakes" is framed in an abstract sense, with no direct reference to who made the mistakes. A less evasive construction might be along the lines of "I made mistakes" or "John Doe made mistakes." The speaker neither accepts personal responsibility nor accuses anyone else. The word "mistakes" also does not imply intent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistakes_were_made

Kudos to old "Maxie" Max Pizarro over at InsiderNJ who got Assembly candidate and Morris County Freeholder John Cesaro to speak on the record:

“It was a clerical error and it was 100% fixed,” Cesaro told InsiderNJ. “I spoke to the people down at the organization as soon as I found out about this, and as of this afternoon, the problem was resolved. I want to thank my opponent for bringing it to my attention.”

Somebody has some big balls!

The problems are just beginning. The failure by those local governments to ensure that John Cesaro was eligible to practice law could pose serious problems for those towns. The outcome of any case in which Cesaro served as a prosecutor or public defender could now be called into question by those involved. They could all be subject to motions to vacate, or requests for a new trial. Any party dissatisfied with an outcome could bring such a motion. This could end up costing these towns big -- and leave property taxpayers with a enormous bill.

In case, you missed what this is about, here's the skinny: An October 19, 2016 order by the New Jersey State Supreme Court, reflected in a search of the New Jersey Attorney Index, notes that attorney John Cesaro has been administratively ineligible to practice law in New Jersey since October 21, 2016 for failure to maintain compliance with the requirements of Rule 1:28A-2(d).

Who ever knew that John Cesaro was such a wild man? And Cesaro certainly works for a lot of municipalities:

The local property taxpayers of these towns should invest in some soothing ointment. By the time this is all over, they are going to need it.

Stay tuned...

May 23, 2017

John Cesaro is politically correct but legally "ineligible"

May 23, 2017/ Jersey Conservative

If you want to know what is wrong with New Jersey, just wrap your mind around this: Municipalities will jump through hoops to make sure that the attorneys they hire are compliant with politically correct affirmative action mandates, but they will not make sure that the attorneys they hire are eligible to practice law in New Jersey. No kidding.

Take the case of John Cesaro, a Freeholder in Morris County and candidate for the State Legislature. Cesaro holds a whole lot of jobs that require an active law license, as his personal financial disclosure statements make clear:

The municipalities that hire Freeholder Cesaro make him sign disclosures that bind him to upholding... "county employment goals determined by the Affirmative Action office..." and to give written notice of this to "employment agencies, placement bureaus, colleges, universities, labor unions..."

A great many paragraphs are devoted to these concerns:

But apparently, maintaining an up-to-date license to practice law is not a concern in New Jersey, because nobody seems to make you sign a disclosure about that.

http://www.njcourts.gov/notices/2016/n161021a.pdf

https://portal.njcourts.gov/webe5/AttyPAWeb/pages/AttorneyStatusDefinitions.pdf

An October 19, 2016 order by the New Jersey State Supreme Court, reflected in a search of the New Jersey Attorney Index, notes that attorney John Cesaro has been administratively ineligible to practice law in New Jersey since October 21, 2016 for failure to maintain compliance with the requirements of Rule 1:28A-2(d). The failure by these local governments to ensure that Cesaro was eligible to practice law could pose serious problems for those towns.

The outcome of any case in which Cesaro served as a prosecutor or public defender could now be called into question by those involved. They could all be subject to motions to vacate, or requests for a new trial. Any party dissatisfied with an outcome could bring such a motion. This could end up costing these towns big -- and leave property taxpayers with a enormous bill.

Stay tuned...

May 19, 2017

Did Hank Lyon break NJ Election Law again?

May 19, 2017/ Jersey Conservative

Everyone remembers how Hank Lyon won a seat on the Morris County Freeholder Board. A late infusion of cash from a corporation controlled by his father -- an infusion allowed because of an election law loophole that says if a candidate still lives at home with his parents, their money is treated as if it was the candidate's own money.

D. Use of Personal FundsUse of a candidate’s personal funds on behalf of his or her campaign must be deposited into the campaign depository and must be reported as either contributions or loans to the campaign in the same manner as all other contributions or loans. If the candidate intends to be reimbursed fully or partially for personal funds used on behalf of his or her campaign, then the funds must be reported both as a loan and as an outstanding obligation to the campaign if still outstanding at the end of the reporting period. Once a candidate’s personal funds are reported as contributions, the funds cannot be later characterized as loans and be repaid to the candidate. There is no limit to the amount of personal funds a candidate may contribute or lend to his or her own campaign (except for publicly funded gubernatorial candidates). See Gubernatorial Public Financing Program Manual for more information. Also, a corporation, of which one hundred percent of the stock is owned by the candidate, or by the candidate’s spouse, child, parent, or sibling residing in the candidate’s household, may make contributions without limit to a candidate committee established by that candidate, or to a joint candidates committee established by that candidate.

But apparently, this large infusion of corporate cash is only legal while Hank Lyon and his father reside in the same household. So we find it strange that Freeholder Hank Lyon is so reticent about providing his legal address on personal financial disclosure statements as required by law:

And the financial disclosure statement he submitted to the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (NJELEC) claims his father's address as his own:

And yet, sloppily, Freeholder Hank Lyon's biography on his official Morris County website page provides this conflicting information:

"He is a lifelong resident of Morris County, specifically the Towaco section of Montville Township, where he was a member of the Montville Housing Committee. He now lives in Parsippany."

What is up with this guy?

Lyon's father was his Freeholder campaign's treasurer and its principal financier. The lawyer who won the case for him was an alumnus of the Brett Schundler for Governor campaign and a movement conservative. Lyon tried to screw him:

Lawyer seeks $162,000 from Morris County Freeholder Hank Lyon

Bottom of Form

Morris County Freeholder William “Hank” Lyon has been accused of owing his former lawyer $162,000 in unpaid legal bills while Lyon also is battling with the state over alleged campaign violations.

“What a worm,” said attorney Sean Connelly about his former client, Lyon. “We never expected to be in this position. We won precisely how we said we would win.”

Lyon, a Montville resident, did not return several calls for comment and an email to his freeholder address.

Connelly and the law firm of Barry, McTiernan and Wedinger of Edison represented Lyon during a nine-month court battle that ended up with Lyon winning the freeholder seat.

Lyon had won the 2011 Republican primary by four votes over Freeholder Margaret Nordstrom of Washington Township. Nordstrom sued and won, gaining her seat back.

Lyon appealed the ruling and a state appeals court ruled in his favor in February 2012 and removed Nordstrom from the position. Lyon later won the freeholder post at a special election in November 2012.

Connelly said that after Lyon refused mediation and other offers to settle, the firm finally filed the suiton June 13 in Superior Court in Middlesex County against Lyon and his father, Robert A. Lyon, both of Montville, and their organization, “Lyon for Conservative Freeholder.” Connelly said Lyon has asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit.

Connelly said that before the court action, he had told Lyon that the lawsuit would be very costly.

“They said they were going to fund this to the end,” Connelly said.

The legal effort included extensive court representations and $18,000 for transcripts.

“We filed motions upon motions upon motions,” Connelly said. “It tied up my practice for six months.”

Connelly said his firm has offered several discounts on the outstanding legal bills. “They kept ignoring us,” Connelly said. “We offered them great terms to pay over time.”

Connelly also said he filed the lawsuit in Middlesex County in an effort to limit publicity in Morris County.

“I don’t want to embarrass him,” he said. “I want to get paid.”

Connelly said the freeholder avoided being served with the lawsuit summons, forcing him to hire a professional toserve him at Lyon’s freeholder office.

Connelly said he also named Lyon’s father, Robert, in the lawsuit because the elder Lyon initially had agreed to pay the legal bills.

Connelly said he believes Lyon and his family have significant assets, including real estate holdings and restaurants.

Lyon’s income includes $24,375 a year as a freeholder. He also works with his father in the family’s business, which owns four restaurants, including Qdoba Mexican Grill restaurants and Maggie Moo’s ice cream parlors.

Election Violations

The N.J. Election Law Enforcement Commission also has accused Lyon of four violations of campaign finance laws during the 2011 Republican primary. Each violation could result in a maximum $6,800 fine.

The same alleged violations were cited by Superior Court Assignment Judge Thomas Weisenbeck when he ruled against Lyon and in favor of Nordstrom.

The commission names Lyon and his father who was the campaign treasurer.

One alleged violation involves a $16,000 loan made to the campaign a week before the primary but not reported until July 8. The state says that because the contribution was more than $1,200, it should have been reported within 48 hours.

Another alleged violation occurred when Lyon and his father certified the information on the loan and campaign report was correct but that they changed it in a subsequent report. Initially, Lyons reported that he had made the loan but it was later changed to identify Robert Lyon as the contributor, the state said.

Additionally, the state claims the information about the contribution was submitted after the June 27 deadline.

Further, the complaint says that $16,795 in expenditures were listed on July 8 but were due on June 27.

(Editor Phil Garber, December 11, 2013, newjerseyhills.com)

The Lyon family operates a group of interconnected corporate entities out of the same office and same post office box they share with Hank Lyon's political campaign -- Post Office Box 193, 20 Indian Hill Road, Towaco, New Jersey.

Stay tuned...

May 10, 2017

Hank Lyon shouldn't talk about debt and taxes

May 10, 2017/ Jersey Conservative

We like Hank Lyon and wish him well. Hank is an ideological conservative. But it is his back story -- how he achieved public office, how he has maintained office, and how he seeks to advance himself up the ladder of public office -- that makes us uneasy.

It's a story of debt... and taxes.

D. Use of Personal FundsUse of a candidate’s personal funds on behalf of his or her campaign must be deposited into the campaign depository and must be reported as either contributions or loans to the campaign in the same manner as all other contributions or loans. If the candidate intends to be reimbursed fully or partially for personal funds used on behalf of his or her campaign, then the funds must be reported both as a loan and as an outstanding obligation to the campaign if still outstanding at the end of the reporting period. Once a candidate’s personal funds are reported as contributions, the funds cannot be later characterized as loans and be repaid to the candidate. There is no limit to the amount of personal funds a candidate may contribute or lend to his or her own campaign (except for publicly funded gubernatorial candidates). See Gubernatorial Public Financing Program Manual for more information. Also, a corporation, of which one hundred percent of the stock is owned by the candidate, or by the candidate’s spouse, child, parent, or sibling residing in the candidate’s household, may make contributions without limit to a candidate committee established by that candidate, or to a joint candidates committee established by that candidate.

That infusion of cash is improperly reported. A judge overturns a close election, followed by a lawsuit, and another judge who reinstates the election results.

Lawyer seeks $162,000 from Morris County Freeholder Hank Lyon