Voters in Mahwah may get to decide in November whether Mayor Bill Laforet keeps his job. Watch video
Voters in Mahwah may get to decide in November whether Mayor Bill Laforet keeps his job.
A group of citizens handed in signatures they collected Wednesday to the Mahwah Township Clerk in an effort to recall Laforet.
The clerk, Kathrine Coviello, has 10 days to verify that all the signatures are legible and those of registered Mahwah voters. The group was required to get about 4,200 signatures, or 25 percent of the registered voters in the last election.
The recall is being “fueled and fired” by the council members, Laforet said in an interview Wednesday, because he went against them on a parks ordinance that created a controversy in town and resulted in a lawsuit from the Attorney General’s Office.
“I have a duty to protect the civil rights of the community,” Laforet said. “I’m proud of everything I did.”
Asked if he has any plans to step down, the mayor said, “absolutely zero.”
Council members could not immediately be reached.
Two members of the recall committee and their attorney delivered a plastic file box containing the petitions at about 2:30p.m. to Coviello’s office at Town Hall.
Melanie Sue, the recall organizer, breathed a sigh of relief when the group emerged about 15 minutes later. Asked the number of signatures the group collected, Sue said, “well over the number it needs to be.”
She declined to comment further saying an official statement will be made Thursday.
The recall effort was launched in January by a group of residents, calling themselves “The Committee to Recall Mayor William Laforet.” The group blames the mayor for several lawsuits and bad press the township has gotten. According to their website, they claim Laforet has shown incompetent management, poor judgment, and abuse of power, as well as encouraging divisiveness and other issues.
“Laforet has completely failed as a leader in bringing our community together,” the website says. “He is the common denominator in all of Mahwah’s problems.”
Laforet’s time in office has been plagued by political infighting, disputes among departments and public fights.
The township settled a federal lawsuit in January over the construction of Orthodox Jewish eruvs. It has a pending lawsuit filed by the Attorney General’s Office over a since-lifted ban on out-of-state residents in Mahwah parks. And another for the alleged wrongful death of former Department of Public Works Director Ed Sinclair, a political rival of Laforet’s, who died months after the mayor fired him (though the town council later rehired him).
This is the second effort to recall Laforet. The first bid was abandoned in August 2015 when the group failed to collect 4,200 signatures by their deadline.
Laforet was first elected mayor of the township in November 2011. His current term expires in 2020.
Successful recall efforts are rare in New Jersey. In Wildwood in 2009, Mayor Ernie Troiano Jr. was ousted. He was later re-elected to the city’s board of commissioners and then reappointed as mayor.
Park Ridge Mayor Terry Maguire resigned last year when a recall effort targeted him.
Allison Pries may be reached at apries@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @AllisonPries. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
http://www.nj.com/bergen/index.ssf/2018/06/recall_of_mayor_moving_forward.html